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The perceived service quality concept - A mistake?

Article  in  Journal of Service Theory and Practice · June 2001

DOI: 10.1108/09604520110393386

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Guru's view
The perceived service
quality concept ± a
mistake?
Christian GroÈnroos
The author
Christian GroÈnroos is Professor of Service and
Relationship Marketing at the CERS Centre for
Relationship Marketing and Service Management, Hanken
Swedish School of Economics, Finland.
Keywords
Service quality, Perception
Abstract
Compares traditional marketing models to service
marketing models, stating that the most important
characteristic of services is the fact that services are
processes, not things. A service firm has no products, only
interactive processes. Whereas the consumption of
physical products can be described as ``outcome
consumption'', the consumption of services can be
characterized as ``process consumption''. In this context,
describes the development of the perceived service
quality concept.
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Managing Service Quality
Volume 11 . Number 3 . 2001 . pp. 150±152
# MCB University Press . ISSN 0960-4529
150
The most important characteristic of services,
and probably the only really unique one, is the
fact that services are processes, not things.
Other characteristics such as the fact that
consumption and production are partly
simultaneous activities and that customers
participate in the service production process
follow from the process characteristic. This
means that a service firm has no products, only
interactive processes. A product variable should,
therefore, not enter a service marketing
model.
A need-satisfying, physical product exists
before consumption starts. Products are
outcomes of a production process. In a service
context, in contrast, a need-satisfying
equivalent of a product emerges gradually for
the customer throughout the consumption
process. Hence, a service is a process that leads
to an outcome during partly simultaneous
production and consumption processes. This is
quite different in nature from a physical
product, and indeed, the terms we still use
(e.g. production process, productivity, even
consumption) are manufacturing-oriented
concepts that do not always fit the nature of
services well.
Compared to the marketers of physical
goods, who offer tangible products, service
firms rely on a set of resources ± employees,
physical resources, technology and systems,
and customers ± and a governing system that
puts these resources to use when the customer
requests a service. The interactions between
the customer and the quality-generating
resources controlled by the service provider
form the heart of service marketing. Since the
late 1970s, in the service marketing literature
this has been labelled interactive marketing.
This marketing process is then supported by
more traditional external marketing activities,
such as advertising, pricing and direct
response activities.
In traditional marketing models, the
product is the starting point for decisions
about marketing communication, distribution
and pricing (to use the marketing mix
language of consumer goods marketing). In a
service marketing model, the starting point for
planning is not a product but a service concept,
that is, an idea about how the quality-generating
resources should function and what result they
should achieve for the customer.
In my research into service marketing I
became interested in service quality because of
the notion of the missing product, not because of
 The perceived service quality concept ± a mistake?
Christian GroÈnroos
an interest in quality per se. Something was
needed in a service marketing model that
replaced the product features embedded in the
pre-produced physical product. The natural
way of finding the service-oriented equivalent
of product features is to ask the question
``What do customers of services see in a service
as a need-satisfying solution when they do not
see and perceive any ready-made product
features?'' The obvious answer seems to be,
``They see and perceive the process they are
involved in as consumers of the service as well
as the outcome of this process.'' Hence,
whereas the consumption of physical products
can be described as outcome consumption, the
consumption of services can be characterized
as process consumption (GroÈnroos, 1998).
In other words, there are no physical
products to manage in service marketing, only
resources and a system that governs the
process that produces a result for the
customer. Clearly something is needed to
replace the product concept. The question is
how is the service concept transformed to
something that provides satisfaction, that is,
how is the satisfaction-providing process
perceived by customers of services? The
answer was the perceived service quality model,
which was first presented in English in 1982
(GroÈnroos, 1982). The consumer, of course,
perceives what he or she receives as the
outcome of the process in which the resources
are used, i.e. the technical or outcome quality
of the process. But he or she also, and often
more importantly, perceives how the process
itself functions, i.e. the functional or process
quality dimension. Thus, the technical quality
and functional quality dimensions of
perceived service quality emerge. To me, the
technical and functional quality dimensions of
a service replace the product features of a
physical product, nothing else.
Because customers often have continuous
contacts with the same service firm, a
dynamic aspect is also needed in a service
quality model. Customers bring their previous
experiences and overall perceptions of a
service firm to each encounter. Therefore, the
image concept was introduced as yet another
important component in the perceived service
quality model, so that the dynamic aspect of
the service perception process was taken into
account as well.
Originally, I never thought that the
perceived service quality model would be
anything other than a conceptual model that
151
Managing Service Quality
Volume 11 . Number 3 . 2001 . 150±152
would help researchers and practitioners to
understand the need-satisfying elements of a
marketing model in a service context. It was
developed to provide the services equivalent
of product features and how to cope with
them, much in the same way as the goods-
oriented product concept helps marketers
understand how to cope with the same issues
in a goods-oriented marketing model. I
imagined that how well perceived service
quality dimensions serve customers' could
and should be measured with customer
satisfaction with the service. Quality as such
should not be measured. However, service
marketing research took another avenue here.
In retrospect, I should probably have used the
terms technical and functional features of services
instead of technical and functional quality
dimensions of services. We should probably
have had a model of perceived service features
instead of perceived service quality. That way,
much of the confusing and time-consuming
discussion of the relationship between service
quality and customer satisfaction could have
been avoided.
References
GroÈnroos, C. (1982), Strategic Management and
Marketing in the Service Sector, Chartwell-Bratt
(published in the USA in 1983 by the Marketing
Science Institute), London, UK.
GroÈnroos, C. (1998), ``Marketing services: a case of a
missing product'', Journal of Business & Industrial
Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 3-4, pp. 322-38.
(Dr Christian GroÈnroos is Professor of
Service and Relationship Marketing at
Hanken Swedish School of Economics
Finland (Svenska HandelshoÈgskolan) and
chairman of the the board of the research and
knowledge centre CERS Centre for
Relationship Marketing and Service
Management of the School. He is responsible
for the service and relationship marketing and
management research and education
programme at the School and together with
Professor Uolevi Lehtinen, University of
Tampere, in charge of a nationwide doctoral
programme in the same field in Finland.
He has written several books, one of which
is Service Management and Marketing. Another,
Managing the Moments of Truth in Service
Competition has been published, from 1990, in
eight languages. He has also written
 The perceived service quality concept ± a mistake?
Christian GroÈnroos
numerous articles on service management
and marketing, service quality, and
relationship marketing. A renewed version of
Service Management and Marketing. A
Customer Relationship Management Approach
was published in 2000. He is a member of the
Societas Scientiarum Fennica (Finnish
Society of Science and Letters) and The
Academy of Marketing Science.
In 1985 he received the Ahlsell Award for
outstanding research into marketing and
distribution, which is the highest award
bestowed on a marketing scholar in
Scandinavia, and in 1990 he received the Erik
Kempe Award for his textbooks in service
marketing and management. In 1999 as the
first non-American he received the American
Marketing Association's (Service Interest
Group) Award for Lifetime Contribution to
the Services Field. He has also been recognized
as one of the three most frequent contributors
in the English language to the service
marketing literature, and as the internationally
most frequently cited Finnish researcher in the
field of business administration. Several of his
articles have been published as lead articles in
international scholarly journals. In a study,
conducted in 2000, of the academic impact of
contributors to the Journal of Business Research
during the period 1985-1999, it was noted that
Dr GroÈnroos had the highest relative academic
impact. His most recent books and articles are
outlined below.
Service Management and Marketing. A
Customer Relationship Management Approach,
John Wiley & Co, Chichester and New
York, NY, 2000 (ISBN 0-471-72034-8).
152
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Managing Service Quality
Volume 11 . Number 3 . 2001 . 150±152
``The NetOffer Model: a case example from
the virtual marketspace'' (together with
Fredrik Heinonen, Kristina Isoniemi and
Michael Lindholm), Management Decision,
Vol. 38, Vol. 4, 2000, pp. 243-52.
``Internationalization strategies for services'',
Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 13
No. 4/5, pp. 290-7, 1999.
``Relationship marketing: challenges for the
corporation'', Journal of Business Research,
Vol. 46 No. 3, pp. 327-35, 1999.
``Word-of-mouth referrals in the domain of
relationship marketing'' (together with
Kirsti Lindberg-Repo), The Australasian
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 7 No. 1, 1999,
pp. 109-17.
``Marketing services: a case of a missing
product''. Journal of Business & Industrial
Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 4-5, 1998, pp. 322-
38 (Citation of Excellence/Highest Quality
Rating by Anbar Electronic Intelligence).
``Integrated marketing communications: the
communications aspect of relationship
marketing'' (together with Kirsti Lindberg-
Repo), The Integrated Marketing
Communications Research Journal, Vol. 4
No. 1, 1998, pp. 3-11.
``Value-driven relational marketing: from
products to resources and competencies'',
Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 13
No. 5, 1997, pp. 407-19.
Comments on ``Nordic perspectives on
relationship marketing'' (together with
Evert Gummesson and Uolevi Lehtinen),
European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31
No. 1, 1997, pp. 10-16.)