SERVQUAL

DR MEENAKSHI SHARMA
SERVICE QUALITY
⦿ Service quality is a measure of how an
organization understands its users' needs and
fulfills their expectations.
⦿ Understanding how to improve the service
quality of your product is the key step to
growth for any organization.
⦿ Measuring and improving service quality is a
valuable art.
INTRODUCTION
⦿ Service quality is an approach to manage
business processes in order to ensure full
satisfaction of the customers & quality in
service provided.
⦿ If expectations are greater than
performance, then perceived quality is less
than satisfactory and hence customer
dissatisfaction occurs.
DEVELOPED BY
⦿ SERVQUAL is a service quality
framework, developed in the
eighties by Zeithaml,
Parasuraman & Berry, aiming at
measuring the scale of Quality in
the service sectors
IMPORTANCE
⦿ Understand customers needs. ...
⦿ Train empathy. ...
⦿ Encourage honest customer feedback. ...
⦿ Set up a framework to measure your team's
performance. ...
⦿ Set individual and team goals. ...
⦿ Streamline manual processes. ...
⦿ Set and communicate service standards.
10 ASPECTS OF SERVQUAL
⦿ reliability,
⦿ responsiveness, (how you respond to customer
queries/calls)
⦿ competence,
⦿ access,(accessibility)
⦿ courtesy,(courteous showing regard or thought
for others)
⦿ communication,
⦿ credibility,
⦿ security,
⦿ understanding the customer,
⦿ tangibles (condition of car for uber, uniform of
employee for LG)
FIVE DIMENSIONS (RATER)
⦿ Reliability

⦿ Assurance

⦿ Tangibles

⦿ Empathy

⦿ Responsiveness
RELIABILITY

⦿ Your reliability is your ability to deliver

the service a customer expects, when the
customer expects.
⦿ Reliable service is regular, accurate,
timely, and consistent. Unsurprisingly,
it’s the most important of all the service
dimensions.
EXAMPLE : TAILOR- RELIABILITY
MIGHT MEAN THE FOLLOWING
Accurate
◼ Clothing fits after the first modification
◼ Alterations are not obvious and blend in with the
original item
⦿ Regular
◼ Alterations are always accurate (see above)
◼ Shop hours rarely change
◼ Hours of operation are timed to meet client needs
⦿ Timely
◼ Staff are quick to take measurements and mark
garments for alterations
◼ Alterations are complete within a reasonable time
frame
ASSURANCE
⦿ Assurance is the aspect of customer service
that causes your customers to trust you.
⦿ To meet their expectations, you should
prove that you are credible and address
their concerns competently.
⦿ Knowledge and courtesy of employees and
their ability to convey trust and confidence
FOR EXAMPLE
⦿ if you want to open an online banking
account, you’d want to know how your
money is protected.
⦿ A bank can build assurance by featuring short
videos and FAQ that discuss your rights, the
measures they’ve taken to secure sensitive
information, and what you can do if someone
hacks your account.
TANGIBLES
⦿ Appearance of physical
facilities, equipment,
personnel, and
communication materials
EMPATHY AND
RESPONSIVENESS
⦿ EMPATHY - Caring, individualized attention
the firm provides its customers

⦿ RESPONSIVENESS - Willingness to help

customers and provide prompt service
SCALES OF SERVICE QUALITY
RESPONSIVENESS
RATER
⦿ 1. RELIABILITY - Ability to perform the promised
service dependably and accurately
⦿ 2. ASSURANCE - Knowledge and courtesy of
employees and their ability to convey trust and
confidence
⦿ 3. TANGIBLES - Appearance of physical facilities,
equipment, personnel, and communication
materials
⦿ 4. EMPATHY - Caring, individualized attention
the firm provides its customers
⦿ 5. RESPONSIVENESS - Willingness to help
customers and provide prompt service
⦿
SERVICE GAP MODEL
⦿ CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS: Any
set of behavior or actions

⦿ CUSTOMER PERCEPTION: how

customer feels about your
product and brand
SERVICE GAP MODEL
⦿ A framework which can help us to
understand customer satisfaction
issues and how they arise.

⦿ Help to identify the Gap between

perceived service and expectation service
5 GAPS
⦿ CUSTOMER EXPECTATION – MANAGEMENT
PERCEPTION
⦿ MANAGEMENT PERCEPTION – Service quality
specifications
⦿ Service quality specifications – Service
delivery Gap
⦿ Service delivery - External Communications
to consumers gap
⦿ Expected service – perceived service gap
CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF
SERVQUAL
GAP
⦿ GAP 1: Not knowing what customers expect
⦿ GAP 2: wrong service quality standards
⦿ GAP 3: The service performance gap
⦿ GAP 4: promises do not match actual
delivery
⦿ GAP 5: The difference between customer
perception and expectation
GAP 1
⦿ Gap 1 results
from a difference between what
customers expect and what management
perceives these expectations to be. It indicates
a problem with the understanding of the
market. This can occur, as a result of
insufficient research or communication
failures.

E x p e c te d S e r v ic e
GAP 2
⦿ Commonly known as quality specification gap.
⦿ Gap 2 results from a difference between management
perceptions of what customers expect and the specifications
that management draws up when detailing the service
quality delivery actions that are required.

⦿ E.g. : Most hotels do not do housekeeping in a room on the

day the customer is checking out. But has management
realised that the customer who is doing a late checking out
wants a clean room during that day?
M a na ge m e nt P e r c e p t io n s o f C u s to m e r
E x p e c t a t io n s
⦿
GAP 3
⦿ S e r v ic e D e liv e r y
⦿ Commonly known as the Service delivery gap.
⦿ Gap 3 results from a mismatch between the service delivery
specifications required by management and the actual
service that is delivered by front line staff.
⦿ It is the difference between customer-driven service design
& standards, and the service delivery of the provider.
⦿ E.g. : Usually, all restaurants need to attend to every request
and orders of the customers. But very often when customers
place orders, they either do not receive the orders at all or
the waiter has confused it with that of another customer.
S e r v ic e Q u a lity S p e c i f ic a t i o n s
⦿
GAP 4
⦿ Commonly known as market communication gap.
⦿ This is the gap between the delivery of the customer
experience and what is communicated to customers, i.e. the
discrepancy between actual service and the promised one

⦿ E.g. A company commercializing slimming products boasts

that customers may lose up to 4-5 kgs/week. But they do
not specify that a strict diet and regular exercise must
accompany the treatment for it to have the desired effect.

E x te rn a l C o m m u n ic a t io n s to Cu
s to m e rs
⦿
GAP 5
⦿ E x p e c te d S e r v ic e
⦿ Commonly known as the perceived service quality gap.
⦿ Gap 5 may be identified as the overall difference between
the expected service and the perceived service experienced.
Gap 5 results from the combination of Gaps 1 to 4
⦿ Customers' expectations have been shaped by word of
mouth, their personal needs and their own past service
experiences.
⦿ Unless Gap 5 is kept under check, it may result in lost
customers, bad reputation, negative corporate image.
P e r c e iv e d S e r v ic e
⦿
CAUSES FOR THE GAP 1
⦿ GAP 1 - not knowing what customers expect
⦿ Causes: Lack of a marketing orientation to quality
⦿ Poorly interpreted information about customer’s
expectations
⦿ Research not focused on demand quality
⦿ Too many layers between the front line personnel & top
level management
CAUSES FOR THE GAP 2
⦿ Causes GAP 2
⦿ Inadequate commitment to service quality
⦿ lack of perception of feasibility
⦿ inadequate task standardization
⦿ the absence of goal setting
⦿ Insufficient planning of procedures
CAUSES FOR THE GAP 3
⦿ The service performance gap
⦿ E.g. : XYZ Events Ltd had promised the most
exquisite catering and wedding cake, but the food
was not appreciable and the bride didn’t like the
cake at all.
⦿ Causes: Poor employee or technology fit - the wrong
person or wrong system for the job
⦿ Deficiencies in human resource policies such as
ineffective recruitment, role ambiguity, role conflict
⦿ Failure to match demand and supply

⦿ Too much or too little control

⦿ Lack of teamwork within the organisation
⦿
CAUSES FOR THE GAP 4
⦿ GAP 4 - When promises do not match actual
delivery E.g. : XYZ Events Ltd promised to have a
Mercedes car for the entry of the groom, but
eventually the latter was given a simple Nissan
Sunny.
⦿ Causes: inadequate horizontal communication
⦿ Over-promising in external communication
campaign
⦿ Failure to manage customer expectations
⦿ Failure to perform according to specifications
given to customers
CAUSES FOR THE GAP 5
⦿ GAP 5 - The difference between customer
perception of service and the expectation they
had Usually the cause is the occurrence of the
1-4 other Gaps, which results in a difference
between customer perception and the
expectation they had.
⦿ E.g Ultimately the groom’s experience was way
too far from what he had expected, and thus
results in dissatisfaction.
⦿ causes can be: cultural background, family
lifestyle, personality, demographics, advertising,
experience with similar service,information
available online
⦿
OVERCOME/REDUCE THE GAP
⦿ Direct Communications with the customer
⦿ Ask customer about their expectations
⦿ Make Resource available
⦿ Proper Recruitment, no role conflict, Proper
training
⦿ Proper use of Communications ( No
overpromising in advertisement/ Personal
selling)
CRITICISMS TO SERVQUAL
⦿ SERQUAL based on economic, statistical and
psychological theory.
⦿ There is little evidence of customers
Perception / Expectation gaps.
⦿ SERVQUAL focuses on the process of service
delivery, not the outcomes of the service
encounter.
⦿ There is a high degree of intercorrelation
between the five RATER dimensions, thus the
scores obtained cannot be exact.
⦿
APPLICATIONS OF SERVQUAL
⦿ Service quality has become an important
research topic on relationship to costs,
profitability, customer satisfaction, and
customer retention
⦿ SERVQUAL based on sound analytic planning
and strategy.
⦿ High degree of connection between
perceptions and expectations
CONCLUSIONS
⦿ SERVQUAL is considered very complex, subjective
and statistically unreliable.
⦿ RATER model is a simple and useful model for
qualitatively exploring and assessing customers'
service experiences
⦿ It is an efficient model in helping an organization
shape up their efforts in bridging the gap between
perceived and expected service
⦿ SERVQUAL is used to track customer's expectations
and perceptions over time to compare the company's
SERVQUAL scores against competitors.