DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY o Book: Managing Quality: The Strategic and Competitive

Edge, which provides a comprehensive overview of

quality management principles and practices.
DIMENSIONS OF PRODUCT QUALITY
o Died: April 30, 2017 (age 64 years)
 Dimensions of product quality refer to the various aspects or
characteristics of a product that determine its overall excellence  Eight Dimensions of Product Quality
and value to customers. These dimensions include A. Performance
performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability,  This dimension refers to the primary operating
serviceability, aesthetics, and perceived quality. characteristics of a product. It assesses how well
the product performs its intended function.
 David A. Garvin
 Some of the performance
o Born: May 12, 1952, New York, New York, United States
requirements are related to
o A prominent scholar and educator in the field of quality
management.
subjective preferences, but when

o Was a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard they are the preference of almost
Business school and his publications on quality were every consumer they become as
based on his research on U.S. manufacturers.
powerful as an objective requirement.
o Garvin was renowned for his research and writings on
 Example: for a car, performance may include
topics such as quality management, organizational
factors like speed, acceleration, fuel efficiency, and
learning, and strategic planning.
handling.
B. Features
  What the dimension ‘performance’ doesn’t focus or regulations. It essentially indicates compliance
on are the features, the characteristics that decide with established criteria or expectations.
how appealing a product or service is to the  Quality of Conformance
consumer.  refers to the degree to which a
 Features encompass the additional attributes or product's design and operating
functionalities of a product beyond its basic characteristics meet established
performance. standards or specifications. In
 Example: adding a drink cooler in the car simpler terms, it's about how well a
C. Reliability product or service aligns with its
 The focus of the dimension reliability is more on intended design or requirement
how long a product will perform consistently specifications.
according to the specifications of that product. E. Durability
 Reliability refers to the consistency and  refers to the ability of a product or material to
dependability of a product to perform as expected withstand wear, pressure, or damage over time,
over time and under various conditions. often indicating its longevity and resilience.
 Example: If this car continues to meet this criterion  It's a key factor in assessing the quality and
for several years, and performs well and remains reliability of various goods and materials.
safe even when driven in inclement weather Durability measures the length of a product's life.
D. Conformance When the product can be repaired, estimating
 refers to the degree to which a product, service, or durability is more complicated.
system meets specified requirements, standards,  The item will be used until it is no longer
economical to operate it. This happens when the
 repair rate and the associated costs increase G. Aesthetics
significantly.  refers to the visual or artistic qualities of
F. Serviceability something, often relating to its beauty,
 Refers to the ease with which a product can be attractiveness, or pleasing appearance.
maintained, repaired, or serviced.  It encompasses elements such as color, form,
 It encompasses factors such as accessibility of texture, symmetry, and overall design, influencing
components, simplicity of maintenance how people perceive and interact with objects,
procedures, availability of spare parts, and ease of spaces, or experiences.
troubleshooting.  "An aesthetic" - often is a shorthand term
 High serviceability often leads to lower that describes an overarching artistic
maintenance costs and improved user satisfaction. movement and the qualities it possesses. In
 Serviceability this way, aesthetic meaning in art is "the
 is the measure of and the set of general qualities in a work of art that
features that support the ease and characterize an artistic movement, and how
speed of which corrective those qualities communicate value from the
maintenance and preventive artist to the viewer.”
maintenance can be conducted on a H. Perceived Quality
system.  (What is the reputation of the company or its
 Corrective Maintenance (CM) products?) - Perceives quality is the individual's

 includes all the actions taken to subjective appraisal of product's or service's

repair a failed system and get it back attributes; indirect measures may be their only

into an operating or available state. basis for comparing brands.

  Consumers do not always have comprehensive
information about a product's or service's
DIMENSIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY
attributes.
 A product's durability, for instance can rarely be
observed openly and is usually must be inferred
from various tangible and intangible aspects of the
product.
 In such situation, images, advertising, and brand
names can be vital. Perception is not always.
COMPETING ON THE EIGHT DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY
 For a company to apply all eight dimensions at the same time is
not always possible. Some dimensions can reinforce one
another, while others can’t.
 An improvement in one dimension can result in a decline in the
other dimension.
SUMMARY OF THE EIGHT DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY
 As a strategic management tool the eight dimensions of quality,
as defined by David Garvin, help producers to meet the
expectations of its customers.
 This tool can be applied to products and services and consists
of the following eight dimensions.
 Imagine yourself to be a service marketer, do you feel that you
can define the meaning of „Quality‟ objectively to your
prospective consumer.
A. Tangibility
 We have time and again discussed that the
difficulty in measuring the quality of the services is
that these are intangible in nature. However, there
are some services which have certain tangible
aspects which may be associated with the service,
thereby resulting in the evaluation of services
along with the perception of the quality of these
tangible variables.
 For example, the hospitality services are intangible
in nature. But the measure of its quality is usually
done along with the quality of the food, ambience,
and cleanliness it offers to the consumers. Thus,
one of the most important dimensions of Service
quality is the tangibility aspect.
 The aspect of tangibles in the restaurant,
therefore, shall include the services and behavior
 of the service personnel, physical environment
and the facilities, equipment and communication
material associated with the service.
B. Reliability
 The second dimension of Service Quality is the
degree of reliability of service quality deliverables
it offers to the consumers. Reliability is the ability
of the service provider to consistently offer
promised services dependably and accurately to
eth potential consumers in each of service
transactions.
 To offer reliable services means that the producer
is meeting the promises it made related to service
delivery, various service provisions, service
performance, grievance redressal, service
guarantees, and prices or discounts in every
service transaction it makes.
 The dimension of reliability is significant as every
consumer prefers dealing with a marketer who
keeps his promises, especially the promises which
are related to the performance of the services and
the pricing structure. It is thus, important for the
service marketer to understand about what the
consumers expect from the service marketers.
 If any marketer fails to assess the needs of the
consumers or does not come up to the
expectations of the consumers, the marketer may
fail to allure the target consumers in the most
direct way.
C. Responsiveness
 The third dimension of Service quality refers to the
willingness of the service provider to help the
customers in satisfying their most sought-after
need or benefit in the most economical manner
and at the earliest. Being responsive means being
able to react quickly to the requests of the
consumers or the complaints put in by the
consumers.
 The consumers may even want a response from
the service provider related to the problem or a
query that they may face in relation to the service.
 Example: Consider that you have purchased a
new Health insurance policy. You have been given
certain amount of benefits in getting the claim of
 the pathological tests or the expenses of the
hospital stay or medicines etc. After a few months
of the purchase of the policy, you wish to claim the
benefit by getting a cashless medical facility in a
particular hospital or path lab. For this, you inquire
about the procedure for the same from the health
insurer but are unable to get a quick and
satisfactory reply, you may be highly dissatisfied.
Further, there could be a medical emergency in
which a policyholder may like to make use of the
cashless services and may be hard-pressed for
time. In such emergent medical situations, it is
highly expected that the service provider should
be quick in responsiveness. If he fails to respond
quickly, the customer may have a very low image
of the seller and may not speak good about the
service quality of the seller.
 Hence, responsiveness is related to the length of
time taken to assist a customer and also the
degree of flexibility on the part of seller to
customize a service and satisfy the needs of the
customer.
D. Assurance
 Another dimension of service quality refers to the
trust or confidence that a consumer has in the
service seller, called as Assurance. This may be
defined as the perception about the service seller
in its ability to offer consistent level of service
performance and an empathetic delivery system to
meet the consumer‟s needs in the most
reasonable price range.
 Coming back to the aspect of intangibility of the
services, many a times the decision to purchase
the services from a given seller may be a result of
the trust that the seller may inculcate in its dealing
amongst the potential buyers. This confidence in
the seller facilitates overcoming the high risk or
uncertain buying situations of any service.
 Assuming, that a consumer wants to make a
purchase of a holiday package from a seller, he
may be confronted with a number of offers in the
market. Since there may be a lot of uncertainty
involved in the type of hospitality one receives at
holiday destinations and locations as well as the
 overall entertainment experience may also be
uncertain, the consumer may end up choosing a
seller who is able to instill a sense of assurance in
the consumer and whom the consumer personally
has trust on. It is important to note that most of the
times, in services marketing this trust may be
developed due to the personal dealing of a service
marketing employee.
E. Empathy
 It refers to the care and individualized attention
offered to the consumer for the satisfaction of his
needs and expectations by the service seller.
 A service provider having the perception of a
marketer offering customized services to the
consumers to cater to their individual requirement
is considered to be of a higher quality.
 Example: if a consumer hires an event
management organization for the management of
an event like a road show for the promotion of its
Brand, it may have certain specific requirements
and expectations in the arrangement of the show.
The event management organization cannot use a
standard format of holding an event and will have
to have a tailor-made show based on the
expectations of the outcomes of the potential
consumer. It is important for the service marketer
to ensure offering creative services to each of its
customers so that the ever increasing demands of
the consumers can be met.
MEANS TO OFFER QUALITY DIMENSIONS
 Quality is an important variable for all public and private
business. It is no more a choice of the seller to maintain high
standard of service quality rather it a necessity to offer high level
of quality in every service transaction to meet the needs and
wants of the consumers.
 To ensure the quality in each service delivery it have a
Participative Management, Positive Organizational Culture and
Quality Circles.
A. Participative Management
 the word participative it means “to participate or
the participation “ refers to the total involvement of
the service personnel in the service creation and
 service delivery at all possible levels of the
organization.
B. Positive Organizational Culture
 it includes the development of a culture where
customers are viewed as central to all the
interventions.
 -employees are the most important variable in
presenting a service to ensure customer
satisfaction and expectation in each encounter.
C. Quality Circles
 for any service organization delivering Quality
Service is not an individual task. It is a group task
in which personnel doing the same task must
jointly prospect the way in which quality can be
crated, improved, maintained and delivered to the
consumer.
 the main purpose behind all these intervention is
to offer Quality service by keeping the participation
and moral of the employees.