Question. 1. Define Service Quality Gap?

Service Quality Gap

Customer perception of the firm and its offer are shaped by word of mouth publicity like

recommendation of friend, relative, neighbor and peer at workplace, personal experience on the part of

the customer, personal need of individual customers, external communication like the publicity of the

firm in the media and its advertisements and other corporate communication.

Study shows that customer assessed the service of firm on the following parameter.

Tangible or the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication

material.

Reliability or the ability to perform the desired service dependably and accurately

Responsiveness or the willingness to help customers and prompt service

Assurance as measured by the competence of the firm in delivering the promised service,

courtesy extended to the customer, the firm’s creditability and the extent to which customer feel

secure.

Empathy or the caring, individualized attention that the firm provides to customer

Customer perceived reliability, assurance tangibility responsiveness and empathy in order to determine

the service quality of the firm. When positive perceptions are not confirmed by the actual performance

of the firm, a gap occurs, and this has been called the Service Quality Gap.

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Model of Service Quality Gap

There are four major gaps in the service quality concept.

Gap 1: Customer’s expectations versus management perceptions: as a result of the lack of a

marketing research orientations inadequate upward communication and too many layers of

management.

Gap 2: Management perceptions versus service specification: as a result of inadequate

commitment to service quality, a perception of unfeasibility inadequate task standardization and

an absence of goal settings.

Gap 3: Service specification versus service delivery: as a result of role ambiguity and conflict

poor employee- job fit and poor technology job fit, inappropriate supervisory control systems

lack of perceived control and lack of team work.

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Gap 4: Service delivery versus external communication: as a result of inadequate horizontal

communication and propensity to over promise

Q.2. Research on how organization address such situation when service quality gaps are

encountered ?

Service quality is a deliberate strategic choice exercised by winner firms. When the firms encounter

service quality gaps, has to focus on the following critical areas:

Developing a shared service vision: the starting point is that of developing a shared service

vision, a service concept, and operating strategy which communicated to every one in the

organization. Through open communication companies has continued to refine its service

concept. By understanding what their target customer want and how they perceive firms

competitors. The firm has achieved its goal through strategy and system integration, where in

HRD, up gradation of technology, and service delivery points have played a pivotal role.

Training and decentralization of decision making, and accessibility of top management contact

personnel and customers has helped firms to emerge a winner in the financial service industry. It

is not only important to have service vision but it is equally critical to plan and implement a

service quality strategy. Here the firm has to set before itself the goal of 100 percent customer

satisfaction. Though on the face of it, this looks impossible, in reality it has been found to be a

motivating, challenging and even achievable goal. Dissatisfaction is as contagious as satisfaction

and therefore the firm should work to achieve 100 percent customer satisfaction.

Locating service point near the customer : Taking service to the customer is one of the useful

tools in improving in improving service quality. The option demands that instead of the customer

having to seek out service outlets, the firm’s service centers should seek out the customer.

Service which is done at hand, at the time customer wants it.

Making delivery point user friendly: It is important to have service point user friendly.

Cleanliness, friendly environment and courteous people, warm hospitality shown in both

verbally and non-verbally, and using technology can make service delivery point customer

friendly.

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Reducing the time gap between services sought and delivered : A firm should work to reduce

the time gap between the customer asking for service and being delivered. The firm should aim

at providing any service to the customer in least possible time.

Product design : The firm should also take a close look at its product design and examine how

technology can help better serve customer. Technology today offers opportunities to the firm to

provide a highly dependable, zero defect product.

Unconditional guarantee: The firm must also plan to give unconditional guarantee to its

customer. Especially when commitment to customer service is pledge by none else than the

Chief Executive of the firm. Customer confidence in the firm and its product goes up.

Role clarity and empowering people: Role clarity and inter-role linkage helps motivate service

provider to deliver good quality service to the customer. Often when role of an individual

employee is not clear defined and role overlapping are a common phenomenon in the

organization, confusion occurs. Individual have to appreciate that without support from other

individuals or department it is difficult to achieve 100 percent customer satisfaction.

Decentralization decision making, encouraging two way communication, and letting the

individual employee take calculated risk is important. Organization will need to be flat so as to

enable them to respond faster to customer needs and problems.

Performance measurement and reward systems: To create excellence in service quality it is

necessary to reinforce the positive behavior of service providers. Their performance should be

assessed on the basis of their contribution in creating a satisfied customer. Corporate reward

system should encourage such employees and the firm should show case them so that others, too

feel motivated to deliver quality service.

Research and training of people: A firm needs to continuously monitor customer satisfaction

and for this it needs to have a customer feedback and intelligence system in place. It should also

occasionally conduct market research to understand people changing customer perception and

expectations. Firm need to educate and train their employee in delivering quality service. They

have to be sensitive to customer needs and expectations. Employees will also have to educated or

trained in using state of art technology to service customers.

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3. Prepared a questionnaire to interview manager in any service sector organization .

I have visited M/s. Kalka Global which is in the business of house keeping and its related works. The

firm undertakes outsourced contracts from different organizations such Hotels, Company guest houses

etc. Following are the questions that I have asked the proprietor of the firm who looks after the whole

management of the firm to which the concerned person has answered accordingly.

1) Do you undertake any market research in your outlet?

----I have done some market research before starting this firm which included visits to

different organizations who are into the hospitality industry.

2) If you have undertaken market research, have you utilized findings?

----Yes. After undertaking the mentioned task I found out that there is a lot of potential

opportunity in this area of business on the basis of which I started my business.

3) Do you as a manager interact with customers?

---- Yes, I do interact a lot with my customers as it is very important for my firm to satisfy

them to be in this competitive business.

4) Does your company set suitable and usable service quality standards?

---- We do have certain service quality standards set by us. But we do have to keep

upgrading our standards very often as the demands and preferences of the customers

change very fast.

5) Is service quality viewed as a strategic goal in your company?

---- Yes definitely up to some extent as it keeps the business going.

6) How do you encourage the employee who improves customer service quality?

---- We do courage our good performers by providing them with different monetary and

other incentives.

7) What do you see as more important sales goal or customer service?

---- Both are equally important as both the elements go hand in hand. Without sales the

firm will run short of finance which will again affect our capabilities of serving the

customers. Also poor service quality will de-motivates our loyal customers which affects

the business inversely.

8) Does existing operating system enable customer expectations to meet?

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---- Yes. Our operating system is quite good. But offcourse we are engaged in developing it

further to suit the customers needs even better.

9) How many employees are there in your organization?

---- Right now we have strength of 25 people working with our firm on a permanent basis.

10) What type of training programs do you provide to your employees as far as service is

concerned?

---- This business calls for skilled people to do their job. Therefore we hire people with

basic skills which we nurture further by on-the-job trainings.

11) How do find out what does the customer expect?

---- Generally the expectations and demands of the customers are informed to us well in

advance. But many times we do more than required as felt needed.

12) Are employee given the freedom to make decision to satisfy customer needs?

---- Yes, our employees are empowered to take decisions as and when required.

13) How do you reward an employee who serves the customer best?

---- Definitely. As I already mentioned that we do have incentives schemes for our best

performers.

14) Is employee required to get approval from the other departments before delivering to

customers?

---- Not necessarily. But many times they need to do so otherwise it affects the coordination

between the different departments which is significant.

15) How do you ensure that there is cooperation among employees of different department?

Does customer contact staff cooperate with rather than compete against other employees?

---- We have a very cooperative staff in our firm and it ensures smooth operations. There is

bit of both cooperation and competitiveness among our employees as it keeps them

growing and achieving good results.

16) Does your company have adequate horizontal communication within and across departments

(marketing and operations)?

---- Yes we have a policy of open and free communication in our firm which flows both

ways horizontally and vertically.

17) Does your customer contact staff have input in the planning and execution of advertising?

---- Our customer contact staff are involved in planning and execution to a great extent

they have first hand information about the changing environment.

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18) Does the sales force communication with customer contact staff to discuss the level of

service that can be promised to customers?

---- That’s a must in our firm as we do not believe in committing which we can not fulfill.

Suggestion and recommendation

Size of the organization I visited was relatively smaller than firms in the same industry, so cooperation

among employees comparatively easier to achieve but it become difficult, to achieve the same level of

cooperation and coordination as it grows bigger. Therefore the firm really needs to keep up to it. The

kind of equipment and technology use by the firm can be upgraded which will improve the delivery of

service. This firm basically managed by the proprietor by himself therefore there is limited scope of

ideas to be brought in the business. The firm is finance by the proprietor by himself which brings in

financial constraints to it at times, the firm should bring in finance from outside financial institutions

which will make them capable of purchasing state of the art equipments. This will result in enhancing

the quality of customer service provided by them. This will assist the proprietor in identifying cost

effective ways of closing service quality gaps and of prioritizing which gaps to focus on a critical

decision given scarce resources.

Reference

Service marketing --- integration customer focus across the firm(ValarieZeithaml & Mary jo bitner)

Tata MacGraw-hill edition-13(2006)

www.qued.com/

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