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ijcrb.webs.com INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS

COPY RIGHT © 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research

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JANUARY 2012 VOL 3, NO 9

Investigating and evaluation of service quality gaps by revised Servqual model (Case study: The M.A students of Azad university of Najaf abad)

Mehdi Ghasemi

Department of Management, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad branch, Iran Ali kazemi

Department of Management,University of Esfahan, Iran Ali Nasr Esfahani

Department of Management,University of Esfahan, Iran

Abstract: New managerial methods define quality as the customer satisfaction .Therefore all the

organizations have to identify the high quality and sharp service offering obstacles and solve

them. The aim of this study was investigating strength and weak points of Islamic Azad

university of Najaf Abad's service quality system based on M.A student's opinions with revised

Servqual model. Revised Servqual model was developed by Sureshchander for the first time.

This model contains 5 dimensions which includes 41 clauses. This dimensions are, tangibles of

service, systematization of service delivery, core service, social responsibility, and human

element of service delivery. This research was a descriptive and survey research and the

probability method was used for sampling. The data collection instrument was questionnaire

which its reliability was determined 0.95% with cronbach's alpha coefficient with SPSS

software .The validity of the instrument has been approved considering the books, articles and

teacher's opinions. Results indicate there are gaps in all dimensions. The deepest gap belongs to

social responsibility dimension and afterward there was human element of service delivery with

a short difference. At the end, some suggestion was made to decrease these gaps, such as,

educating staffs to improve their service commitment, decreasing service offering costs and

making effective attempt to develop service capacities.

Keywords: Expectations, Perceptions, Service quality gap and Revised Servqual model

Introduction: Providing excellent service quality and high customer satisfaction is the important issue and

challenge facing the contemporary service industry (Hung et al., 2003). Services quality and

customer satisfaction have been for this recent years important topics both for the academic

world and for the researches in the field of marketing (Ueno, 2010). The attention directed to

these two concepts, services quality and customer satisfaction is mainly due to the harsh

competition among private companies on the market, as well as to the pressure of political

factors and of the population, over organizations in the field of public administration. The key to



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the competitive advantage is to deliver high-quality services, services that in exchange will

generate the customer satisfaction. (Sureshchandar et. al., 2002). Service quality has since

emerged as a pervasive strategic force and a key and a strategic issue an management agenda

(Eisen ,1999). There is no surprise that practitioners and academics alike are seen on accurately

measuring service quality in order to better understand its essential antecedents and

consequences and ultimately establish methods for improving quality to achieve competitive

advantage and build customer loyalty (Diamontopolous et.al.,2000). The rapid development and

competition of service quality, in both developed and developing countries has made it

important for companies to measure and evaluate the quality of service encounters (Brown and

Bitner, 2007).

Educational system as a service provider section has to provide a situation to improve societies

in the economical, social, cultural, and educational developments. In our country educational

system has an important task in growing human resources and providing them for various

sections. According to new developments, population increasing and financial constraints,

educational system has to upgrade its quality levels. For this purpose educational system must

be accountable to the external environment.

Literature Review Definition of service quality

Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml (1991) defined service quality as “the extent of discrepancy

between customer's expectations or desires and their perceptions.” Asubonteng et al. (1996)

believes service quality can be defined as “the difference between customers’ expectations for

service performance prior to the service encounter and their perceptions of the service received”.

Gronroos (2002) says service quality is the subjective comparison that customers make between

the quality of the service that they want to receive and what they actually get. Othman and

Owen (2002) define quality as the degree of differences between customer's perceptions and

expectations.

The SERVQUAL model: The marketing academics Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) developed and iterated the

SERVQUAL method based on two principles: Service quality can be divided into dimensions,

and measured as a difference of expectations and perceptions.

This model is trying to show the effective activities of the service organization that influence the

perception of quality. Moreover, the model shows the interaction between these activities and

identifies the linkages between the key activities of the service organization or marketer which



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are pertinent to the delivery of a satisfactory level of service quality. The links are described as

gaps or discrepancies: that is to say, a gap represents a significant obstacles to achieving a

satisfactory level of service quality (Shahin et al., 2010).

Parasuraman et al. (1985) proposed that service quality is a function of the differences between

expectation and performance along the quality dimensions. They developed a service quality

model based on gap analysis (Figure1). The gaps include (Seth and Deshmaukh, 2005):

Gap 1: The first gap is between consumer expectations and management perceptions of

consumer expectations. This gap addresses the difference between consumers’ expectations and

management’s perceptions of service quality.

Gap 2: The second gap is between management perceptions of customer expectation and service

quality specifications. This gap addresses the difference between management’s perceptions of

consumer’s expectations and service quality specifications

Gap 3: The third gap is between service quality specifications and service actually delivered.

This gap addresses the difference between service quality specifications and service actually

delivered

Gap 4: The fourth gap is between service delivery and what is communicated to customers about

the service .This gap addresses the difference between service delivery and the communications

to consumers about service delivery

Gap 5: The fifth gap is between the customer’s perceptions of service quality and their

expectations of service quality. This gap addresses the difference between consumer’s

expectation and perceived service. This gap depends on size and direction of the four gaps

associated with the delivery of service quality on the marketer’s side.



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According to this model, SERVQUAL scale has proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) for measuring Gap 5. Parasuraman et al. (1985) mentioned ten factors for evaluating service quality (including tangible, reliability, responsiveness, courtesy, credibility, security, accessibility, communication and understanding the customer). These ten factors are simplified and collapsed into five factors. These five dimensions are stated as follows (Shahin et al., 2010). 1) Tangible (Physical, facilities, equipments and appearance of personnel). 2) Reliability (Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately). 3) Responsiveness. (Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service) 4) Assurance (including competence, courtesy, credibility and security knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence). 5) Empathy (including access, communication, understanding the customer). Caring and individualized attention that the firm provides to its customers. The revised SERVQUAL model: SERVQUAL has been the object of controversies and criticism (Asubonteng et.al, 1996, Buttle, 1996).The service quality gaps models can be criticized on both methodological and conceptual grounds (Cronin and Taylor, 1992). Teas (1993) questioned the validity of perception-expectation gap with conceptual and operational problem in the definition of the expectation Brown et al. (1993) raised psychometric concerns regarding the use of difference score and felt



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that the gap model would display poor reliability, because expectation and perception could be positively correlated. These criticisms made researchers to define a more accurate model which include more details. Another reference model that tries to conceptualize the dimensions of service quality from the customers’ perspective is the model suggested by G.S. Sureshchandar (2002) who considers that the defining dimensions of the service quality from the customers’ perspective are those presented in the following table: (table 1)

Table 1-Revised SERVQUAL model dimensions Source:G,S,Sureshchander,C, Rajendran, R.N. Anantharaman,(2002)The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction-a factor specific approach,Journal of service Marketing,vol,16, nr.4,pp.365

The model which is used in this research is Surshchander model. This model has 5 dimensions

which include 41 clauses. In comparison with the elementary SERVQUAL model it has 19 more

clauses and is paying more attention to details which could be important and effective on

customers.

Tangible aspects of the service

Social responsibility

2

It refers to content of effective elements provided by the system and is made of the features of all the things of the service offers

No

1

It refers to the tangible aspects of service delivery, aspects that are not related to human factor and which are not made up of: what the surrounding in which the service delivery takes place, looks like ease and accessibility in the building, accessibility to the utilities in the building, the existence and/or the way in which the materials necessary for the service delivery are presented-proper forms and petitions, information and descriptive material

Systematization of providing the service

It refers to aspects made up of procedures, proceeding standards and system that systemize the process of service delivery

3 Service core

It refers to those aspects that contribute to the ethical and moral feature of the organization via-a vis its client as well as towards the members of the community in general. These aspects that contribute to the formation and maintenance have a significant influence on the assessment of the general service quality

4

5 Human element of

service delivery It refers to all aspects related to human factors

Dimensions Factors of the service

quality Dimension description of the service quality



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Hypotheses

According to the theoretical framework discussed, six hypotheses were developed for the study,

which are listed as below:

H1: There is significant difference between expectations and perceptions of students based on

tangible of service dimension of model.


systematization of service delivery dimension of model.


core service dimension of model.


social responsibility dimension of model.


human element of service delivery dimension of model.

H6: There is significant difference between expectations and perceptions of students of

perceived service quality based on revised SERVQUAL model.

Methodology of research

Revised SERVQUAL model questionnaire:

Two forms with determined questions were developed. The first form is used to measure

customers’ expectations and the second is used to measure customers’ perceptions. The items

used in both questionnaires are adapted from those in the revised SERVQUAL model.

The questionnaire included 41 questions that each one were related to a particular clause of a

specific dimension .According to this, the 10 questions pertained to measuring tangible of

service dimension gap, 6 questions for systematization of service delivery dimension, 5 for core

service dimension, 7 for social responsibility dimension and the 13 remaining questions

belonged to human element of service delivery dimension.

The 5-point Likert spectrum scale was used to determining the students opinions .The

questionnaire consists of two specific spectrums which one of them represents the expectation of

students of a particular clause and other one shows their perceptions of perceived service quality

of that same clause.



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Validity and reliability test Validity is the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure. It is vital for a test to

be valid in order for the results to be accurately applied and interpreted. The validity of the

instrument has been approved with books, articles and teacher's opinions. Reliability shows the

stability and consistency of the instrument which is used for measuring the concept. In this

study, 30 primary questionnaires were distributed to measure Cronbach's alpha coefficient. After

analyzing primary data, the reliability score was 0.95 which was appropriate result for the final

test.

Data collection:

The population of this study were the M.A students of university of Najaf Abad .At the time

period of this research ,there were 2623 students who studying in this level, So it was practically

rather impossible to examine the whole population of interest due to constraints of resources

such as time and money .Hence, the required sample was computed with Cochran's formula

,considering 0.1 for the standard error deviation .the number of sample size was determined 93,

so 130 questionnaires were prepared and distributed between students. A total of 107

satisfactory questionnaires were returned, thereby giving a response rate of 82.3%.

Findings: Data analyzing:

After the questionnaires were returned, data were collected and sorted into the SPSS software

for analyzing. The average scores of expectations and perceptions related to each clause of

questionnaires were computed. The final data consisted of the differences between perceptions

and expectations of each clause of questionnaire ( - ) .the values which are shown in table

are representing the service quality gap for each clause of questionnaires.



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Gap score perceptionsexpectations Clause Dimensions

-2.262 2.243 4.505 Effective complaints process -1.626 2.757 4.383 The apparent attractiveness of the facility -1.673 2.645 4.318 Control over limited conditions -1.832 2.682 4.514 On-time service delivery -1.476 2.645 4.121 Attractive appearance of artifacts -2.019 2.514 4.533 Commitment to promising services -2.019 2.411 4.430 Comfortable physical layout -2.103 2.43 4.533 Fast delivery service -1.580 2.756 4.336 Scheduled service delivery -1.579 2.804 4.383 Cleaning

Tangible of services

-1.663 2.477 4.14 Sufficient number of employees -2.365 2.121 4.486 Service capacity upgrading اSystematization -1.860 2.364 4.224 Standard processes of service -2.140 2.383 4.523 Necessary and sufficient facilities being delivery -1.972 2.346 4.318 Without error processes -1.982 2.336 4.318 Non-complex processes -1.888 2.364 4.252 Diversity and range of services -1.869 2.411 4.28 Innovation in Services -2.028 2.299 4.327 The intensity and depth of services -2.075 2.168 4.243 Suitable office range-time -1.776 2.43 4.206 Time-consuming operating

Service core

-2.149 2.178 4.327 Employees fair treatment -2.486 2.093 4.579 Service delivery with minimum cost -2.056 2.159 4.215 Service excellence -2.141 2.252 4.393 Employees commitment sense -2.300 2.121 4.421 Having multiple branch -1.907 2.308 4.215 Being moral pattern -1.924 2.431 4.355 Providing good services to all segments

Social responsibility

-2.122 2.308 4.43 Employees demanding to help costumers -2.075 2.168 4.243 Schedule informing -1.813 2.523 4.336 Confidence preparing situation -1.832 2.486 4.318 Staff skills in crisis -2.028 2.14 4.168 Employees with high perceived sense -2.196 2.15 4.346 Employees with high-level knowledge -2.365 2.074 4.439 Customers feedback usage -2.121 2.234 4.355 Customers security -1.897 2.29 4.187 Paying attentions to customers -2.169 2.224 4.393 Courteous staff -2.402 1.972 4.374 Reaction power against the crisis -2.057 2.224 4.281 Decorated and clean staffs -2.262 2.243 4.505 Objectives and information quality estimation

Human element

Table 2-Service quality gaps score of all clauses of specific dimensions



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In table 2, a negative service quality gap represent student's expectation is more than their perception of a specific clause. According to the table, the organization has had the better service delivery performance and has got the lower gap scores on attractive appearance of artifacts (-1.476), cleaning (-1.579), and scheduled service delivery (-1.580) consecutively. Three deepest gaps belong to Service delivery with minimum cost (-2.486) , reaction power against the crisis (-2.402) and service capacity upgrading (-2.365) based on students viewpoints .it shows the organization has not worked well on this clauses and need to pay more attentions on them to increasing satisfaction.

Table 3-The final gap scores related to each dimension

Gap Score Per.mean Exp.mean Dimension

-1.817 2.589 4.406 Tangible of services

-1.997 2.338 4.335 Systematization

of service delivery

-1.928 2.334 4.262 Service core

-2.138 2.22 4.358 Social responsibility

-2.113 2.224 4.337 Human element

-1.999 2.341 4.340 Average

As it has shown in the table 3, the biggest gap between dimensions belongs to social responsibility and there is human element with a short difference afterward .On the other hand the organization has had the best performance in tangible of service dimension and has gotten the lowest gap score. According to this table the gaps score of all dimensions are really close to each other and the organization has to pay a public attention to all clauses to improve satisfaction level. Hypotheses testing: As described before six hypotheses were developed for this research. After analyzing data, and categorizing into the software, Pair T-Test was used for testing hypotheses.



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Table 4-Pair Sample Test result of testing hypothesis

Paired Differences

95% Confidence

Interval of the

Difference

Pairs Dimensions Mean

Std.

Deviati

on

Std.

Error

Mean

Lower

Upper

T

Df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Pair1 Pair 2

Tangible of servicesSystematization

1.8168 1.9968

.6010

.7275 .0581 .0703

1.7016 1.8574

1.9320 2.1363

31.269 28.391

106 106

.000

.000 Pair 3 Service core 1.9364 .7468 .0722 1.7933 2.0796 26.819 106 .000 Pair 4 Social responsibility 2.1440 .5911 .0571 2.0306 2.2573 37.514 106 .000 Pair 5 Pair 6

Human element Overall

2.0999 2.0011

.5973

.5197 .0577 .0502

1.9854 1.9015

2.2144 2.1007

36.363 39.829

106 106

.000

.000

According to the output of software and the final results which are shown in the table, considering 95% confidence interval of the difference and sig(2-tailed) score(0.000) all hypotheses were approved. It means there are significant differences between expectations and perceptions of students based on all dimensions of models and obviously for overall result. Discussion and conclusion: The aim of this study was the investigating and evaluating service quality gaps based on the M.A students of Najaf Abad Azad University, by using revised SERVQUAL model. The results represent there are deep service quality gaps in all dimensions. The deepest gap belongs to social responsibility and there is human element with a short difference afterward. The results also indicate that the organization has had the better performance in tangible of service dimension in comparison with the other dimensions. The negative mean of all clauses related to the dimensions obviously show there are adequate opportunities to improve service quality level. According to table II the biggest gap score is related to service delivery with minimum cost which shows students think the price of service delivery in comparison with its quality is too high. This also indicates they are not satisfied with the organization's power of reaction against crisis and believing organizations capability to upgrading service delivery capacities, according to their previous experiences. Gap existence in all dimension shows the organization could not solve the student's expectations of service delivery and also did not perform well in attracting student's confidence feelings about service delivery pattern. Overall, this suggestions can help the organization to decrease service quality gaps and increasing students satisfaction. Providing the services with less price, upgrading the capacity of service level in facing sudden crisis, increasing employees commitment by educating them and providing better job condition, offering systematic method to investigating to complaints and solving them and represent results to students, and facilitating the administrative processes as well as possible. \



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