Service Marketing

Report:-Service Quality Gap Model

To:

Mr. Srikanthan

By:

Hitesh Goyal

Reg. No. : 10171808

MBA 12

Report:-Service Quality Gap Model

ContentsIntroduction:....................................................................................................................................3

Service Quality Gap Model:............................................................................................................3

The Knowledge Gap:...................................................................................................................4

Standard Gap or Design Gap:......................................................................................................5

Delivery Gap:...............................................................................................................................6

Communication Gap:...................................................................................................................7

Service Gap:.................................................................................................................................8

Reference:........................................................................................................................................9

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Report:-Service Quality Gap Model

Introduction:In past scenario, most of the organizations were production and sale oriented. They believed that

consumers would prefer only those companies’ products which are wildly available. It

demonstrates that organizations were more considered about sale and profit rather than providing

good quality and service. But in present scenario the delivery of quality in service and goods has

become more precedence. Companies are more sophisticated about selling product-support

service. They provide pre-purchase and post purchase service to their customers so customers

will not switch to other company. (Kotler & Keller, 2009) There are many examples and

research which reveals that delivering good service quality helps organizations in term of making

more profit, cost saving and earning market share such as the Indian Railway who has done huge

amendment in their service quality and now it is started to making huge margin. Due to heavy

competition, customers have more alternative of service and products and because of this their

expectation of being served well from organization has increased. So, it is very difficult for any

organization to deliver the same quality of service which customers are expected from them. The

difference between expectation of customer about service quality and delivered by the

organization is considered as the ‘Service Gap’. These gaps can be measured by the Service

Quality Gap Model. (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1988).

Service Quality Gap Model:The Service Quality Gap Model helps to recognize the different types of gaps between the

service qualities that a consumer expects to receive from service provider and the perception of

consumer about service that actually he received. The Service Quality Gap Model identify the

five different types of gaps such as knowledge gap, standard gap, delivery gap, communication

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Report:-Service Quality Gap Model

gap and service gap. The first four gaps are considered as company gap and last gap is

considered as customer gap because it is perceived by the customers. (Dion, Javalgi &

Dilorenzo, 2007) These gaps emphasize on various phase which are engross in service delivery

process started from the consumer expectation to delivery of goods and service. So for any

service oriented organization it is essential to understand the service gap and how to minimize

these gaps. If these gaps are high then it will result customer dissatisfaction and decrease in

profit. (Lovelock, Wirtz, & Chatterjee, 2006)

The Knowledge Gap:The Knowledge Gap occurs when an organization failed to accurately recognize the expectation

of customers. It is considered as Knowledge Gap. (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2008) One of the major

objectives of an organization is to create the demand among new customers and to fulfill the

customers’ demand. So, basically before introduce any new service or product most of the

companies do the market research and try to find out that is there any need of that product in the

market, if there is a need then what are the customers’ expectation from this product or service

then according to that companies design their service and products. But sometimes companies

design its service and products without doing any market research and they perceive that this

service or product will fulfill the consumers’ need. Therefore, there is high probability that

management of the company will not understand that what features can connote good quality to

customers, what attributes a service or product should have to meet consumers’ expectation and

what level of performance is essential to deliver high quality service so it is considered as the

Knowledge Gap. Specifically it is the difference between management’s perception of

customers’ expectation and the actual expectation of consumers. (Mudie & Pirrie, 2006)

Some factors which increase the Knowledge Gap and how to overcome from them:

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1.) Lack of market research: Sometime without any market research companies design its

services and products therefore it results to increase the Knowledge Gap. Every company

should do market research such as collecting the samples, doing customer survey and so

on which will help the management to find out the expectation of the customers. There

should be direct interaction between manager and customers.

2.) Upward communication and level of management: There should be fewer layers of

management between customer contact personnel and management. If there are many

layers then it could be a barrier because it will consume more time and it will work as

noise between sender and receiver.

Standard Gap or Design Gap:The second gap is referred as Standard Gap. It occurs when there is vary between management’s

perception toward consumers’ expectation and the actual service specification design by the

management. This variation took place because of complexity faced by the management to

integrate customers’ expectation into authentic service delivery process. Management of a

service providing organization often faces the difficulty to match with customers’ expectation. If

a company set the benchmark for service quality then it would be easy to measure the result in

quantities method such as Pizza Hut has done to set the benchmark of their service in quantities

method to deliver the pizza in 30 minutes. If the gap is more, then it would result as poor quality

standard and delivery, customer dissatisfaction, less control on quality and standardization in

delivery process. (Srinivasan, 2007) The length or extant of this gap is depend on management’s

belif. If they are considered more on other goals rather than service quality then there would be

more gap. There are many factors which can increase or decrease the quality or standard gap:

1.) Goal setting: An organization should more emphasize on setting the goal to deliver high

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Report:-Service Quality Gap Model

standard quality rather than cost reduction or making profit. To set the quality goal will

not only help to improve company’s performance but also it will increase the overall

control of company on quality standard such as McDonald and Pizza Hut has done.

2.) Task standardization: A company should improve their work method and it should

standardize the specific rules and task and then they should work according to it. Every

company should clarify the job or working task to its employees and according to the

performance of employees, they should be given regular feedback.

Delivery Gap:Delivery Gap is the difference between actual service which is being delivered to customers and

service standard specification. It is also considered as Service Performance Gap. (Kusluvan,

2003) The extant of this gap is depends on service providers. This gap occurs when service

providers do not perform at that level which is expected by the top level management and

employees are not able or unwilling to perform at desire level of the top level management.

Since it is performed by an individual employee therefore the quality can be affected by skill

level of employees, team work, conflict between employees and training and experience in that

field. (Mudie & Pirrie, 2006)

Once the service quality is specified by the management then it is the responsibility of

employees to deliver the service at same specified quality. If there is any gap between actual

delivered and service quality specification is called Delivery or Service Performance Gap.

There are many factors which can be reason betweent difference in service standard specification

and actual service delivered:

1.) Teamwork: If all employees work as a team, they feel personally committed and

involved in work then the actual service delivery can achieve the service standard

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specification.

2.) Employee job fit and role conflict: To reduce the role conflict among employees

management should clear the role of every employees and they should be given only that

job where they feel most suitable.

3.) Training: Every company should provide training to its employees to improve their

productivity so they can help to achieve the economics of scale.

Communication Gap:Communication mean to interact with customers at short times, keeping them informed in a

language which is easily understandable for consumers and create awareness among customers

about service and product through advertising, sale promotion, personal selling and word of

mouth. It also includes listening to customers. There are numerous types of Communication Gap

such as one is when an organization overpromise to customers but they do not complete what

they promise. Second when a company stops to interact with customers or get fail to stay in

touch with customers and another one is when the message which a company wants to convey is

not understandable due to language problem or any other reasons. One of the main reasons to

increase the communication gap is when company is listening but not replying. (Srinivasan,

2007) To reduce the communication error and to make it more effective a company should use:

Horizantiol Communication:

There should be continuously communication between sale and operation department

which help them to aware about the new trend of the market, need and expectation of the

customers

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There should be direct interaction with customers after a specific time so they should be

updated about the new service and products which is being offered

Message should be in regional language so it will be easy to communicate with customers

There should be separate department such as customer care who help customers in term

of solving their problems, inform them about the status of their order

Service Gap:Service Gap is considered as all gaps from Standard Gap to Communication Gap which is

considered as consumer oriented gap because this gap is from customer’s side. It is the difference

between customer perception and expected value from the service which is actually delivered to

customers. This gap can lead the customer dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth and so on. To

overpass this gap an organization should focus on good customer service, expected role of

management and service providers should be in place. (Lovelock, Wirtz & Chatterjee, 2006)

Main Finding and Conclusion: After completing this report I have found that delivering

constantly good service to consumers is difficult but at last it profitable for every organization.

An organization can reduce these gaps by improve its service quality, communicate with

customers at set level of time and deliver the service or products at right time which help to

increase the customer satisfaction. Customer access service quality by comparing what they want

or expect and actually what they got or perceive what they are getting. So an organization should

include these quality when they feed customers such as tangibility where there should some

physical evidence of service, responsiveness where consumer get response at short time,

reliability where the ability to perform service should be independent and consistently and

assurance where employee should have good knowledge, courtesy and ability to convey the

message in proper manner.

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Reference:

Berry, L. L. 1999. Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success. The Free Press, New York.

Berry, L., Zeithaml, V. & Parasuraman, A. Quality Counts in Services, Too. Business Horizons. May 1985; p44. Retrieved from: Business Source Premierhttp://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=6&sid=b6bff9db-0bf7-4005-82c5-74372155eea7%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=4528473#db=buh&AN=4528473

Dion, P., Javalgi, R. & Dilorenzo, J. An Empirical Assessment of Service Expectations Model.

Service Industries Journal. October 2007; p66-86. Retrieved from: Business Source Premier,

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06783fc225e8%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN

Kotler, P. & Keller, K. L. (2009). Marketing Managment. New Delhi: PHI learnig private limited.

Kusluvan, S. (2003). Managing Employee Attitudes and Behaviors in the Tourism and Hospitality. New York: Nova Science Publisher Inc.

Lovelock, C., Wirtz, J., & Chatterjee, J. (2006). Services Marketing. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Mudie, P., & Pirrie, A. (2006). Services marketing management. Chennai: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Nargundkar, R. (2008). Services Marketing. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.

Srinivasan, R. (2007). Services marketing: the Indian context. New Delhi: Prentice Hall Of India.

Verma, H. V. (2009). Service Marketing:Text and Cases. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. & Berry, L.1998. Problems and Strategies in Services marketing.

Journal of Marketing . p33-46. Retrieved from Business Source Premier

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=101&sid=0c9855cd-d4fa-4cd1-bcbb-2707a8462008%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=5001282

Zeithaml, V. and Bitner, M. (2003) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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