6.2 Defining customer service quality
Among the organisations that are reputed for their good standards, there is a common belief that high quality is an essential component of their market success. At the same time, there appears to be a wide perception in the executive world that spending a great deal of money on improving quality is not always justified because the investment does not always result in bottom line benefits. Essentially, what they are saying is that doing what makes the customers happy is what pays off. When the improvements in quality lead to better experience by the customer, then quality becomes a strategy that is cost effective.
From the perspective of customers, value for money is a deciding factor for the attractiveness of the transaction. This includes both tangible and non-tangible elements of the transaction. This is the reason that organisations that have good customer service can charge higher than their market competitors.
Zeithaml (1988, p. 14) states that value , in the customer's perception, is the "overall assessment of the utility of the product based on perceptions of what is received and what is given". This implies that customers come to the transaction with perceptions of what they want. Satisfaction results from the match between the perception and experience. The closer the match, the higher the satisfaction. (In marketing and quality literature, you often meet the phrase "exceeding customer expectations" - that is an attempt to exceed, in service, the perceptions that the customer comes to the organisation with and make the experience better than expected. We will be expanding on this in a later chapter.)
Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry (1990, pp. 18-22) define service quality as "a discrepancy between customers' expectations and perceptions". They identify factors that shape customer expectations as:
- word of mouth communications
- personal needs
- past experience
- external communications (advertising, etc., including price).
These factors interact with "dimensions of service quality", which they define as:
- tangibles (appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communications materials)
- reliability (ability to perform the promised services dependably and reliably)
- responsiveness (willingness to help and provide prompt services)
- competence (possession of required skills and knowledge to perform the service)
- courtesy (politeness, respect, consideration and friendliness of contact personnel)
- credibility (trustworthiness, believability, honesty)
- security (freedom from danger, risk or doubt)
- access (approachability and ease of contact)
- communications (keeping customers informed in a language understandable to them and listening to them)
- understanding the customer (making the effort to know the customer and their needs).
According to Zeithaml et al (1990), these two groups of factors interact to build customer expectations about the dimensions of service quality that they expect from an organisation.
Reading 6.1
Zeithaml, V. 1990, "Communicating with customers about service quality".
This reading introduces the instrument called SERVQUAL, designed by the author and her associates. This is widely used in customer service design and audits. We will discuss this in more detail in the following sections of this chapter.
Back Page