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Delivering Quality Service
Term Paper ID:27917
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Essay Subject:
Identifies key marketing steps involved in delivering quality service.... More...
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5 Pages / 1125 Words
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Paper Abstract:
Identifies key marketing steps involved in delivering quality service.
Paper Introduction:
DELIVERING QUALITY SERVICE
Total quality management applied to the service sector involves a recognition of the need for marketing research to ascertain the needs of the public and how to fulfill them. Developing and implementing a program to do this requires leadership, service leaders with the vision to understand the situation in the present and to see how service will develop in the future. They require high standards and the awareness to seek it in their research and in how they implement the results of that research. Quality is an end in itself, but it is also a means to effect further payoffs in the creation of true customers--customers who are glad they selected a firm after their service experience--and improved efficiencies as quality drives down the cost through market
Text of the Paper:
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Making technology a servant benefits both the customer and theservice provider. The researchers conclude thatthis is the important message from customers to service providers: "Appearneat and organized, be responsive, be reassuring, be empathetic, and mostof all, be reliable--do what you say you are going to do" (p. SERVQUALindicates that a substantial improvement in customers' perceptions of acompany's quality of service is required before they become positivespokespersons for that service. This can only be the beginning,however, for it is always necessary to ascertain the views of customers,which is where the market research function is critical. It isreasonable to assume that customers consider all five criteria to be quiteimportant. The labor short-fall has been a veryserious problem. Another prerequisite for providing high service quality is the presence of performance standards mirroring management's perceptions of customers' expectations. L. Research by theTechnical Assistance Research Programs, Inc. 164-165). When forced to indicate the most important ofthese dimensions, reliability was selected as the critical dimensionregardless of the service being studied. 32-33). Too often technology has been regarded as a serviceevil, something that has to be tolerated, and the heartless computerspewing out forms is an example of this. Market research develops ways marketers can understand anduse concepts of motivation, personality, attitudes, and lifestyles togetherwith the environmental context in order to develop effective strategies formarketing. DELIVERING QUALITY SERVICE Total quality management applied to the service sector involves arecognition of the need for marketing research to ascertain the needs ofthe public and how to fulfill them. The first thing theinstrument demonstrates is why some companies are successful and others arenot--they either fulfill the demands of the five dimensions or they fail todo so and incur the anger and resentment of customers. 27). New York: The Free Press.----------------------- 7 The development of the instrumentalso revealed that the key to delivering high-quality service is to balancecustomers' expectations and perceptions and close the gaps between the two. Marketers analyze environmental influences and the effects ofsituations to ascertain the customers' view of quality. Innovative approaches are needed to solve this issue (pp. However, it is also useful for examining the perceptions on thepart of management regarding the perceptions-service-quality gap that mayor may not exist in the organization. Finally, raising our service aspirations is needed and is the mostsignificant challenge for the 199 s. Marketers can analyze and classify situationsaccording to the variables involved--physical environments in which thesituations are set, behaviors and affective states exhibited, and so on.Information acquisition situations include physical and social aspects ofenvironments where consumers acquire information and where they encounterthe subsequent service, and the behaviors of importance are informationcontact and communication. Thiswill involve the recognition that the quality of service depends on howwell myriad elements function together in the same service process to meetcustomers' expectations (pp. The first step isto identify key aspects of the social and physical environments inconsumption situations. shows that the average returnfrom investments made to satisfactorily handle customers' complaints rangesfrom 1 percent for marketers of durable goods to 17 percent for aservice organization like a bank: Companies that epitomize exemplary quality of service as well aware of the excellent returns from resolving customers' problems to their satisfaction. Attacking the labor shortfall is vital in order to have the personnelto give quality service, and often the difference between poor service andquality service is simply having sufficient personnel--and sufficientlytrained personnel--to do the job. (199 ). The problem is that the population after the baby-boom generation issmaller, and the number of jobs is growing more rapidly than thepopulation. In the future, ergonomics and being user-friendlywill be more important, and always what should be kept in mind is improvingservice (pp. 39) PRESENT SITUATION AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS The research to develop the SERVQUAL instrument indicates a number ofissues, some of which have been noted above, such as the relativeimportance of the five dimensions of service expected by customers. Itaccomplishes this by turning to the best source for this information--thecustomer. A., Parasuraman,A., & Berry, L. (p. The situation involves social stimuli andphysical stimuli that may have an effect on consumers' cognitions, affect,and behaviors. Italso indicates where there have been gaps in the past, gaps which should beaddressed by the use of the instrument in the future. 157-158). Service-sector jobs have been expanding at a considerablerate. The five dimensions are reliability, responsiveness, assurance,empathy, and tangibles. (pp. What should be recognized is that quality service is itself akey marketing strategy producing excellent results in terms of customerdevelopment and improved efficiencies. SERVQUAL is the instrument for identifying the problem and for makingclear where there is a shortfall in service in the organization. 31-32) The perception of quality today encourages consumer behavior thatbenefits the service company. The SERVQUAL instrument is a beginningtoward that end. The authors of the SERVQUAL instrument indicate some of the changesthat will necessary in the near future to close the gaps in service andquality and to promote a more service-oriented structure for thosebusinesses relying on service. They require high standards and the awareness to seek it intheir research and in how they implement the results of that research.Quality is an end in itself, but it is also a means to effect furtherpayoffs in the creation of true customers--customers who are glad theyselected a firm after their service experience--and improved efficienciesas quality drives down the cost through market share growth. At the same time, the perception by thecustomer that the service company is trying for the first time to performall facets of service flawlessly and that it is willing to satisfactorilyresolve any flaws that may occur both enhances a customer's service-qualityperceptions and increases his or her likelihood of recommending the companyto prospective customers thereafter (pp. SERVQUAL Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry (199 ) report on the effort todevelop an instrument for measuring service quality, and their researchproduces a parsimonious instrument called SERVQUAL consisting of twosections: 1) an expectations section containing 22 statements to ascertainthe general expectations of customers concerning a service, and 2) aperceptions section containing a matching set of 22 statements to measurecustomers' assessments of a specific firm within the service category.This instrument measures five dimensions, derived from systematic analysisof customers' ratings from hundreds of interviews in several servicesectors, and these are seen as a concise representation of the corecriteria that customers employ in evaluating service quality. Developing and implementing a programto do this requires leadership, service leaders with the vision tounderstand the situation in the present and to see how service will developin the future. As theoriginators of the instrument state: Management's correct perceptions of customers' expectations is necessary, but not sufficient, for achieving superior quality service. In the past, the primary impetusfor computer design has been the objectives of lowering costs andincreasing productivity. ReferenceZeithaml, V. Word-of-mouth recommendations play a greaterrole in the purchase of services than in the purchase of goods. They cite the following needs for thefuture: --designing quality into the service --making technology a servant --attacking the labor shortfall --raising our service aspirationsThe SERVQUAL instrument can be the key to accomplishing these changes byidentifying the areas of shortfall existing now and by measuringimprovement into the future. The authors state that it is time forservice companies to declare war on service mediocrity and to change thesystem to provide quality service. Service design is described as a form ofarchitecture involving processes, and the intent is to design high qualityinto the service system from the outset and to consider and respond tocustomers' expectations in designing each element of that service. Delivering quality service. The SERVQUAL instrument was developed through the use of marketingresearch and points to the needs of consumers, the manner in whichconsumers rate performance, and thus the dimensions to be addressed bymarketers and service providers alike. 16 -161).
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