RESUMEN
Introduction Managers in the service sector are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that their services are customerfocused and that continuous performance improvement is being delivered. Given the financial and resource constraints under which service organizations must manage it is essential that customer expectations are properly understood and measured and that, from the customers ’perspective, any gaps in service quality are identified. Goal • SERVQUAL instrument in order to ascertain any actual or perceived gaps between customer expectations and perceptions of the service offered. • To point out how management of service improvement can become more logical and integrated with respect to the prioritized service quality dimensions and their affections on increasing/decreasing service quality gaps. Model of Service Quality Gaps There are seven major gaps in the service quality concept and three of them important gaps, which are more associated with the external customers are Gap1, Gap5 and Gap6. Gap1: Customers’ expectations versus management perceptions Gap2: Management perceptions versus service specifications Gap3: Service specifications versus service delivery Gap4: Service delivery versus external communication Gap5: The discrepancy between customer expectations and their perceptions of the service delivered Gap6: The discrepancy between customer expectations and employees’ perceptions Gap7: The discrepancy between employee’s perceptions and management perceptions According to this model, five dimensions are stated as follows 1) Tangibles. 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 SERVQUAL approach contains a questionnaire that evaluates five generic service dimensions or factors through 27 questions, evaluating both expectation and performance using a seven point Likert scale. This approach evaluates service quality by calculating difference (gap) between customer expectations and perceptions (service quality= P – E). ‘P’ denotes customer perception of service or performance and ‘E’ denotes expectations before a service encounter deliver the actual. If the answer is negative, then dissatisfaction occurs. This equation is usually called gap analysis, but as it was emphasized, this approach only measures gap 5.