Page 215 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Management

Notes Quality in service has two-window viewpoints: internal and external to the service firm. Internal
quality is all about the entire service delivery process—from concept to encounter/experience/
transaction/consumption. While internal quality is all about conformance and compliance to
design standards, external quality is about the customer’s perception. While the former can be
controlled by the service firm, service quality is as perceived by the customers – and should be
measured from that perspective. All aspects of ‘marketing myopia’ rear their ugly heads again
when any service quality measurement is based on the manager’s opinions of the customer’s
expectations:
Service firms may not know the specific criteria for decision-making in service consumption.
Management may be myopic on the way customers evaluate performance of the competitive
products.

Marketing myopia might creep in and make management blind to the differing and
evolving needs of the consumers. The need evolution could be due to market and
environmental factors, competitive response and technological advances.

!

Caution We give below the formal definition of quality:
Quality is “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on
its ability to satisfy given needs.”

Self Assessment

5. Match the following sets:
Set A
1. You feel that the haircut you got is good even though others might not feel so.
2. Adventure sports like scuba diving and bungee jumping.
3. Time spent waiting in a salon leads to various perceptions regarding the dresser.
4. An airline’s services are designed to near perfection.
Set B
(a) Product based quality
(b) User based quality
(c) Manufacturing based quality
(d) Transcendental quality

10.3 Service Quality Models

There are various models of service quality which are as follows:

10.3.1 Gap Model of Service Quality

This model can help a firm desirous of improving service quality to focus better on its strategies
and service processes. This model can not only be used to find and identify areas in service
delivery and designs (which might lack quality), but also measure and monitor quality in
service.
Quality in service is as perceived by the customer. There is no other way to either comprehend
or administer. As service is intangible; the only way to measure quality in service is to measure

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