Page 217 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Management

Notes term relationship with the customer, to retain him. But in order to close the Customer Gap,
another type of gap has to be closed: the Provider Gap.

Did u know? Service quality is all about the responsiveness of an organisation to meet the
customer’s expectations. The service performance is measured by the perceived service
quality.

The Provider Gap

There are four provider gaps and these in sum total are the cause of the Customer Gap. They are
the shortfalls within the service firm. To close the customer gap, the provider gap (or, as also
known, Company Gap) has to be bridged. The four provider gaps are:

Gap 1: Customer Expectation – Management Perception Gap

It is the inability of top management to perceive what the customer wants, and is the main
reason why a firm cannot meet a customer’s expectations. The company is blinded by a perceptual
veil of ignorance, arrogance or criminal neglect.
Some of the reasons why Gap-1 can occur are:

inadequate marketing research;
Lack of upward communication in the organisation;
Insufficient focus on relationship building (‘don’t care’ attitude), etc.

Gap 2: Management Perception – Service Quality Expectation Gap

This gap is created in the design process of the service product and lying down of specifications
for service quality during service transactions. In the design process, this gap arises during the
translation of management’s perception of customer-expectation into design specifications.
Managers would set specifications for service quality on the basis of what they believe the
customer requires — a very dangerous presumption. The implications of this gap are that even
if the firm has crystal-clear knowledge and understanding of the customer’s expectations, there
would be scope for misunderstanding this, leading to setting the wrong specifications, service
designs and standards.

Example: A bank would believe that customer friendly interaction is what the customers
prefer but the standard would be set on computerization — which is impersonal and neutral.
There is no human contact to support the concept of ‘friendliness’.
Some reasons for Gap-2 to occur are:
Failure to connect service design to service positioning
Unsystematic new-service development process
Lack of customer-defined service standards
Absence of a formal process of setting service quality goals, etc.

Gap 3: Service Quality Specifications – Service Delivery Gap

This occurs at the service provider level when there is deviation from service standards specified
and actually delivered to the customers. This probably is the bane of all public sector institutions,

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