Page 105 - DMGT510_SERVICES_MARKETING
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Services Marketing
Notes Some questions regarding quality of service still elude any definitive answers:
How can service quality be defined and improved when the product is intangible and
non-standardised?
How can new services be designed and tested effectively when the service is essentially an
intangible process?
How can the service firm be certain that its communication has been effective, consistent
and relevant, especially when its other marketing mixes are also communicating? This
apprehension is especially true with respect to the role played by the providers in the
service transaction.
In this unit, you will learn about the quality issues in services and various service quality
models.
6.1 Service Quality Issues
Defining quality in service: In manufacturing, quality is defined by the degree of compliance
between stated goals and achieved targets. It is therefore rather easy to measure and conform to
a standard. In service it becomes difficult to comprehend the concept of quality and measure it.
This is due to the mother of all characteristics for services the intangibility factor and it makes
measurement and assessment of service quality extremely challenging. Perception of service
quality is, additionally, felt by all parties involved in a service delivery process: service providers,
customers and suppliers. They should therefore understand each others definitions of service
quality.
Quality can be viewed from multiple perspectives:
Product-based
The definition is based on measurable parameters. It is suitable for goods, but becomes a challenge
in services. The number of times a telephone rings before the receiver is picked up by a service
provider can be a basis of measuring responsiveness.
Example: Dominos Pizza has successfully positioned itself as a firm, which promises to
deliver its fare in half an hour - in other words, giving measurable parameters for quality.
User-based
This definition is from the customers perspective, reinforcing the notion that quality is in the
eyes of the beholder.
Example: An extremely well-read professor following all the guidelines of teaching can
be condemned with poor rating if the students are not able to comprehend the accent, or if the
delivery is uninteresting.
This element of subjectivity raises a challenge: that of finding out:
What the customer expects,
Which attributes to be included for garnering the largest appeal from the largest group of
customers, and
How to differentiate between those attributes that provide satisfaction and those that
imply quality.
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