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Unit 6: Service Quality




             Understanding the moments of truth that are important to an organisation’s customers -  Notes
             by segment - is the key to understanding what is good customer service.
             Completing customer satisfaction surveys is not a reliable way of determining moments
             of truth for two reasons.

             Firstly, the design of most satisfaction surveys is usually poor. They ask a series of questions
             which request an opinion on how well the service provider performed. The opinion is
             prompted by a question similar to, “The booking was handled with efficiency and attention
             to my needs” and the answers range from totally disagree to totally agree on a five point
             scale.
             Surveys designed this way give a misleading view, as they do not ask a question which
             seeks to understand the importance of the particular services prior to the request for an
             opinion.
             A request for a response to a statement such as, “The booking process was very important
             to my level of enjoyment during my stay”, prior to, “How well did we perform?” will at
             least make it clear whether the service we provided really mattered or not, independent of
             whether we  provided the service well, or not. In most cases, only three or  four of  the
             “services” provided in a list of ten questions will actually be important.
             The second reason why customer satisfaction surveys are unreliable is that even if they are
             designed well, satisfaction surveys tend to condition the recipients to give a response.
             In a study reported in the Harvard Business Review in 1995, Jones and Sasser noted that
             customer retention  levels of  around forty  percent  correlated  to an  average rating  of
             “satisfied” and did not reach 80% until the average rating reached “very satisfied”.
             Mercer reported in a separate study that eighty percent of customers who churned from an
             internet service provider had responded  that they were “satisfied” or “very  satisfied”
             with their service.

             However, relying on customer satisfaction surveys to determine the quality of customer
             service is and how well an organisation has performed is risk.

          Source: www.changefactory.com.au
          6.2.3 Service Triangle Marketing Model


                            Figure  6.3:  The Services  Triangle Marketing  Model


























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