Page 74 - DMGT523_LOGISTICS_AND_SUPPLY_CHAIN_MANAGEMENT

Unit 3: Customer Accommodation

Gap-3: Service quality specifications – service delivery gap. Notes
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,
be they banks, insurance companies, hotels, travel agencies, hospitals or any such. The
management’s perception and service design standards might be accurate and perfect. But if the
interacting service provider during service delivery falls short of the standards specified, the
customer will get an impression of a poorly performing firm. This becomes especially important
for that firm that is heavily dependent on people in performing the last transaction. Public
sector banks might have the best of design specifications set by Reserve Bank of India; yet late-
coming staff, corrupt employees (the Harshad Mehta scam of misuse of Portfolio Management
Funds and the internal document mess-up in State Bank of India) would bring large gaps in
quality to put it mildly!
Some of the reasons for Gap-3 to occur are:

 Ineffective recruitment, role ambiguity;
 Role conflict;
 Lack of empowerment, control and poor teamwork
 Failure to match supply and demand (in a retail store there would be peak crowds during
the evenings and slack demand during the afternoons, but the employee strengths would
be the same), customers not co-operating or failing to live up to their roles (lack of
knowledge and responsibilities);
 Channel conflicts, etc.

!
Caution The service firm must ensure that systems, processes and people are in the right
place. This will make sure that service delivery is as per the design standards set.
Gap-4: Service delivery – external communications to customer.
This is essentially a communication gap. The gap is the difference between service delivery
intention and capability and what is being communicated to the customers. An over-hyped
communication raises the expectations of the customer – and his benchmark of service quality
and his expectations from the service delivery sky-rocket. It will be difficult then for the firm to
meet the expectation and there would inevitably be a shortfall. The tragedy is, the customers
would have been satisfied without the hype. But now they go back with memories of
disappointment and are actually dissatisfied. This results from inadequate communication from
the firm. For instance, Doordarshan, the much-maligned state TV broadcaster, would announce
a certain programme, say an interview with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, to be broadcast at 7 p.m. and
they would fail to do so at that hour – creating huge disappointment. The viewers would curse
and would not forgive DD despite an apology – even if one were forthcoming.

The causes of Gap-4 are:
 Lack of cohesiveness in marketing communications;
 Absence of strong internal marketing programme, not being able to meet customers’
expectations through communications;
 Over-promising in advertising and personal selling;
 Inadequate horizontal communication between sales and operations;
 Differences in policies and procedures across branches, etc.

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