T

he world economy today is increasingly characterized as a service economy.

This is primarily due to the increasing importance and share of the service sector in the economies of most developed and developing countries. In fact, the growth of the service sector has long been considered as indicative of a countrys economic progress. Economic history tells us that all developing nations have invariably experienced a shift from agriculture to industry and then to the service sector as the main stay of the economy. This shift has also brought about a change in the definition of goods and services themselves. No longer are goods considered separate from services. Rather, services now increasingly represent an integral part of the product and this interconnectedness of goods and services is represented on a goods-services continuum. The service sector is going through almost revolutionary change, which dramatically affects the way in which we live and work. New services are continually being launched to satisfy our existing needs and to meet needs that we did not even know we had. Not even 10 years ago, few people anticipated a need for email, online banking, Web hosting, and many other new services. Today, many of us feel we cant do without them. Similar transform ations are occurring in business-to-business markets. Service organizations vary widely in size. At one end of the scale are huge international corporations operating in such industries as airlines, banking, insurance, telecommunications, and hotels. At the other end of the scale is a vast array of locally owned and operated small businesses, including restaurants, laundries, optometrists, beauty parlors, and other numerous business-to-business services, to name a few.

But what is service??? According to the American Marketing Association - Activities, benefits and satisfactions which are offered for sale or are provided in connection with the sale of goods are Service. Another service marketing based popular web www.marketingpower.com says Service(s) mean, products, such as a bank loan or home securities, which are intangible, inseparable as they are exchanged directly from producer to user, cannot be transported or stored, and are almost instantly perishable. Service products are often difficult to identify, because they come into existence at the same time they are produced and consumed. They comprise intangible elements that are inseparable; they usually involve customer participation in some important way; they cannot be sold in the sense of ownership transfer; and they have no title.

The service marketing mix includes 3 more Ps along with 4Ps of traditional marketing mix. Products, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, Physical evidence are all the 7Ps which manages a complete service quality with customer expectations. Still many times there create many gaps between services what customer expected and services what customer received. Total 5 types of gaps can be taken place between customer & management team, they are

 Gap 1 - also known as the management perception gap. It is the difference between expected service by customers and the management's perceptions of the consumer's expectations. Gap 2 - also known as quality specification gap. It is the difference between management perception and the actual specification of the customer experience. Gap 3 - also known as the service delivery gap. It is the difference between customer driven service design and standards and service delivery. Gap 4 - also known as market communication gap. It is the difference between the delivery of the customer experience and what is communicated to customers. Gap 5 - also known as the perceived service quality gap. It is the difference between a customer's perception of the experience and the customer's expectation of the service.

To keep minimal all these gaps, there are many ways of service-quality management. All the service provider company should always conduct the processes of service-quality check to know whether they are providing the expected quality of services or are their customers satisfied with their services in reality. Here we will discuss 2 well-known & mass used methods of servicequality management

1. SERVQUAL Attributes 2. Importance Performance Analysis (IPA)

SERVQUAL is a service quality framework. SERVQUAL was developed in the mid-1980s by Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry. SERVQUAL means to measure the scale of Quality in the service sectors.

SERVQUAL was originally measured on 10 aspects of service quality: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding the customer and tangibles. It measures the gap between customer expectations and experience. The basic assumption of the measurement was that customers can evaluate a firm's service quality by comparing their perceptions with their expectations. Service quality was originally measured on 10 aspects.

By the early 1990s, the authors had refined the model to the useful acronym RATER:
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Reliability Assurance Tangibles Empathy and Responsiveness

SERVQUAL has its detractors and is considered overly complex, subjective and statistically unreliable. The simplified RATER model however is a simple and useful model for quantitatively exploring and assessing customers' service experiences and has been used widely by service delivery organizations. It is an efficient model in helping an organization shape up their efforts in bridging the gap between perceived and expected service.

Benefits: According to Nyeck, Morales, Ladhari, and Pons (2002) statement the SERVQUAL measuring tool remains the most complete attempt to conceptualize and measure service quality. The main benefit to the SERVQUAL measuring tool is the ability of researchers to examine numerous service industries such as healthcare, banking, financial services, and education. The fact that SERVQUAL has critics does not render the measuring tool moot. Rather, the criticism received concerning SERVQUAL measuring tool may have more to do with how researchers use the tool. Criticisms

Criticism: Francis Buttle critiques SERVQUAL in the article "SERVQUAL: review, critique, research agenda" on a number of theoretical and operational bases. He particularly notes that SERVQUAL's 5 dimensions (Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy, and Responsiveness) are not universals, and that the model fails to draw on established economic, statistical and psychological theory. Although SERVQUAL's face and construct validity are in doubt, it is widely used in published and modified forms to measure customer expectations and perceptions of service quality.

Example: To think of a proper example of how SERVQUAL Attributes work actually, we will take an imaginary Restaurant XYZ, prepare a Liker Chart to ask the valuable customers, try to know how they rank their importance for companies and what they perceived about the Restaurant service & now what they experienced.

The points for the Liker chart will be --Strongly Agree 5 Agree 4 Neutral 3 Disagree 2 Strongly Disagree 1

Factors

Statements
Strongly Agree I think I am providing service as promised. I think I am dependable in handling customers service problems. I think I am performing services right the first time. I think I am providing services at the promised time. I think I am maintaining errorfree records. I think I have the employees who have the knowledge to answer customer questions. I think I have employees who instill confidence in customers. I think I am making customers feel safe in their transactions. I think I have employees who are consistently courteous. I think I have modern equipments. I think I have visually appealing facilities. I think I have employees who have a neat, professional appearance. I think I have visually appealing materials associated with the service. Agree

Liker Chart
Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree

Tangibles

Assurance

Reliability

I think I am giving customers individual attention. I think I have employees who deal with customers in a caring fashion. I think I am having the customers best interests at heart. I think I have employees who understand the needs of their customers. I think I have convenient business hours. I think I am keeping customer informed as to when services will be performed. I think I provide prompt service to customers. I think I am willing to help customers. I think I am ready to respond to customers request.

So here what the customers think about the restaurant XYZs statements, they will rank it & the restaurant management will get a clear picture about their provided service.

Simultaneously, we will prepare one more Liker Chart with more or less similar questions but for the Restaurant Management to rank down their performance provided to the customers & what they find the most important performance among these. The points for the Liker chart will be --Most Important 5 Very Important 4 Important 3 Less Important 2 Least Important 1

Responsiveness

Empathy

Factors

Statements
Most Important Do you think your company is providing service as promised? Do you think your company is dependable in handling customers service problems? Do you think your company is performing services right the first time? Do you think your company providing services at the promised time? Do you think your company is maintaining errorfree records? Do you think your company has the employees who have the knowledge to answer customer questions? Do you think your company has employees who instill confidence in customers? Do you think your company is making customers feel safe in their transaction? Do you think your company has employees who are consistently courteous? Very Important

Liker Chart
Important Less Important Least Important

Assurance

Reliability

Do you think your company has modern equipments? Do you think your company has visually appealing facilities? Do you think your company has employees who have a neat, professional appearance? Do you think your company has visually appealing materials associated with the service? Do you think your company is giving customers individual attention? Do you think your company has employees who deal with customers in a caring fashion? Do you think your company is having the customers best interests at heart? Do you think your company has employees who understand the needs of their customers? Do you think your company has convenient business hours?

Empathy

Tangibles

Do you think your company is keeping customer informed as to when services will be performed? Do you think your company provides prompt service to customers? Do you think your company is willing to help customers? Do you think your company is ready to respond to customers request?

Now, from this Liker Chart we will get to know the Restaurant XYZ managements perception about their services, what performance the customers actually experiencing and the attribute restaurant management finds most important to be taken care.

Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) is an easily applied technique for measuring attribute importance and performance can further the development of effective marketing programs. It is a popular, low-cost, easily understood way to organize information about the attributes of a product or service and provide intuitively appealing strategies for a business to set priorities for potential change. A variety of criticisms have been aimed at IPA and a number of extensions and modifications have been suggested to deal with these; but, to our knowledge, there has been no attempt to evaluate its overall usefulness as an economic planning tool. This paper investigates linkages between IPA and the economic principles underlying several stages in the strategic planning process in an effort to determine the appropriate role for IPA and to provide recommendations for its use.

Benefits: ImportancePerformance Analysis (IPA) is a low cost, easily understood way to organize information about the attributes of a product or service and provide intuitively appealing strategies for a business to set priorities for potential change. The IPA technique refers to the process of determining a set of attributes that characterizes a product or service, evaluating the importance of these attributes, evaluating the performance levels of the production of these
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Responsiveness

attributes, and representing the scaled importance and performance of each attribute on two axes of a grid for comparison. The labeling of the quadrants of the grid indicates strategic actions to be taken with respect to each attribute.

The IPAs popularity in consulting practice and in the professional literature indicates that it plays a useful role in a range of tourism settings. Hotel, resort, and destination studies are the most common. Other tourism applications include escorted tour evaluation, restaurant positioning and outdoor recreation planning.

Criticism: The IPA method has been critiqued by several authors and a variety of extensions and modifications have been made to IPA to handle special cases. But, to our knowledge, there has been no attempt to evaluate its overall usefulness as an economic planning tool. As a potential tool for the strategic management process, we feel that discovering its link to major underlying economic principles may assist in unifying the extensions and modifications, or lead to new insights about the method.

Example: From the above 2 Liker Chart, we will get some scores about all the attributes from both Restaurant management and the customers. The management will score the performance they are giving and the customers will score the importance they are getting. Now, the score we will get for each of the attributes from both the side, we will calculate its Average MEAN Rating Point and place it in an IPA Grid by their numbering. The MEAN Rating table & IPA Grid look like this ---

Attribute Attribute Description Mean Importance Number Rating 1 Providing service as promised 2 Dependability in handling customers service problem 3 Performing services right the first time 4 Providing services at the promised time 5 Maintaining error-free records 6 Employees who have the knowledge to answer customer questions 7 Employees who instill confidence in customers 8 Making customers feel safe in their transactions

Mean Performance Rating

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Employees who are consistently courteous Modern equipments Visually appealing facilities Employees who have a neat, professional appearance Visually appealing materials associated with the service Giving customers individual attention Employees who deal with customers in a caring fashion Having the customers best interests at heart Employees who understand the needs of their customers Convenient business hours Keeping customer informed as to when services will be performed Prompt service to customers Willingness to help customers Readiness to respond to customers requests

Extremely Important A. Concentrate here Fair Performance High Importance Low Performance C. Low priority Low Importance Low Performance B. Keep up the good work High Importance High Performance D. Possible overkill Low Importance High Performance Excellent Performance

Slightly Important

From the above graph or table, we will get to know where the management is actually giving excellent performance and if that attribute is at all important for the customers.
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The attributes come in the room of A; it will mean these attributes have high importance to the customers but the XYZ Restaurant management is not giving importance to it, so they need to concentrate there and immediately increase the service quality there.

The attributes will come in the room of B; it will mean these attributes are all okay in terms of getting importance from the customers and showing excellent performance by the XYZ Restaurant management. They just need to keep up the good work there.

The attributes will come in the room of C; are also okay. They are not that much important for the customers, neither the XYZ Restaurant management providing good performance there. So it is a low priority room.

Finally the attributes will come in the room of D; are just wasting time, money and energy of the XYZ Restaurant management. They are not important for the customers but the Restaurant management is giving excellent performance there. So they just need to possible overkill and stop putting so much effort in those attributes and concentrate on other important areas that lie on room A in the IPA Grid.

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