01.How service quality can be define and improve?

Service quality is a term which describes a comparison of expectations with performance. [1]
A business with high service quality will meet customer needs whilst remaining economically competitive. [2] Improved service
quality may increase economic competitiveness.
This aim may be achieved by understanding and improving operational processes; identifying problems quickly and
systematically; establishing valid and reliable service performance measures and measuring customer satisfaction and other
performance outcomes.[3]
Dimensions of service quality
A customer's expectation of a particular service is determined by factors such as recommendations, personal needs and past
experiences. The expected service and the perceived service sometimes may not be equal, thus leaving a gap.
Ten determinants which may influence the appearance of a gap were described by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry. [6]
Competence is the possession of the required skills and knowledge to perform the service. For example, there may be
competence in the knowledge and skill of contact personnel, knowledge and skill of operational support personnel and research
capabilities of the organization.
Courtesy refers to factors such as politeness, respect, consideration and friendliness of the contact personnel; consideration for
the customer's property and a clean and neat appearance of contact personnel.
Credibility refers to factors such as trustworthiness, belief and honesty. It involves having the customer's best interests at prime
position. It may be influenced by company name, company reputation and the personal characteristics of the contact personnel.
Security represents the customer being free from danger, risk or doubt including physical safety, financial security and
confidentiality.
Access refers to approachability and ease of contact. For example, convenient office operation hours and locations.
Communication means both informing customers in a language they are able to understand and also listening to customers. A
company may need to adjust its language for the varying needs of its customers. Information might include for example,
explanation of the service and its cost, the relationship between services and costs and assurances as to the way any problems are
effectively managed.
Knowing the customer means making an effort to understand the customer's individual needs, providing individualized
attention, recognizing the customer when they arrive and so on. This in turn helps in delighting the customers i.e. rising above the
expectations of the customer.
Tangibles are the physical evidence of the service, for instance, the appearance of the physical facilities, tools and equipment
used to provide the service; the appearance of personnel and communication materials and the presence of other customers in the
service facility.
Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service in a dependable and accurate manner. The service is performed correctly
on the first occasion, the accounting is correct, records are up to date and schedules are kept.
Responsiveness refers to the readiness and willingness of employees to help customers in providing prompt timely services, for
example, mailing a transaction slip immediately or setting up appointments quickly.

8 steps to Improve.
1.Learn to listen to your customers first. Really listen to them - ask what you can do to help them.
This is the most important step in preventing problems and the only way you can solve complaints if
they come up.
2.Look at all complaints about your service as an opportunity to improve. Aim to resolve any
complaint quickly and efficiently.
3.Establish an environment where great service is recognized and rewarded and poor service is
challenged and rectified.
4.Have weekly fun staff meetings where good service elements are discussed.
5.Ensure that your staff feels they are an important part of your success.
6.Lead by example. Show respect for every person at every level in your company.
7.Do things regularly to improve the workplace. This does not have to be an expensive exercise. For
instance, if you have a small group, order pizzas one day for lunch for no particular reason, put a
candy jar on the reception desk for anyone to access, put a new coffee pot in the staff room or buy
some gourmet coffee. Little things get noticed and mean a lot. Happy staff = happy customers.
8.Give your staff a reason to come to work with a big smile on their face and a great attitude.
Paying them competitive wages so they can live comfortably in the area is a good start. The customer
service industry is rampant with poor pay and the jobs are pretty difficult at times. Be sure you show
your employees you care by giving them a decent wage.
02. How service be designed and test effectively?
Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and
material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between service
provider and customers. The purpose of service design methodologies is to design according to the
needs of customers or participants, so that the service is user-friendly, competitive and relevant to the
customers. The backbone of this process is to understand the behavior of the customers, their needs
and motivations. Service designers draw on the methodologies of fields such as ethnography and
journalism to gather customer insights through interviews and by shadowing service users. Many
observations are synthesized to generate concepts and ideas that are typically portrayed visually, for
example in sketches or service prototypes. Service design may inform changes to an existing service
or creation of new services.
Ideal Service design methodology
Together with the most traditional methods used for product design, service design requires methods and tools to control new
elements of the design process, such as the time and the interaction between actors. An overview of the methodologies for
designing services is proposed by (Morelli 2006), who proposes three main directions:
Identification of the actors involved in the definition of the service, using appropriate analytical tools
Definition of possible service scenarios, verifying use cases, sequences of actions and actors role, in order to define the
requirements for the service and its logical and organizational structure
Representation of the service, using techniques that illustrate all the components of the service, including physical elements,
interactions, logical links and temporal sequences

Analytical tools refer to anthropology, social studies, ethnography and social construction of technology. Appropriate
elaborations of those tools have been proposed with video-ethnography (Buur, Binder et al. 2000; Buur and Soendergaard 2000),
and different observation techniques to gather data about users behaviour (Kumar 2004) . Other methods, such as cultural
probes, have been developed in the design discipline, which aim at capturing information on customers in their context of use
(Gaver, Dunne et al. 1999; Lindsay and Rocchi 2003).
Design tools aim at producing a blueprint of the service, which describes the nature and characteristics of the interaction in the
service. Design tools include service scenarios (which describe the interaction) and use cases (which illustrate the detail of time
sequences in a service encounter). Both techniques are already used in software and systems engineering to capture the functional
requirements of a system. However, when used in service design, they have been adequately adapted, in order to include more
information, concerning material and immaterial component of a service, time sequences and physical flows (Morelli 2006).
Other techniques, such as IDEF0, just in time and Total quality management are used to produce functional models of the service
system and to control its processes. Such tools, though, may prove too rigid to describe services in which customers are supposed
to have an active role, because of the high level of uncertainty related to the customers behaviour.
Representation techniques are critical in service design, because of the need to communicate the inner mechanisms of services to
actors, such as final users, which are not supposed to be familiar with any technical language or representation technique. For this
reason storyboards are often used to illustrate the interaction on the front office.[1] Other representation techniques have been used
to illustrate the system of interactions or a platform in a service (Manzini, Collina et al. 2004). Recently, video sketching and
video prototypes have also been used to produce quick and effective tools to stimulate customers participation in the
development of the service and their involvement in the value production process.

Comment Card / Guest Satisfaction Surveys

How satisfied are your customers? Will they return? If so, why? If not, do you know why not? Are you wowing them on
a consistent basis to increase brand loyalty?
In todays consumer driven markets you must meet or exceed guest expectations if you want to stay in business for the long term
and gain loyalty and repeat business. Customer satisfaction should be the primary goal of your continuous quality improvement
program. Guests provide selected feedback about their stay, and we collect the information with sophisticated data entry software.
Once the information is collected, it is assimilated into report form for tracking and analysis. This is a useful tool for providing
valuable insight into guests experiences over a specific period of time.
Both narrative and check box scoring responses can be used for tracking comparisons and monitoring performance among
multiple properties. Verify International conducts satisfaction surveys designed to identify and analyze key performance
criteria within your organization.
Our surveys will help you:

Eliminate the time consuming task of managing information.

Determine satisfaction levels with products and services.

Identify opportunities for improvements.

Acknowledge top employees for recognition and incentive programs.

Monitor the impact and trends of improvements or changes within the organization.

10.How to communicate value to customers

Festive season retail sales bring to mind the question of customer value.
The perception of value is one of the most important elements of pricing. If customers dont think they are getting value for
money, you have no pricing power you cant lift prices to maintain profitability without losing many customers. However, if
customers believe they are getting value for money, they will remain loyal despite price increases.
Value is not just a single element (price); it encompasses a range of attributes of your goods and services for which customers are
willing to pay. Value is provided by a goods or services low cost, by its highly differentiated features or by a combination of low
cost and high differentiation, compared with competitors goods or services.
Value can be separated into seven components:
- service
- response
- variety
- knowledge
- quality
- guarantee
- price
Since price is only one component of value, experienced marketers seek to maintain perceived value by ensuring the attributes of
the other variables are emphasized to offset price rises mainly using marketing communication, advertising and promotion.
Seasoned marketers resist giving price discounts and reductions because these inevitably cause price wars that no-one wins,
except, perhaps, the customer in the short term.
In the search for competitive advantage, one of the most important steps to carry out is a customer value analysis. This
determines the benefits that customers in a market segment want and how they perceive the relative value of competing offers,
including yours. As a PR practitioner, once you know the key points of differentiation, you can base the main themes of your
marketing communication on those points. The main steps in customer value analysis are:

Identify the major attributes that customers value. Ask customers what main functions and performance levels they
look for in choosing the respective product and, if relevant, the retail outlets where the product is sold. Different
customers will nominate different features and benefits.

Assess the quantitative importance of the different attributes. Ask customers to rate or rank the importance of the
different attributes. If the ratings diverge greatly, they should be clustered into different customer segments.

Assess the performance of your organization and competitors on the different customer values against their rated
importance. Ask customers where they see the performance of your organization and each competitor on each attribute.
Ideally, your organizations performance should be rated high on the attributes that customers value most and low on
the attributes they value least.

Examine how customers in a specific segment rate your organizations performance against a specific major competitor
on an attribute-by-attribute basis.

Monitor customer values over time. Although customer values are fairly stable in the short term, they are likely to
change as technologies and features change and as economic environments change. The research on customer values
and competitors standings needs to be conducted periodically to ensure the findings are up-to-date. 1

11.How to Achieve Consistent Quality and Service Delivery at Every Level of Your Organization
Successful companies know how to get their employees to do the right things right for the right reasons at the right time, each and
every time.

Here's the good news: Your customers want to do business with you. If they didn't, they'd probably go somewhere else. The bad
news is your customers will go somewhere else if you fail to consistently deliver on your quality and service promises.
When a customer patronizes your business for the first time he takes a risk. He doesn't know if your products will be good. He
hopes your service delivery will be pleasant, but he hasn't no assurance that he will have a quality experience with your company.
That first experience and every subsequent experience thereafter determines whether the customer will be loyal to your
business. If the customer's requirements are met satisfactorily on the first visit, most likely he will patronize your business again.
But, if his needs are not met, many customers won't give you a second chance.
01.Consistent Service is Key to Customer Loyalty
The key to repeat business is consistency in both what you offer and how you deliver it. Customers will be loyal and return again
and again when they have confidence in your products and services. They will come back when they trust they will have a
consistent experience each and every time they patronize your business. The strength of customer loyalty is in direct proportion
to the confidence they feel regarding how well you will consistently deliver on your service promise.
02.Determining What Your Customers Want
Consistency starts with knowing why your company, or department, or job classification exists. It begins with pinpointing the
"products" or "services" your customers actually want to buy and the intrinsic reason(s) why they buy them. Consistent service
delivery entails having a clear view of your products and services from your customers' perspective. It involves knowing the true
needs, wants, expectations and requirements of your target customers.
Therefore, the first step in the Consistent Service Model is the development of a Product Description.
A product description describes what "products" your customers want. It states why your business "exists" from the customers'
point of view. The clear articulation of your product description helps you deliver your products and services according to the
customers' requirements as they perceive those requirements, not to some standard or specification that you or your company
may arbitrarily establish.
The key to success in business is giving your customers what they want as they want it. If your company fails to deliver your
products or services according to your customers' expectations, you could find your enterprise going out of existence as your
customers defect to competitors who are giving them what they want.
03.Implied Promises
A product description very succinctly defines the Implied Promises inherent in your products and services. Implied promises are
assurances already inherent in your products and services
For example, customers who patronize a fast food restaurant want fast food. They want their fast food to be hot and fresh. They
also expect their order to be filled accurately. Fast food restaurants who deliver a quality food product fast, hot, fresh and
accurately will have a significant competitive advantage over restaurants who don't meet these customer requirements.
Similarly, a person who buys a power tool wants it to work -- they want it to be reliable. They also expect it to work for a long
time they want the tool to be durable. They want the tool to be easy to use and to perform the functions it is designed to perform
at the level promised. Finally, since it is a power tool, they expect the tool to be safe.
04.Know What You're Selling
The best product descriptions are those that clearly identify what a company is selling. This is not as obvious as it may seem.
Many hotel owners, for example, think they are selling rooms. Consequently, they build as many rooms as they can as cheaply as
they can by having thinner walls between the rooms. They then try to create a high profit margin by filling their thin-walled
rooms with a high volume of guests.

The best hotels the ones that create the greatest customer loyalty are the hotels who realize the product they are actually
selling is sleep. Hotel patrons go to a hotel to sleep. Hotels who sell sleep design their facility to ensure nothing disrupts their
customers' sleep. Thin walls mean noise, and noise means sleepless nights. Hotel guests who can't sleep usually do not repeat the
experience. They go to a hotel where they know they can get a good night's sleep. Hotels who sell sleep consistently outperform
those who just sell rooms.
05.Let me give you some examples.
A potwasher in a restaurant sells clean, sterile pots that are free of crusty food, grease and grime. The chefs and cooks the
potwasher's customers either "buy" the pots from the potwasher or they don't. Any pots not cleaned to the chef's satisfaction are
returned to the potwasher until they meet the chef's requirements. Additionally, the potwasher must place the pots where the chef
wants them, not wherever the potwasher wishes. The potwasher must cheerfully wash the pots no matter how many times the
cook gets them dirty. If the potwasher continues to fail to clean the pots to the chef's satisfaction in the manner the chef requires,
the potwasher may soon find he or she is no longer employed as a potwasher.
06.Delivering What Your Customers Want
Once you know what your customers really want and must have to be fully satisfied with your products and services, the next
step is to "guarantee" you will deliver that each and every time.
The second step in the Consistent Service Model is defining your Service Guarantees. Service guarantees are clearly articulated
internal measurements you must achieve to consistently meet your customers' expectations. Service guarantees quantify your
product description. If you fail to deliver at any time on your Implied Promises customers will lose trust and confidence in your
delivery and will go somewhere else. Again, trust and confidence create loyal customers. Therefore, you must ensure, or
guarantee, that proper delivery on the core requirements happens each and every time by each and every employee.
Service guarantees typically are determined from your product description. They are the critical quality and service standards you
must consistently achi-eve in order to fulfill your product descripttion.
For example, the service guarantees that hotel customers want are relatively clear. Hotel patrons want a clean, safe, quiet,
comfortable, and fully-functional room. They want it every time. If the room is not clean even once, or the room is robbed once,
or the lights don't work one time; the customers will lose confidence in the hotel. They will seek competitors who they feel better
"guarantee" the cleanliness, safety, quietness, comfort, and functionality they require in a hotel room.
Service guarantees are the measurable standards you set to ensure your employees deliver a consistent product. They are the
critical indicators of whether your employees are winning or losing. Service guarantees are the scorecard and measurement of
your success.
07.Ensuring Consistency in Day-to-Day Operations
The only way you can "guarantee" your products and service delivery will be the same each time is by ensuring all of your
employees maintain the same Standards, abide by the same Policies and Procedures, and use the same Processes, Practices and
Systems to perform their jobs at the desired level. If one housekeeper uses one procedure or process to clean a hotel room, and
another has a different procedure or process, the room may be cleaned inconsistently. Standards, policies, procedures, processes,
practices and systems are put in place as a means to replicate the specific performance and experience expected by your
customers. If employees fail to follow those guidelines, it's impossible to guarantee the results will be consistent. Consistent
enforcement of the defined procedures and processes is the key to consistent service. Your employees need to realize the
importance of performing their work and following the policies, procedures, processes and practices exactly as designed. And
they must commit to do so each and every time.
Once you know the standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems necessary to deliver on the implied
promises, the next step is to train your staff to faithfully abide by them. The most effective Training, therefore, is training that is
targeted specifically to instruct employees on the standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems necessary to
guarantee their existence. The only training that has real, lasting value is that which is linked to the employees' product
description, service guarantees, and the tasks they must carry out to meet the customers' specific requirements.