Service Quality Concepts and Gaps Quiz

Chapter 11: Defining and Measuring Customer Satisfaction

• Customer satisfaction is a subjective assessment of a product or service, compared to expectations.
• Satisfied customers are more likely to repurchase and recommend the product/service to others.
• Measuring customer satisfaction is essential for businesses to understand customer needs and improve their operations.
• The Technical Assistance Research Program (TARP) found that most unhappy customers don't complain.
• For every complaint, 26 customers likely have the same issue.
• Satisfied customers are likely to recommend businesses to others if problems are resolved promptly.
• Customer satisfaction surveys provide a formal means for customer feedback, conveying the firm values customer input and helps identify existing/potential problems.
• Surveys also evaluate employee performance, assist in advertising, and allow comparisons with competitors.
• Measuring customer satisfaction involves indirect (sales data, profits, complaints) and direct methods (e.g., 100-point scale, very satisfied/dissatisfied approach, combined approach).
• Customer expectations, often influenced by price and the physical facility, are key drivers of desired service expectations.
• Individual factors and situational factors can impact adequate service expectations.
• Customer ratings are often high and skewed in favour of satisfaction.
• The decision to invest in improving satisfaction ratings depends on the costs, potential impact on profits, and timeline for recuperating the investment compared to other alternatives, including competition.
• Customer satisfaction can be affected by biases in response (e.g., social desirability), the method of data collection, and the timing/context of the questions.
• Customers have predicted, desired, and adequate service expectations.
• Perception of service quality is measured by comparing predicted service with perceived service, comparing ideal with perceived, or comparing adequate service with perceived service.
• The knowledge gaps influence consumer perceptions of service quality (difference between consumer expectations and management's perception of expectations).
• The standards gap (difference between management's perceived expectations and service standards).
• The delivery gap (difference between standards and actual delivery).
• The communication gap (difference between actual service delivery and perceived in communications).
• The service gap represents customer expectations with customer perception of the service.

Chapter 12: Defining and Measuring Service Quality

• Service quality is the long-run, overall evaluation of a firm's performance.
• Customer satisfaction is a short-run, transaction-specific measurement.
• Gaps in service quality influence consumer perceptions: knowledge gap (difference between customer expectations and management's perception), the standards gap, the delivery gap, the communication gap, and the service gap.
• Research orientation, upward communication, and a simplified managerial hierarchy contribute to minimizing the knowledge gap.
• Commitment to service quality and costs are factors in the standards gap.
• Service quality factors such as employee-job fit, role conflicts, role ambiguity, and dispersion of control are part of the delivery gap.
• Overpromising, communication and support issues, and horizontal communication influence the communication gap.
• SERVQUAL is a tool for measuring service quality, comparing customer perceptions with expected service.
• It examines five dimensions of quality: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles.
• A service quality information system can use mystery shoppers, employee surveys, customer complaints, after-sale surveys, and focus groups to assess customer service effectiveness.
• Criticisms of SERVQUAL include questionnaire length, the redundancy of expectation and perception questions, and validity of the five service quality dimensions.

Chapter 13: Complaints and Service Recovery

• Complaints can be instrumental or noninstrumental, ostensive, or reflexive.
• Complainers can be categorized into meek, aggressive, high-roller, and chronic complainers.
• Reasons for complaining include correcting problems, emotional release, regaining control, soliciting sympathy, and testing consensus.
• Customers may not complain due to doubts about the effectiveness, avoiding confrontation, or lack of expertise.
• Customer complaint outcomes include voice, exit, and retaliation (revenge).
• Service recovery involves examining service failure types and implementing recovery strategies.
• Mechanistic recovery involves formal steps.
• Organic recovery relies on values and beliefs within the company.
• Steps in service recovery: determining the need for recovery, identifying the root cause and selecting a recovery strategy (compensatory or restoration).
• Emphasize perceived distributive, procedural, and interactional justice in service recovery.
• Track and monitor service failures, employee recovery efforts, and evaluate effectiveness.

Chapter 14: Customer Loyalty & Retention

• Retention, or keeping existing customers, is important in a stagnant market due to high marketing costs and changing customer demographics.
• Customer loyalty is a rational and emotional attachment to the business, beyond mere satisfaction.
• Customer retention involves efforts to satisfy current customers.
• Successful tactics for customer retention include understanding customers, staying in touch, providing discretionary effort, empowering employees, and remembering customer purchases.
• Techniques include leading through top-term loyalty, utilizing incentives, maintaining reliability, and building trust through flexibility and availability.
• Frequency marketing, relationship marketing, and after-marketing are important concepts.
• Guarantees, such as implicit, specific results, or unconditional guarantees can enhance customer loyalty.
• Defection management involves a three-step plan: communicating the importance of retention to employees; training them on defection management; and linking incentives to defection rates, and establishing barriers to switching.
• Defectors have various reasons: price, product, service, market, technological, and organizational.
• Understanding these reasons and implementing appropriate strategies are critical.

Test your understanding of service quality principles with this quiz. Explore gaps identified in service delivery, the SERVQUAL model, and the key dimensions of service quality. Challenge yourself with scenarios and definitions related to customer satisfaction and service performance.