What Causes Gaps in Services Quality?
Ans.   The assessment of quality takes place in the customer’s mind simultaneously as services are created and delivered. The customers level of satisfaction is largely influenced by the difference between customer’s expectation and perception of service performance Whom the delivered service is perceived to be better than expected, the outcome is that the customer is satisfied and vice-versa.
           The Gap between expected service and delivered services has its origin at different points:
Gap 1 : Customer’s Expectation (Not knowing what customers expect):
           It is simply not known what the customers expect. The intangible nature of service makes it difficult to define customer expectations quantitatively.
Even the customer sometimes is not articulate enough to explain as to what are his/her specific expectations.
It is also observed that some service quality dimensions are difficult to qualify.
As a result, marketers have to depend upon their own judgement, which sometimes is at a variance with the customer expectations.
Gap 2 : Management Perception of Customers Expectation (Not selecting the right service design standard) :
The customer expectation need to be translated into appropriate performance standards. Many a time a service firm has a good idea as to what customers expect but fail to develop them into appropriate service specifications. There are many reasons responsible for it. Inadequate commitment to quality, lack of inclination to specify quality standards and measure quality. Perception of unfeasibility, perception that services cannot be standardised etc.
Gap 3 : Service Delivery. (Not delivering to service standards) :
This reflects variation of the actual performance from the standard performance i.e. failure to conform to established standards. It occurs when the employees are unable to or unwilling to perform at desired level. Role ambiguity, role conflict, poor employee-job fit, lack of training, absence of proper motivation system etc may be the reasons for it.
Gap 4: External Marketing Communication. (Not marching performance to promises)
A service company’s external communication efforts i.e. advertising, publicity, personal selling and public relations may over-promise and that logically results into this gap to occur. The marketers find it very hard to resist the temptation of making big promises. Otherwise they know that if they don’t make tall promises their appeal to the customers won’t be that exciting and the entire promotion exercise may be reduced to any.
Gap 5 : Actual Service Performance. (The customer gap) :
           This Gap occurs when the customers’ perception of delivered service is at variance with the expected service. The customers’ experience of the service is conflict upon many factors and sometimes the service may need customers’ expectations and yet perceived otherwise.
The key to providing good service quality is meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations. This gap is the end result of earlier four gaps.
Zeithaml summarized by stating that “Service quality is a subjective assessment that customers arrive at by comparing the service level they believe an organisation ought to deliver to the service level they perceive is being delivered”.
According to his team of researchers, the gap between customer expectations and perceptions is caused by a series of organisational gaps.
They are :
1. Â Â Â Â Marketing Information Gap : The management either mis-perceives or is not fully aware of its customer’s service expectation.
2. Â Â Â Â Standard Gap : When a firm’s service quality specification do not match with the customer’s expectation then the standard gap occurs.
3. Â Â Â Â Service Performance Gap : The difference between the service quality specification and the service actually delivered causes the service performance gap.
4. Â Â Â Â Communication Gap : This occurs when there is a discrepancy between communication to customers describing the service offer and the service actually delivered.
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