Service Quality

New Directions in Theory and Practice

Roland T. Rust, Richard L. Oliver, Roland Rust, Richard L. Oliver

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1993
• Print ISBN: 9780803949201
• eBook ISBN: 9781506332673
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Marketing

The importance of service and service quality has been growing in the world economy since the late 1970s. Establishing new levels of sophistication and rigor, as well as a broad set of approaches, Service Quality presents the latest research and theory in customer satisfaction and services marketing. Designed to advance the practice of delivering superior service, the field?s leading scholars and practitioners present a wealth of ideas that include measuring the managerial impact of service quality improvement, new methods of assessing the various elements of service quality, and philosophies about the nature of customer value. Presenting diverse points of view and revealing a variety of emerging ideas, the editors conclude with a look toward the future of service quality. An exhilarating--and sometimes demanding--change of pace, Service Quality is essential for professionals, researchers, scholars, and students in marketing studies.

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CHAPTER ONE

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Service Quality

Insights and Managerial Implications From the Frontier

ROLAND T. RUST

RICHARD L. OLIVER

Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University

New ideas in service quality currently center on better understanding how the customer is affected by service quality, how a firm implements and measures service quality improvement, and how key trends are likely to affect service quality management in the coming years. Effectively managing service quality requires a clear understanding of what service quality means to the customer. Thus we must understand the nature of customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer value and how these factors interact. Improving the quality of service then requires managing the service product, the service environment, and the service delivery. All of these issues are likely to be affected strongly by several underlying trends, pointing to how business must change in the coming years. We summarize the key issues that should be addressed by managers and by future research.

One of us (Rust) recently gave a lecture to an alumni gathering at Vanderbilt on the topic of Total Quality Management (TQM) and how it was being misapplied (see Kordupleski, Rust, & Zahorik, 1992). The theme was that managers must link internal process quality to the quality perceived by the customer (see also Bolton & Drew, chap. 8, this volume, for an elaboration of these ideas) and that cost reductions through mass layoffs should not be confused with quality improvement, although cost reduction may often be a side benefit of quality improvement. An attendee, a vice president of a major company, objected strenuously, stating that cost reductions through massive layoffs were the true meaning of TQM. He suggested that the professors addressing the gathering should teach their MBA students no more than what companies tell them and that the appropriate role of a professor was to simply be a reporter for the “best practices” of business.

This incident reveals two things: first, that some business people think that academics do not listen to them, and second, that some business people do not want to listen to academics. In this case, the executive’s presumption that the professors were ignorant of the business world was wrong. Through the Owen School Center for Services Marketing, we have established close ties to several leading businesses, including AT&T, which has won more Baldrige Awards than any other firm. But the executive was correct in implying that the academic viewpoint and the managerial viewpoint do not meet often enough and that the two worldviews need to be merged for best results.

In this chapter, we seek to merge the academic view with the managerial view. We start from the premise that managers and academics can and should talk to each other. The best academic research has important implications for managers and reveals new insights for managing service quality more effectively. In fact, some of the best academic research is being done by researchers in industry, as may be seen from the sophisticated yet practical chapter by the authors from GTE (Bolton & Drew, chap. 8).

Service quality is by nature a subjective concept, which means that understanding how the customer thinks about service quality is essential to effective management. Three related concepts are crucial to this understanding: customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer value. Managers often treat these concepts as interchangeable, but the latest thinking is that they are quite distinct (cf. Bitner & Hubbert, chap. 3; Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Holbrook, chap. 2; Oliver, 1993; Zeithaml, 1988), which has important implications for management and measurement.

In brief, customer satisfaction is a summary cognitive and affective reaction to a service incident (or sometimes to a long-term service relationship). Satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) results from experiencing a service quality encounter and comparing that encounter with what was expected (Oliver, 1980). Service quality may be measured on an incident-specific or cumulative basis. Value includes not only quality, but also price. A service may be of excellent quality, but still be rated as a poor value if its price is too high. Additionally, value has meaning much beyond the confines of economic analysis (Holbrook, chap. 2). Effective management of service quality requires a working knowledge of these concepts.

Managing service quality involves three distinct aspects: designing the service product, designing the service environment, and delivering the service. Very different methods are appropriate for the three aspects, and all three are addressed thoughtfully in the coming chapters. In particular, the service product is whatever service “features” are offered. It is designed into the service (Neslin, 1983). The service environment is the setting and props required to administer the service (Bitner, 1992). It is also designed into the service. By contrast, the service delivery is how the service is provided on a specific occasion (Bitner, Booms, & Tetreault, 1990).

These distinctions make it clear that service quality measurement must not only differentiate between satisfaction, quality, and value, but it must also involve the service product, service environment, and service delivery. The coming chapters discuss all of these aspects from a wide variety of viewpoints.

In the remainder of this chapter, we attempt to show how the other chapters fit into our framework and also take the opportunity to share some of our own insights. In the next section, we discuss how the customer perceives and reacts to service quality and service satisfaction. In the third section, we discuss the managerial implementation of service quality and how service quality should be measured, and in the final section, gaps in our knowledge and how current trends are likely to affect service quality management in the coming years.

Service Quality: The Customer’s Mind

An understanding of the concepts of satisfaction, quality, and value is necessary for managing service quality effectively. These concepts are subjective and occur in the customer’s mind, but they also drive customer retention and future choice.

Customer Satisfaction

As noted in Oliver (1993), the word “satisfaction” is derived from the Latin satis (enough) and facere (to do or make). A related word is “satiation,” which loosely means “enough” or “enough to excess.” These terms illustrate the point that satisfaction implies a filling or fulfillment. Thus, consumer satisfaction can be viewed as the consumer’s fulfillment response.

Recent interpretations in the consumer domain, however, allow for a greater range of response than mere fulfillment (see Oliver, 1989). Fulfillment implies that a satiation level is known, as in the basic needs of water, food, and shelter. Observers of human behavior, however, understand that each of these need levels can be (and frequently is) exceeded in various ways. Thus, consumer researchers have moved away from the literal meaning of fulfillment or satisfaction and now pursue this concept as the consumer experiences and describes it.

Oliver’s (1989) framework views satisfaction as a state of fulfillment related to reinforcement and arousal. Low arousal fulfillment is described as “satisfaction-as-contentment,” which assumes only that the product/service performs satisfactorily in an ongoing, passive sense. One’s refrigerator is a good example of this; one is content as long as the food remains at the proper temperature. In contrast, high arousal satisfaction is defined as “satisfaction-as-surprise,” which can be positive (e.g., delight) or negative (e.g., shock). “Satisfaction-as-pleasure” results when positive reinforcement occurs, such as when the product/service adds utility or pleasure to a (nonnegative) resting state. Entertainment is one such example. Last, “satisfaction-as-relief” results from “negative reinforcement,” or the removal of an aversive state. Pain relievers provide an example of this mechanism.

Thus, these cases describe satisfaction states and are not limited to mere satiation. In this sense, overfulfillment can be satisfying, as in exceedingly high arousal (astonishment) and high pleasure (ecstasy) situations. By broadening the old definition of satisfaction as mere fulfillment, service satisfaction can become more meaningful. Unlike product satisfaction, service delivery can be tailored to greatly exceed expectations on both the surprise and pleasure dimensions.

Satisfaction can also be described as a process. Currently, the most widely adopted of the process theories is that of “expectancy disconfirmation,” in which satisfaction is viewed as largely based on meeting or exceeding expectations (Erevelles & Leavitt, 1992; Oliver, 1977, 1980, 1981; Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988; Tse, Nicosia, & Wilton, 1990; Yi, 1990).

The operation of expectancy disconfirmation in influencing satisfaction is generally seen as two processes, consisting of forming expectations based on external (Steenkamp & Hoffman, chap. 4) or internal (Folkes, chap. 5; Oliver & Winer, 1987) cues, and a subsequent “disconfirmation” judgment, or comparison of those expectations against the outcome (DeSarbo, Huff, Rolandelli, & Choi, chap. 9; Oliver, 1980; Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988). Sometimes this comparison may be actually calculated, especially in early stages of the process; later stages may be interpreted more subjectively (Oliver & Bearden, 1985; Swan & Trawick, 1981). For example, consumers may calculate their automobile gas mileage and then feel that the resulting number of miles per gallon is much worse (or better) than expected. This latter subjective comparison is thought to be a prime determinant of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Research has shown that this paradigm is fairly robust across various contexts, including product experience; interpersonal dealings with, for example, salespeople (Oliver & Swan, 1989); and many services, including restaurant dining (Cadotte, Woodruff, & Jenkins, 1987; Swan & Trawick, 1981), health care (Oliver, 1980; Oliver & Bearden, 1985), security transactions (Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988), and telephone service (Bolton & Drew, 1991). Although subjective disconfirmation frequently emerges as the key determinant of customer satisfaction, direct effects of outcomes and expectations are also frequently observed and help explain satisfaction (Adelman, Ahuvia, & Goodwin, chap. 7; Bolton & Drew, chap. 8; Churchill & Surprenant, 1982; Deighton, chap. 6; Oliver, 1980; Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988; Tse & Wilton, 1988).

Service Quality

In response to a perceived dissimilarity between product and service quality, Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985, 1988; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Berry, 1990) created a measure of service quality (SERVQUAL) from data on a number of services. Rather than rely on previous dimensions of goods quality, they began their work with qualitative research, which suggested 10 dimensions of service quality. Later empirical verification reduced the 10 dimensions to 5 (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy).

In their approach, the authors propose that customers entertain expectations of performance on the service dimensions, observe performance, and later form performance perceptions. These two key concepts are then compared through difference scores or “gaps.” By examining the wording of the expectations and perceptions scales, the thrust of the SERVQUAL instrument becomes more evident, as does the meaning of service quality. The expectations section of the survey is constructed with reference to an ideal company that delivers excellent quality of service. As such, the instrument is framed within the concept of ideal expectations (Miller, 1977). Thus, the SERVQUAL instrument illustrates the core of what service quality may mean, namely a comparison to excellence in service by the customer.

Oliver (1993) notes some distinctions between the meanings of quality and satisfaction. First, he points out that the dimensions underlying quality judgments are rather specific, whether they be cues or attributes (Bolton & Drew, chap. 8; Steenkamp, 1990). Satisfaction judgments, however, can result from any dimension, quality related or not. For example, a high-quality dining experience might include a congenial waitperson, exotic entrees, and a varied wine list. However, (dis)satisfaction could be influenced by parking problems, an inordinately long wait, and an inoperative credit card telesystem—none of which are under the control of the restaurateur and thus would not be considered as “quality” dimensions. Similarly, expectations for quality are based on ideals or “excellence” perceptions, whereas a large number of nonquality issues, including needs (Westbrook & Reilly, 1983) and equity, or “fairness” perceptions (Oliver & Swan, 1989), help form satisfaction judgments (see also Folkes, chap. 5). Further, quality perceptions do not require experience with the service or provider. Many establishments (e.g., five-star restaurants) are perceived as high quality by consumers who have never visited them. Satisfaction, in contrast, is purely experiential. Finally, quality has fewer conceptual antecedents, although personal and impersonal communications play a major role (Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1993). Satisfaction, however, is known to be influenced by a number of cognitive and affective processes including equity, attribution, and emotion.

The perspective to be taken here is that, as found in Cronin and Taylor (1992), satisfaction is superordinate to quality—that quality is one of the service dimensions factored into the consumer’s satisfaction judgment. Subsequent to this effect, satisfaction may reinforce quality perceptions, but only indirectly (cf. Bitner & Hubbert, chap. 3). Quality is hypothesized as one dimension on which satisfaction is based and satisfaction is one potential influence on future quality perceptions. If one can conceptualize occasions where satisfaction and quality are at variance (satisfaction with low quality, dissatisfaction with high quality), then the concepts are not the same.

Satisfaction with low quality can exist whenever one’s expectations in a given situation are low and performance is adequate to the task. Emergency situations fit this scenario well. It matters little if a mechanic uses duct tape to fix a broken-down car if that makes th...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Service Quality: Insights and Managerial Implications From the Frontier
• Defining Service Quality
• Forming Service Quality Expectations
• The Impact of Service Quality
• The Future of Service Quality
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• About the Contributors