Week 3 - Designing Quality Services

Question 1

What characteristics of services separates them from manufacturing? (5)

Answer 1

• Many service attributes are intangible
• The outputs of services are also heterogeneous (so no two services are the same)
• Production and consumption of services often occur simultaneously
• Customer contact
• Customer coproduction

Question 2

How are service quality issues different from those in manufacturing? (3)

Answer 2

• Intangibility - response time could be one of the objective measures for service quality
• Simultaneous production and consumption (do it right at the first time)
• Customer contact - need high customisation and hence great variability

Question 3

Implications of service quality issues (5)

Answer 3

• Difficult to obtain hard data
• You have to do it right first time because you cannot inspect and rework defects
• There is significantly more variability due to customisation
• Warranty and repair processes are not as important
• Liability centres around safety concerns

Question 4

How are Service quality issues similar to manufacturing? (2)

Answer 4

• The customer is the core of the business
• Customer needs to provide the major input to change

Question 5

What are the key aspects of a service leader that customers want? (3)

Answer 5

• Service vision - fully understand the need to deliver a high quality service
• High standards - being better equipped than rivals to deliver a better service
• In-the-field leadership style - allows for clear understanding of what the customers want

Question 6

What are the 5 dimensions that make up a quality service? (5)

Answer 6

• Reliability
• Assurance
• Tangibles
• Empathy
• Responsiveness

Question 7

What is meant by reliability? - 5 dimensions that make up a quality service

Answer 7

Is the ability of the service provider to perform the promised service dependably and accurately

Question 8

What is meant by assurance - 5 dimensions that make up a quality service

Answer 8

Is the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire thrust and confidence

Question 9

What is meant by tangibility - 5 dimensions that make up a quality service

Answer 9

Is the physical appearance of the service facility, the equipment, the personnel, and the communication materials

Question 10

What is meant by empathy - 5 dimensions that make up a quality service

Answer 10

Caring and individualised attention from the service firm

Question 11

What is meant by responsiveness- 5 dimensions that make up a quality service

Answer 11

Is the willingness of the service provider to be helpful and prompt in providing service

Question 12

What is SERVQUAL?

Answer 12

Is a survey instrument for accessing quality along the 5 service quality dimensions

Question 13

What can you learn from a Gap analysis (2)

Answer 13

• Customer expectations
• Customer perceptions

Question 14

Characteristic GAP 1 - Gap analysis

Answer 14

Is about what management think customers want versus what they really want

Question 15

What happens in Gap 2 of the Gap analysis?

Answer 15

Comparison between what is written in the service specifications versus what management wants

Question 16

What is Gap 3 of the Gap analysis?

Answer 16

Is the service the customer experiences versus the service specified

Question 17

What is Gap 4 of the gap analysis?

Answer 17

The service promised versus the service experienced

Question 18

What is Gap 5 of the Gap analysis?

Answer 18

Is the difference between expected service and perceived service

Question 19

SERVQUAL dimensions (5)

Answer 19

• Tangibles (1-4)
• Reliability (5-9)
• Responsiveness (10-13)
• Assurance (14-17)
• Empathy (18-22)

Question 20

What are the two parts of the SERVQUAL survey?

Answer 20

• Customer expectations (22 items)
• Customer perceptions (22 items)

Question 21

How do you assess the differences in expectations? (Differencing technique) (4)

Answer 21

• Identify a sample size of customers
• Compute a difference score for SERVQUAL by separating the dimensions (1-4 up to 18-22)
• For each respondent sum the SERVQUAL scores for each set of items relating to a given dimension
• Sum across the n respondents and divide by the total n

Question 22

What are the benefits of the two-dimensional differencing? (2)

Answer 22

• Useful of there is enough variation in the responses given to different dimensions
• Allows the firm to determine which services it should emphasise to improve customer perceptions and those that make little difference

Question 23

What are the advantages of SERVQUAL? (4)

Answer 23

• Allows for the assessment of different dimensions of service quality
• Reliable
• Only 22 items so it can be filled out quickly by customers and employees
• Standardised analysis procedure to aid interpretation and results

Question 24

What are questionnaires?

Answer 24

They collect large amounts of data on expectations and perceptions of a service

Question 25

When are interviews most suitable?

Answer 25

For richer information about customer needs and expectations of a service

Question 26

What is service Transaction analysis?

Answer 26

Is a service improvement technique that allows managers to analyse their service processors at a very detailed level

Question 27

Service Transaction Analysis method

Answer 27

Involves identifying transactions and evaluating them from the customer’s perspective to determine whether there is a gap between service design and what the customer perceives as the service