Two Approaches to Service Quality Dimensions

1. Article 7 Two Approaches to Service Quality Dimensions By Uolevi Lehtinen and Jarmo R. Lehtinen Presented by Willis Lee

2. Objective • To determine the value of two different approaches to the analysis of service quality and its dimensions.

3. Previous Work • Gronroos (1984) • Article 12. Service Quality Model 1 (SQ1): Technical and Functional Quality Model. Service quality depends on technical quality, functional quality, and corporate image of the organization in consideration. Functional quality is more important than the technical quality. Weakness: The model does not offer an explanation on how to measure functional and technical quality.

4. Previous Work • Lehtinen U. (1984) • Service quality is produced in interaction mainly between a customer and elements of a service organization, mainly a contact person or persons.

5. Previous Work • Eric Langeard (1981) • A study of customer participation. Langeard studied the intensity and style of customer participation by carrying out a study at a bank and a petrol station.

6. First Approach • 3 Quality Dimensions • Physical: Originating in the physical elements of service. • Interactive: Actual resources from the company side in contact with customers. • Corporate: How customers see the image of the service organization. Develops from the onset of the organization.

7. Methodology – First Approach • Analysis of customer interviews of 3 restaurant’s service qualities. • Disco restaurant: 15 customers extensively interviewed. • Lunch restaurant: 15 customers extensively interviewed. • Pub-type restaurant: 10 customers extensively interviewed.

8. Results - First Approach • Disco Restaurant • 3 categories of consumers • Dancers: Concerned with quality of the physical support dimensions and interactive qualities which contributed to the corporate quality. • Bar people: Concerned with physical product and total interactive quality. • Medium participators: Passive, but concerned with the environment, particularly music.

9. Results - First Approach • Lunch Restaurant • Divided into participation frequency categories • Heavy users: Concerned with aspects of physical quality, but most important factor was fast service. • Light users: Concerned with high price despite the good physical quality.

10. Results – First Approach • Pub-type Restaurant • 3 categories of consumers • Eating customers (heavy users): Concerned with location, physical support, physical product, and interactive persons. • Drinking customers (heavy users): Concerned with location, customer-oriented interactive quality, and less concerned with interactive persons. • Occasional customers: same as other two

12. Second Approach • 2 Quality Dimensions • Process Quality: Consumer’s qualitative evaluation of his participation in the service production process. Based on consumer’s personal and subjective judgment. • Output Quality: Consumer’s evaluation concerning the result of a service production process.

13. Methodology – Second Approach • 20 consumer’s were interviewed at each restaurant. Starting with open questions and progressing to structured questions. Pilot study conducted to develop and test questions. • Popular dance restaurant • Medium-level dance restaurant • High-level dance restaurant

14. Results - Second Approach • 1) Pleasantness • Includes the company of others and personnel as well as the surroundings and music. • Chasing (flirting) • The seeking of congenial company • Pertinence (relevance) • In other words, relevant.

15. Results - Second Approach • Food • Food and eating. • Dancing • Opportunity for dancing and characteristics important for dancers. • Passive Participation • Drinking and observation.

16. Conclusions - Pros • Quality concepts used were fairly suitable for analyzing the restaurant services. • “Soft” data was clear enough to understand customer expectations. • Service quality analysis is a useful way of segmenting customers and service offerings. • Provides promising potential for developing managerially useful data.

17. Conclusions - Cons • Certain problems still exist with these approaches. • Data-collection is time consuming. • Data can be difficult or subjective to interpret. • The more intangible and comprehensive the dimension is, the less straightforward it is. • Only helps in grasping specific situations and providing details, rather than providing general answers.

18. Conclusions - Improvement • Methodology should be developed to improve data collection efforts. Computer-aided analysis could be used. • Necessary to gain more experience on the suitability of the approaches in a wider sector of services.

19. Summary - Mgmt Implications • Both approaches are useful to provide insight into the various service qualities that management should focus their attention. • The first approach is more simple because it divides service quality into 3 broad categories. Therefore, it is simpler to grasp a general idea of the service quality level, however, it may not provide specific enough feedback for management to develop an effective service quality improvement strategy. • The second approach is more detailed in that it divides service quality into 6 categories that were created directly from customer’s feedback. Therefore, it can be customized to fit various services, as well as provide detailed feedback to management. However, developing questions is subjective and interpreting the results can be time consuming.