A gap analysis of service expectations and perceptions in private general practice

Abstract

Customer satisfaction is an issue of special importance to any business wanting to be competitive in the market place. Ensuring this requires among other things a good understanding of what drives customer satisfaction as well as measuring how one is doing as a service provider in those important areas. This study aimed at investigating private general practice patients’ service quality expectations and perceptions. Data was collected from a random sample of 220 patients of a private medical practice using a self filling structured questionnaire. The findings show that in general, customers have very high service quality expectations on all the five service quality dimensions used in the study. These included assurance, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and tangibles. In terms of perceptions on the services provided by the private general practice, the findings show that the practice failed to meet customer expectations in all the service quality dimensions. Despite this, the findings show that the customers were in general satisfied with the overall services provided by the practice. The findings have wider implications on the management of customers in private medical practices and these have been highlighted in the study. Key words: Service quality, private general practice, customer satisfaction, patients’ expectations.