Identifying service performance gap: a hospitality management perspective

Abstract

Despite a plethora of studies on service quality gaps, the service performance gap has received less academic attention. The previous literature has found the importance of the service performance gap from the management standpoint, yet the independent study on the service performance gap is scant. Thus, the present study attempts to identify the service performance gap by evaluating management's perspective towards customer-contact employees' service delivery performance. A field study was employed in the top ten luxury chain hotels of Northern India, targeting 200 management personnel. Using an exploratory factor analysis, this study reveals three dimensions of service delivery performance, namely functional, relational, and tangible aspects. Further, the results obtained from gap analysis show that the most prominent service performance gap identified, is concerning employees' relational aspect, followed by functional and tangible aspects. The study offers valuable managerial implications to reduce the service performance gap accordingly.