Concept Of Service Quality Research Articles

Hospital service quality and its effects on patient satisfaction and behavioural intention

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate hospital service quality and its effect on patient satisfaction and behavioural intention.Design/methodology/approachA convenience sampling technique was used in this study. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed and 216 were returned (61.7 per cent response rate).FindingsThe results confirm that the five dimensions – admission, medical service, overall service, discharge and social responsibility – are a distinct construct for hospital service quality. Each dimension has a significant relationship with hospital service quality. The findings of this study indicate that the establishment of higher levels of hospital service quality will lead customers to have a high level of satisfaction and behavioural intention.Research limitations/implicationsThis research examined the concept of hospital service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intention from the perspective of patients. However, this study did not explore the perspective of service providers. This is a limitation in as much as it only considers the patients' view, which might be different from the providers' view.Practical implicationsThe results indicate that managers should use the perceived service quality and customer satisfaction as mechanisms for exit strategy that will increase loyalty among the present customers.Originality/valueThis study will enable hospitals to have a better understanding of the effects of service quality, which will lead to patient satisfaction and behavioural intention in order to build long‐term relationships with their patients.

Factors influencing internal service quality at international tourist hotels

The international tourist industry has experienced significant growth in recent years, and more and more hotels provide exquisite, high-quality and customized service that contributes to a hotel's image and competitiveness. The support and cooperation among hotel employees are key factors in improving service quality, but there is no research that applies the concept of internal service quality to hotel service. The goal of this research is to construct a model of the influences on the internal service quality, and finds that bureaucratic organizational culture and transformational leadership exert the greatest influence on the internal service quality.

IMPACT OF CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT ON PATIENT (CUSTOMER) SATISFACTION IN MADHYA PRADESH HOSPITALS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO JABALPUR DISTRICT

The importance of quality in the Health care sector has been recognized relatively recently, but it has been accelerated over the past years through the development of quality assurance, quality improvement programs and patients' agendas. Quality was very popular in the marketing literature where the notion of «satisfying the customer» was a dominant model of quality of service provided and consumer satisfaction. This movement initiated a global research on assessing customer satisfaction in the past years and articles on Medline measuring somewhat patient satisfaction with care. The vast majority of these articles developed and used a patient satisfaction scale.Only few researchers developed a conceptual framework for conceptualization of service quality and patient satisfaction, before validating their scale. ISSN:-2230-7850

Efficiency evaluation of a private bank's branches with service quality approach by data envelopment analysis

Nowadays, service organisations play a vital role in economic development of the countries. Regarding the importance of financial activities, banking industry as a service industry, holds a great potential in business development. Banking industry is developing increasingly to move toward the path of privatisation and to provide a competitive environment. In this condition, the banks should address their customers’ requirements in order to remain in the uncertain marketplace. Analysing service quality as an effective strategy in customer satisfaction improvement demands a specific attention. In the Parasuraman model which was proposed in the context of service quality, the gap between customers’ expectations and perceptions has been introduced as a basis for service quality measurement. In this model which is called SERVQUAL, there are five main factors: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy which totally include 22 items. In order to gather information, real data and questionnaires have been used. Statistic populations of this study are seven branches of a private bank in Isfahan. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the bank’s branches, service quality concept and data envelopment analysis has been exploited. Findings imply that three branches were addressed efficiently.

Structural-dimensional concept of tourism service quality

The difficulties of delivering a consistently satisfactory quality of tourism services emerge as a result of the discrepancies between the productive structures and corresponding dimensional features of delivering values during their cycle of consumption. Organizational enterprise system is the primary responsible for the above mentioned phenomenon, and it consists of production (working) units and departments in charge of quality management as well as control and monitoring of the production processes, that is, the flow of delivery. This paper discusses the current models of structural complexity, dimensional observations of quality as well as the phases of user participation throughout the life cycle of tourism services. The possibility of identifying several typical levels in the complex tourism product provides the groundwork for a more meaningful comparison between 'projected and actual quality', as well as achieving greater organizational performances in the domain of market-delivered value of the resulting service. The main objective of this paper is to provide a theoretical basis for the implementation of deeper organizational and functional analysis models and continuous monitoring of the achieved quality. The effects of such systematic approach would be manifested to the ultimate degree of fulfillment of expectations and the overall customer or user satisfaction with tourism service.

Assessment of Service Quality in Organized Retail Stores of Udaipur

Indian organized retail market is growing at a fast pace due to the boom in the India retail industry. Many Indian companies are entering the Indian retail market which is giving Indian organized retail market a boost. Consumer do not easily articulate their requirements, also there are difficulties in delimiting and measuring the concept of service quality. As customers are involved in the production and consumption process of a service conducted within a physical environment, the physical environment will have a deep impact on customers’ perception of service experiences also noted that physical environment is often used as cues of a firm’s competences and quality by consumers before a purchase. The paper highlights the frequency of customers visiting franchisee stores, malls etc. with respect to the quality of services facilitated specially at malls which provide convenience, comfort and entertainment. Keywords– articulate, competences, delimiting, organized, retail.

Key factors of the successful elevation of service quality by the service industry

With the continuous changes in the economic environment, the development of the service industry in Taiwan has been rapid and has become increasingly important. According to the industrial structure data and employment structure data from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of the Executive Yuan, the service industry plays an important role in the economy and society of Taiwan. With the rapid development of the service industry, businesses are facing strong competitive pressure. Thus, the important directive for the management of businesses in the service industry is how to provide service quality that satisfies customers. This study used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), together with the service quality concepts of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988), to construct a hierarchy model formed by the five dimensions, namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy, to place service quality indicators according to hierarchy, structure, and quantity. Questionnaires were released to the directors of Wowprime Corp., in order to construct the service quality indicators and priority systems for the service industry. The research results showed that the priority values and the importance rankings of the five evaluated elements are reliability, assurance, responsiveness, tangibles, and empathy. The overall consistency results showed that amiability is most highly emphasized, followed by correct responses and promised service.

서비스 품질과 신뢰가 고객만족에 미치는 영향 -법무사의 법률서비스를 중심으로-

Abstract Purpose: The requirement for legal services is going up by modern peop le living in the era of complexity and variety who want to resolve legal conflicts between individ uals and improve their personal rights. Methods: In this study, we used both literature and empirical researches to achieve our goals. In literature research, concept of service quality, method of measuring servi ce quality, and dimension of service quality were explored, relationship among service quality, customer sat isfaction, and customer loyalty and hypothesis was made based on the above, and tested. To test the conceptual framework, structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to analyze the data collected from 252 cust omers of Judicial Agents's Service.Results: This result is not consistent with that of advanced study; it was found that service has significant influence on customer trust, and the trust also has significant influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Conclusion: This study has limitations in terms of restricted service sec tors and measuring methods. For this reason, the followings are needed to be considered for interpretation and generalization of the study results. We believe that further studies are needed to investig ate other service areas as well as legal service at the same time, and study target which is limited to Gangwon Province needs to be expanded for more accurate investigation. In addition, in-depth follow-up study s hould be proceeded considering variables such as customer value, conversion cost, and image of service provid ers.Key Words：Service Quality, Trust, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalt y, Legal Services

An Assessment of the Services Quality of Palestine Higher Education

The history of the Palestinian universities is relatively recent; however their impact on the Palestinians case and wellbeing is undeniable. Today, almost forty years later the Palestinian universities like many higher education institutions in the region and worldwide tussle to fulfil the students’ demands on education while trying to maintain high quality and relevant education. In Palestine; studies of higher education sector seems to focus primarily on easily quantifiable indicators such as teacher vs. students ratios and gender participation, while the assessment of educational services quality have not yet been explored and the assessment of higher education from the students’ stands point is yet to be enhanced. Meanwhile; the literature is rich with scholars who emphasize that “service quality” is the key to achieve customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. The applicability of service quality concepts and assessment models is becoming more acceptable within the higher education arena. This research presents an assessment of the services quality at two universities in the West Bank; Palestine utilizing the SERVQUAL gaps model and instrument for measuring students’ satisfaction and behavioural intentions. The study wishes to assist the Palestinian universities administrative boards and stakeholders to create informed decisions with regards to the effectiveness of their educational policies. The results suggest that the “service quality” in Palestine universities is slightly unsatisfactory to the students and needs further attention.

A Conceptual Study on Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Broadband Services: Service Quality and Experience Economy Perspective

Not only the organization needs empirical data but also they need a model to understand how to integrate service quality and experience economy concepts to discover the customer’s behavioural intention to select a service provider. The purpose of this conceptual paper are to critically review and identify the gaps in current literature on service quality and experience economy, building relationship between functional quality; technical quality; experience economy towards customer’s behavioural intention in selecting a broadband internet service operator when service quality and consumer’s perception play as a mediating variable. The proposed conceptual framework assist broadband internet service providers to understand how technical and functional quality; peak experience can contribute to understand the consumer’s behavioral intention in selecting a broadband service operator’s services. In addition this paper presents an analysis in various aspects of service quality and experience economy and come up with a conceptual framework which may value to researchers in consumer behavior field and mangers in marketing field to provide better service quality to the end users.

Consumer-based Brand Equity in the Service Shop

This present study investigated the causal relationships among the dimensions of consumer-based brand equity in the context of service shop; and to improve the conceptualization of service quality, which serves as a sub-dimension of perceived quality. A total of 602 self-administrated questionnaires were distributed via non-probability sampling. Findings suggested that the dimensions of service quality in the service shop were comprised of tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, recovery, and knowledge. The causal effects of service quality are significantly greater than product cues in formatting favorable consumer response towards the brand. The major contribution is that it provides imperative insight into the development of consumer-based brand equity in the service industry that is based on typology-specific. Future study should include simultaneous examination of the four service quadrants as classified by Schmenner’s (1986), and investigates the universal dimensional of consumer-based brand equity in service industry by typology-specific.

Service quality in the language training market in China

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the service quality concept in the context of the rapidly growing Chinese language training market.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a mixed methodology that includes secondary research, eight qualitative depth interviews, and a quantitative survey of 200 language students studying in Beijing.FindingsThe study identified and quantified the key aspects of service quality relating to language training in China and an importance/performance analysis (IPA) finds that management should focus their attention on improving the cost of training, the availability of learning materials, and lectures starting and finishing on time.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the findings are statistically significant, it is not quite at the level normally considered acceptable for research studies. In addition, because the data was collected in a single geographic location (Beijing), it is possible that the findings may not be representative of the Chinese market as a whole.Practical implicationsThe paper concludes that there is a considerable gap between the expectations of the students and the performance of organisations delivering language training in China. This gap represents a weakness of those organisations already operating in the Chinese language training market but an opportunity for organisations considering entry. Managers are advised that they should improve the quality of the service offering in terms of the cost of training, the availability of learning materials, and lectures starting and finishing on time.Originality/valueThis paper makes an original contribution to knowledge regarding service quality in the language training market in China. The paper also provides insight into the measurement and conceptualisation of service quality.

Monitoring Customer-focused Quality Service Delivery in Local Government: Conceptual Issues and Perspectives for Consideration

Local government in South Africa is no longer exclusively a function of national or provincial government; it is now regarded as a sphere rather than a tier of government. Section 152 of the Constitution of South Africa, 1996 stipulates the objectives of the local sphere of government, among which is ensuring the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner. Poor or lack of service delivery by local authorities has received much media attention of late. Monitoring customer-focused service delivery could therefore be a critically important means to effect quality service delivery in local government. At its core this approach emphasises the treatment of municipal service users and the citizenry as customers. This article contends that conceptually customer-focused quality service delivery may potentially lever local government authorities out of the poor service delivery rut that has come to render some municipal authorities ineffective and inefficient and hence dysfunctional. At a conceptual level the article grapples with the elusive concept of service quality and the often contested concept of customer and proxy measures for monitoring service quality in the public sector. Citing British and South African customer-focused quality service delivery tools and initiatives, the article interrogates the efficacy of such initiatives and perspectives for monitoring customer-focused quality service delivery in the local sphere of government.

A Critical Analysis of Service Quality and Performance Through Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Healthcare Criteria: Benefits and Research Directions

Quality is one of the important competitive strategies for survival of an organization in the globalized economy. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) was established in 1987 to encourage organizations to deploy quality as a competitive strategy. The research review identifies that the MBNQA has taken a paradigm shift from quality to organizational excellence. This paper focuses on the changing role of quality in the MBNQA criteria from 1988 to 2009 in approximately 5-year intervals that is 1988, 1992, 1997, 2003 and 2009. In the recent years there is an increasing emphasis on corporate culture and globalization and therefore it is necessary for healthcare organizations to improve their organizational effectiveness, especially in the area of service quality. The concept of service quality in healthcare organizations is critically discussed in the context of changing environmental factors. An attempt is made in this paper to identify the scope of service quality research and it emphasizes the need for a holistic framework for measuring performance in healthcare organizations. This issue is significant because of concurrent view amongst various researchers in service management that there are both hard and soft issues reflecting, the lack of strategic thinking and goal clarity, necessitating a measurement system that focuses on application of a comprehensive measurement system in service organizations especially in healthcare. The paper concludes by highlighting the dearth in services marketing research regarding focus on service quality and performance through an integrated perspective.

Customer-based Port Service Quality Model

This port service quality study is an important precondition for an efficient development of port industry and traffic system as a whole. It is due to the complexity of any port, as a system consisting of a large number of stakeholders rendering services to customers with various requirements, that a unique set of port service quality indices has been still missing. For this reason, the paper explains the port service quality concept in compliance with stakeholders and their requirements within the context of port service quality. The aim of the paper is to present a proposal for a customer-based port service quality model based on empirical study and its reliability testing on a selected sample. The proposed model is defined by five factors and fits satisfactorily into the obtained poll questionnaire results. The statistical data processing package SPSS 16.0 and the LISREL 8.54 programme were used in the study. KEY WORDS: port service, customer, model, factor analysis

Impact of Total Quality Management and Service Quality in the Banking Sector

After the successful implementation of TQM in manufacturing it is now being extensively applied in service sectors including banks, to improve business performance. Keeping this in view, the purpose of this paper is to present a detailed overview of the role of service quality and Total Quality Management (TQM), and its critical dimensions in the banking sector. A detailed review of the literature on TQM and service quality concepts was carried out in context of the banking sector. The study further explored the experience of TQM implementation in banks adopting this approach. The findings indicate that to ensure successful implementation of TQM in the banks, there are certain critical dimensions which needs to be addressed, viz: management commitment and support towards TQM, motivating and training of employees, and monitoring of customers’ requirement through feedback. Beside this, it was also found that service quality is an important construct in banking sector and identifies four broad conceptual categories related to service quality. The finding will provide an understanding of the role of TQM and service quality in banking sector and it also provides useful direction for future research.

An extension of internal service quality concept: lesson from the best low-cost carrier in the six regions of the world

The fundamental theory of internal service quality (ISQ) is measured based on a company’s evaluation on the proper service delivery process. Existing concepts of ISQ is not sufficient in explaining the true nature and there is a need of rethinking to understand what and where ISQ is going currently. This study has two following objectives. First is to extend the concept and the model of ISQ. Second objective is to identify the dimensions of ISQ based on benchmarking study in low-cost carrier (LCC) industry. The extension concept of ISQ is done based on a systematic review of the existing literature. Besides, the present study also provides benchmarking results on top-two best LCC practices in the six regions of the world. The results of the study conclude that ISQ model creates awareness among employees about the importance of practicing excellence service at all times in an organisation.

BRANDOS EGZAMINŲ PROCESO KOKYBĖS UŽTIKRINIMO PRIELAIDOS

Researches of Maturity exams are usually restricted to the tasks of content analysis, thus maturity examinations are attached to the pedagogical field of study. However, the final examina-tion is a complex phenomenon, being the task of content and its implementation process. There-fore, to fully assess the maturity exams, the administration cannot be forgotten. Final examination is a public service and, herewith, one of the public administration areas. For the reasons identified, as well as annually emerging problems of the organisation of maturity examinations and the lack of appropriate scientific researches on this issue, it was decided to carry out a research on the quali-ty of the maturity examinations process and find out what affects the assurance of this quality. The goal of the research is to identify the preconditions of maturity examinations’process quality assurance in Lithuania. According to theoretical models, it was decided to investigate the quality of the maturity examination through the process itself, including the users of maturity ex-aminations public service and its direct providers. In order to systematize and discuss the results, the following methods were used: analysis of scientific literature and legislation, data analysis, summa-rising, comparison, questionnaire and the structured interview. The review of scientific literature showed that the quality of maturity examinations as a pub-lic service is a correspondence of the regulated process and the consumers’ expectations. Question-naire results showed that the consumers are not satisfied with the preparation of facilities and the work of people engaged. According to the interviewed, the main problem of the maturity examina-tions is inappropriate session time. The comparison of the assessment process of the providers and the consumers revealed that they differ in the preparation of the facilities, employees’ appropriate work and the session time. In this research is analysed the concept of the public service quality, the main principles of quality management and quality models, the maturity examination process, which is divided into three phases. Each stage presents the strengths and weaknesses identified by analysing law regulat-ed procedures and the results of maturity examinations research. On the basis of the research re-sults the quality assurance elements specific to each phase are established. On the whole, there can be made a maturity examination quality model and its impact identified. Key words: maturity examination, public service, quality assurance.

A Modular approach to Customer Satisfaction in Relation to Service Quality

Continuous improvement of customer (user) service is essential to successful development of business in today’s highly competitive, dynamic and complex business environment. There is no exception from it for philanthropic areas including libraries. Thus, this paper reviews the existing literature related to customer satisfaction in relation to service quality to identify the research issues and implications to establish further research avenues in the field. The study revealed that there is a consensus among service marketing researchers on the causal sequence/order of the concepts of customer satisfaction and service quality. Through conceptual improvement and empirical findings of past studies, most researchers have concurred on the fact that quality judgments cause satisfaction, leading to the finding on service quality being the antecedent of customer satisfaction. The formation of satisfaction in relation to service quality is generally based upon some significant theories identified in the literature and it recognised two dominant theoretical paradigms, disconfirmation and performance-only, which can be duly used for modelling customer satisfaction through the service quality perspective in organisations, enabling them to perform possible customer-led service quality evaluations. Secondly, the review more closely examined the potentiality of the prevalent service quality and customer satisfaction models which have been applied in the field of library and information services, such as SERVQUAL, SERVPREF and LibQUAL, understand the customer satisfaction process in the context of service quality. These models were, however, not adequately qualified to confirm their strong applicability for the modelling of the satisfaction process in libraries. Finally, the review concluded with fourteen research issues and their implications relating to library services in demonstrating the void of the prevailing body of knowledge, for new research avenues. Keywords: Customer satisfaction; User satisfaction; Service quality; User services; Library marketing; User modelling DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v15i1.3188 Journal of the University Librarians’ Association of Sri Lanka, Vol.15, Issue 1, June 2011; 23-82

Revisiting digital libraries quality: a multiple‐item scale approach

PurposeThis paper aims to deepen the concept of service quality in digital libraries based on the analysis of the Digital Library Service Quality Model (adapted from Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Malhotra) and a multiple‐item scale (dlQUAL scale) created to evaluate the quality and performance of service delivered by the Portuguese Digital Library Consortium as part of the Digital Library Integrated Evaluation Programme.Design/methodology/approachThe Digital Library Service Quality Model makes it possible to assess gaps between different levels based on a multiple‐item scale to evaluate service quality, which was designed as a web survey. Considering the strategical groups (users, LIS professionals, library managers and top managers), the research team developed four different web‐survey versions to evaluate the different gaps. In the first step of this study, they looked for measures validity.FindingsThe scale proved good psychometric proprieties. This study also showed the usefulness of the Digital Library Service Quality Model to evaluate and analyze digital libraries' service quality.Practical implicationsThe scale is valid and useful to evaluate digital libraries' service quality and it can provide valuable performance information to digital libraries' decision‐makers. Moreover, the Digital Library Service Quality Model is a useful instrument to check the critical points that are related to organizational deficiencies. If these gaps are regularly monitored, it is possible to implement adequate correction measures and improve service quality.Originality/valueThis paper presents a Library Service Quality Model specifically designed to evaluate digital libraries.