STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF SERVICE QUALITY
The Gap Model of service quality refers to a framework which helps in understanding customer satisfaction. It shows the five main satisfaction gaps that must be addressed by organizations when planning to meet client expectations. Customer satisfaction depends on the function of perception. Whenever customer perceives that the service has met their expectations, then they get satisfied, and if not fulfilled, then they will be dissatisfied. Therefore, it is the role of managers to ensure that the organization is in a position to define the level of service in which they are sure that it is required. In this context, a literature review discusses both the strengths and weaknesses of service quality, evaluation of customer relationships academic literature and the linkages between service quality gaps model and customer relationships with the help of scholarly research.
There is five dominant service quality gaps model that should be minimized, measured and managed by the organizations. The five gaps represent different areas of the organization. Gap 1 represents the distance between the customer expectation and expectations of the managers. The gap should be narrowed by survey research. Difference 2 is usually between perceptions of management customers experience real specification. It is the role of managers to ensure that the organizations well define the required level of services. Gap3 arises from the specification experience up to experience delivery. Managers are required to do an audit of customer experience currently delivered by their organizations to ensure that it meets the specifications. Gap 4 represents the space between communication to customers and the delivery of the customer experience. Mostly, organizations are known to exaggerate on what to provide to customers thus raising customer expectations and ruining the customer perceptions. The last gap is between the hope of the service by the customer and the knowledge of the experience by the customer. Routine transaction surveys are vital for an organization as they help in measuring service perceptions of the customer.
Nowadays, customers demand high-quality products and also high-quality services. When the mentioned gaps are recognized and closed they offer high-quality services to customers and thus helping them to achieve their goals, and also makes the managers to notice areas of weaknesses and improves them on time before disappointing their customers. Organizations gain competitive advantages by using technology to collect information regarding market demands and share it with organizations to enhance service quality. Increased customer satisfaction leads to maximized profits for the organizations. With the help of the five gaps, businesses is prevented from providing exceptional services. Since service quality is intangible, measuring it is a challenge. Service quality can never be objectively measured as it contains numerous psychological features. Therefore, the authors of service quality gaps model have come up with different dimensions which are used and helps the customers to make decisions on the quality of services they receive from the organizations. Such aspects include tangibility, credibility, security, reliability, competence and many more.
In addition to the above, responsiveness is another critical dimension which helps in providing prompt services to customers. Communication to customers is made through the duration of time they wait to be assisted, receive answers for their questions or paying attention to their problems. Assurance is an essential dimension for the perception of services for which customers feel uncertain on the capability to evaluate outcomes as they involve risks — for instance, banking and Insurance. Honesty and confidence are important for the people who connect the customer to the company. Tangibility provides physical representations of the service that customers use in evaluating the quality. Reliability requires the organizations to keep their promises on service provision, delivery, and problem solution. Customers, therefore, prefer to work with companies which keep their obligations to the end.
Services are resources upon which businesses depend on for their success their success. It is always good to understand customers not only due to their effect on marketing decisions but also for their influence on the entire organization. Customer demands and preferences of different services is a subject of concern for many businesses areas (Paul, P., et al., 2016, 610). Various factors influence the expectations of the customer. The first factor is what they hear from other customers. For my case, for instance, I usually make decisions on purchasing certain either products or services only after giving an ear to what other people are saying about it. If they give many positive sides of the service, then I end up buying that service.
The personal need is the second factor that influences customers’ expectations. To make decisions on purchasing services arises as a result of situations and requirements by the customer. Customers have to budget on what they want and therefore makes decisions that correspond to their urgent need. For example, as an individual, I usually follow a list of priority and buy first the most important items. Communication is always helpful to me as I can cater for all my needs at a budgeted cost. Another factor that influences customers’ expectations is the prior experience. Prior experience usually indicates the skills of the customers to past services that they received. Through this, they can make wise decisions concerning the purchase of services. The last factor is the external factors. The element contains direct and indirect messages received from supplying organization to customers.
Strengths of service quality
Service quality contains the pros and cons that are usually strengths and weaknesses to put into consideration. They are; power is that service quality model can be used regularly in tracking customer perceptions on service quality for different firms. The organization will be able to compete in a competitive market. Service quality also provides a chance for organizations to assess the performance of service quality based on overall dimensions. Organizations are therefore able to classify their customers into segments that suit everyone’s expectation. Also, the models can be used comparatively to benchmark. Benchmarking helps in determining how the improvement on services have affected the perception of the customers and service expectations, and also to decide on how active is the service development to targeted dimensions.
Weaknesses of service quality
On the hard service quality also contains defects. There are various criticisms which have been pointed out for the measurement models. To begin with, the validity of the service quality model as a generic instrument to measure service quality in the different service sector is questionable. Also, there is little evidence to support the fact that customers manage to access service quality through Perception minus Expectations. The reason being that the gap score dominant contributor was the perception score. Another limitation is that service quality is process oriented as it focuses on service delivery and not on the outcomes that the service encounters. Both process and outcome are better predictors of consumer’s choice rather than using one aspect alone.
Furthermore, service quality dimensions are not universal. The reason being that items usually do not load on the factors that would be expected. Lastly, service quality is based on model expectation rather than an attitudinal model. It fails to draw on the economic and psychological theory establishment.
Customer relationships in academic literature
Customer relationship is a set of conducts adopted by the organizations to increase and maintain interactions with their customers. The study of customer relationship management is of benefit to both academics and practitioners. The Journal of Advanced Research in Business and Management Studies argues that, “organizations should set strategies to ensure that customers are retained and should also change their employees to more of customer and service oriented. Organizations should not only aim at satisfying their customers but should also participate in the aggressive marketing to attain their set goals. Maintaining customer loyalty and focusing on centric approach of the customers is an essential goal of any organization.
However, many businesses require to know and look forward to appropriate measures of customer relationships that would yield to customer satisfaction and loyalty thus enriching the performance of the company in the competitive market as well as the proper provision of services. Customer relationship has a significant impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty and offers customization, and conveniences in completion of transactions regardless of the mode of interaction used. In my view, it is always essential to maintain good customer relationship. I once experienced adverse treatments from a particular transport service vehicle. Drivers and touts of that specific route were rude to their clients and always mistreated them through carrying more passengers than the required capacities and stepping on their client’s toes by threatening to throw them out in case they complained of discomfort, and there was no refunding of fare. They mistreated me, and I decided to take an action of reporting since I had recorded the whole incidence. The result was that the entire SACCO did not have access to carrying passengers until they changed their conducts. Therefore bad customer relationships can lead to Dbig losses to companies.
Dimensions of customer relationships help the organizations to know the type of customers they have thoroughly. They can understand the customers to keep, the ones with untapped potential, strategic and essential customers and finally the profitable and the ones to abandon. The benefits that arise from customer relationship management includes, reduced cost of sales, high customer profitability, customers profitability evaluation and reduced cost of recruiting customers. Many organizations have adopted the technology of customer relationship management, E-commerce applications and call centers that enables them to collect and access information about their customer’s reactions and feedbacks and improves on areas which their customers would want to see implemented. It helps in instilling excellent customer loyalty.
The customers of 21st Century own their business leaders, employees and hold the potential of the business failure and success. The customers expect that their likes and dislikes and their preferences are realized and efficiently implemented. Organizations approach towards their customers is changing over time. The distinctions exist between product orientation and customer orientation. Many organizations put their interest in customer orientation as it helps in building and improving their customer relationships. It creates more satisfied and loyal customers resulting in better organizational outcomes. Adoption of enabling technologies is an essential tool which helps in maximizing their customer based values and streamlines processes of the business thus increasing revenue opportunities. Customer relationship management collects customer data, analyzes the data to comprehend the requirements of customers and adjusts the gathered data to increase their sales revenue.
Customer relationship life cycle
When a customer is committed to using services, the relationship develops over time. Marketing becomes more oriented on maintaining and creating relationship rather than the past objective of introducing services. The life-cycle of customer relationship contains four phases. The phases include: increasing and holding the link, getting and capturing the relationship. In obtaining the client, only a little information is known about them and therefore the supplier bases the marketing requirement on the assumed wants. Since the possibility of knowing what the potential customer situation is and the necessity in reality. After capturing the client, it now becomes more accessible for the supplier to use information from the client about their business and use past purchases to base the marketing.
The last vital phase is maintaining a relationship with the customers. At this stage, marketing is more important since customers are more likely to purchase a service that they require from the company that they already know and have worked with rather than looking for a new supplier. However, these assumptions highly depend on customer’s satisfaction on the service delivery by the current supplier. As the relationship develops, it becomes more significant to meet the need and wants of the customers as well as segmenting the market to handle different types of customers. A perfect buyer-supplier relationship is the one that leads to satisfaction to both parties and also wishes to continue when goods in question are improved.
Linkages between the gaps model of service quality and customer relationships
Service quality is a crucial aspect of sustaining ties with valued customers. Therefore many service companies have tried to build the nature of the relationship between service quality, the satisfaction of customers as well as the loyalty of customers. Service providers have put their primary objective to be superior service quality, customer satisfaction, and commitment. Companies must build loyal and long-term relationships with their customers. Customer behaviors a by many purchases, willingness to bring more customers and desire to ask for improvement of services rather than tarnishing the company’s name in case of a mistake. Therefore, loyal customers not only seek for their own information but they also act as a source of information to other customers.
Many organizations are still in question on how to maintain their bond with customers and make them keep on coming back once and again. Nowadays, all service firms are working towards achieving customer satisfaction. Increased gains, good reputation, positive feedback from customers and lower marketing costs can be achieved through the retention of customers and customer satisfaction. Hence, customer satisfaction is the essence of success in the competitive global market. For a market-oriented and customer target firms, customer satisfaction and customer retention can never be undervalued. It is the role of the company to deliver better quality services to their customers and meet their expectations on time.
Customer satisfaction is the primary outcome of marketing activities which helps in identifying the connection between various customer relationships. In centrally, dissatisfied customers have the capability to switch brands and give a bad reputation to the service provider. It is, therefore, true that unsatisfactory customer service can lead to failure to satisfy customers and their willingness to encourage and entice their friends to use the company’s assistance. Practitioners and academics measure service quality so that they can get a clear picture of the main objectives and consequences and implements suitable methods to gain an advantage in the competitive market and build firm customer loyalty. How the customers react or the attitude they show after the delivery of a particular service, talks more about their satisfaction. Service quality portrays the overall impression on the superiority or the inferiority of the entire organization and the services it provides.
Gaps model of service quality
Service quality gaps model is usually a gap method in measurement of service quality, and the tool is generally used by almost all managers in industries to enhance customer satisfaction. The model aims at identifying of gaps between expectations of customers and the real services, and also closing the entire gaps and working on customers service for improvements. As highlighted in the previous paragraphs, the gaps model can be divided into five significant dimensions and well analyzed to be of good impact to customers.
To begin with, the first one is the customer gap. It is the difference between the customer expectation and what the customers perceive. Expectations of the customer are what the customer would want to see implemented by the help of the available resources, and it result from factors such as, family lifestyle, culture, personality, and an experience after use of the similar product. Customer perception is based on the interaction of the customer with the service, and it is also subjective. Customer oriented strategy focuses on delivering a quality service based on the proper understanding of the specific market segment. The remedy for closing the gap is usually through comprehension of customer needs and being aware of customers’ expectations.
Furthermore, the second one is the knowledge gap. It is the gap between consumer expectation and the perception of the management. The difference is usually between expectations of the customer for the services provided and the provision of the service by the company. In this situation, managers are yet to know about the customer’s expectations and concerning what their companies provide. Therefore, the company tends to meet the non-existing consumer wants. Comprehensive market research is required as it helps in building strong relationships with the customers.
Moreover, the third one is the policy gap. This is usually the gap between the perception of the management and the specification of service quality. The difference reflects inadequate translation of service policy into rules and regulation for employees by the administration. This may include failure to provide excellent customer services. Customers may seek similar services elsewhere, and it is hence recommendable to fix the gap on time.
Furthermore, is the delivery gap. It is the gap between the specification of service quality and service delivery. The difference exposes the weaknesses of the employee’s performance and hence becomes ill-equipped to manage the needs of the customers. The problems that arise include, employee’s lack of information to manage customer queries and issues, poor coordination of employees and difficulty in delivering services. Finally, the communication gap occurs when there is a gap between external communications and delivery of services. Discussion through advertisement in the media raises the customers’ expectations. When the advert fails to match with the customer expectations, therefore a communication gap arises. Customers become disappointed, and the business relationship is affected. They may end up seeking substitute services from other sources, and therefore the difference should be fixed on time.
Conclusion
The content discussed outlines the strengths and weaknesses of service quality, review of customer relationships academic literature and the linkages between service quality gaps model and customer relationships with the help of scholarly literature. Customers are the central resources for the company as companies cannot function by any means without them. Customer relationship aims at increasing the knowledge and understanding of the customers wants and therefore deliver services which goes hand in hand with the expectations of the customers. Customer relationship management can cause the transformation of customer’s culture in firms, and this depends on how firms coordinate with their customers. Therefore, it is essential to work and fix all the service quality gaps models as they cover all the areas in which customers would want to see implemented and leads to their satisfaction, perception, loyalty and well meet their expectations. Proper knowledge is also required to assist in identifying customers’ needs and work toward achieving them.
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