Service Quality & Etiquette

Managing Service quality

Dimensions of service quality (RATER)

  1. Reliability
  • to provide reliable and accurate services (ability to perform the promised service dependably (as promised) and accurately)
  1. Assurance
  • the knowledge and courtesy of staff and their ability to convey trust and confidence (credibility, security, competence, courtesy)


  1. Tangibles
  • appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication models (appearance of things; visible)
  1. Empathy
  • caring, individualized attention provided to customer, approachability , ease of contact and communicating to customers (easy access, good communication, understanding the customer)
  1. Responsiveness
  • willingness to help customers and provide prompt services

The Gap Model

  1. Knowledge gap: What customer actually need and expects vs what the company believes customers expect

five dimensions which customers use when evaluating service quality

  1. Policy Gap: what the company believes customers expect vs what the company set as service standards (standards set by company
  1. Delivery gap: what the company set as service standards vs what the service delivery teams' actual performance on the standards
  1. Communication Gap : what the company communicate to the customers vs what the service delivery teams' actual performance to the customer
  1. Perception Gap: what the service delivery teams' actual performance on the standard vs what the customers feel they have received
  1. Service Quality gap: the difference between what customers expected and what they think was delivered

Gap 1-5 leads to the sixth gap

As long as one of the first five gap takes place, the service quality gap would take place.

factors influencing customer's expectation and perception of services

  1. desired service (nice to have) is the level of service which customers hope to receive

it affected by:

  • personal needs (the stronger the personal need, will increase the expectation level of service expectations)
  • belief about what is possible
  1. Zone of tolerance (should have) is the zone where customers are willing to accept variation of service given

if certain service not provided, customer would not be dissatisfied

  1. Adequate service (refers to basic service level) -> must have

It is affected by:

  • situational factors (beyond the control of service provider)
  • perceived service alterations (presence service alterations)

Understanding the customers

Mystery Shoppers

  • get in-depth insight for coaching, training and performance evaluation.
  • asses skills of service staff in relation to the standard set

Types of listening posts/feedback tools

  1. Active Listening posts - companies would take the initiative to find out from and understand their customers
  1. Passive Listening posts - customers are the ones that take the initiative to provide their feedback and views to companies

customer feedback collection tools

  1. Service review (ACTIVE) - it is a in-depth one on one interview
  2. Surveys (ACTIVE) - a method of data collection and individual questions that can be analysed
  3. Feedback from service staff (ACTIVE)
  • employers obtain feedback from staff to get a clearer perception of the service conducted within the front line sector - help understand the current dynamics of the workplace
  1. Focus group discussions (ACTIVE) - face to face meeting with a group of customers that helps you learn about their needs and perspectives
  2. Service feedback cards (PASSIVE & ACTIVE) - commonly placed near cashier
  3. Unsolicited comments (PASSIVE) - used to monitor quality and highlight improvements needed to service design and delivery

Service Delivery Technology

Level of customer participation

  1. Low (customer presence required during service delivery)
  • service is standardized, all customers have to do is to be present
  • easier to have Self-service technology (SST)
  1. Moderate (customer inputs are required for service creation)
  • client inputs customize a standard service
  1. High (customer co-creates the service product)
  • active client participation guides the customized service

Factors impacting consumer preference on service delivery channels

  1. perceived risk - If it is low, would go for SST. If it is high, would prefer face to face interactions
  2. confidence & knowledge of the service
  • how confident are you to use it?
  • high confidence -> would use SST
  • low confidence -> face to face
  1. Convenience - people who like convenience would opt for SST
  2. Functional vs social motives
  • functional: more to transactions -> would go for SST
  • Social motive: must have connection with the person you interact with (want to befriend that person) -> prefer/would go for face to face interaction

Advantages of SST - consistent delivery for standardized services, customer convenience, saves cost and manpower, ability to track and improve service quality in real time

Disadvantages of SST - may be costly to set up, security concerns, lower personal touch, often require customers to be proactive, hence may require changes in consumer behaviour

Service Guarantee

3 characteristics of service guarantee:

  1. At least one key attribute (e.g. delivery time, quality of food)
  2. Specific performance (E.g. food is serviced within 30 minutes, E.g. hot, fresh, and great tasting)
  3. Compensation (E.g. free regular pizza voucher)

Criteria of effective service guarantee

  1. Unconditional - no terms and conditions when want exchange or refund
  2. Easy to understand & communicate - it is to be in simple language, no jargon, easy for customers to comprehend
  3. Meaningful to customers - guarantee aspects are important to customers, also should be meaningfully financially (E.g. full refunds, exchange)
  4. Easy to invoke - easy to appeal for refunds, need no processes or documents needed to get refund or exchange
  5. Easy to collect - able to get immediately / on the spot , should not require a few steps to collect the promised service guarantee
  6. Credible - should be valid , realistic and believable

It is not an effective service guarantee if did not meet all the six criteria

Types of specific service guarantee

  1. Single-attribute - one key attribute is covered by the guarantee
  2. Multi-attribute - a few important attributes of the service are covered by the guarantee
  3. Full-satisfaction - all aspects of the service are covered by the guarantee

To meet the service guarantee, companies should:

  • reward employees who have met the standards
  • provide relevant training to improve employees competency

Service Design and Blueprinting

Service designers - research, brainstorm, prototype, repeat, deliver

Service categories

  1. Style changes - typically involve no changes in either processes or performance but are highly visible (e.g. a store refurnished)
  2. service innovations - minor changed in performance of products (e.g. extended hours of service)
  3. supplementary service innovations - add or enhance new service elements (e.g. hair salon, but have nail service or massage service too)
  4. Process Line extensions - new ways of delivering existing products (e.g. delivery service, have website to purchase things from such as NTUC)
  5. Product line extension - additions to current product line (E.g. starbucks - sell coffee; main product, but they also sell sandwich, cake, cups, mugs,yoghurt, tea
  1. Major process innovation - use new processes to deliver existing core products in new ways with additional benefits (E.g. Amazon Go - they do not want customers to change their behaviour so they make virtual card and customers charged based on taking what they took out from the shelves and add value as they just go out without any queue)
  2. Major service innovations ( different from people in the industry; new core products for markets that have not been previously defined. Include new service characteristics and radical new processes) - E.g. Grab - allows people to just register and be taxi drivers in a sense

from 1 being the easiest and 7 being the hardest

Service Blueprint

  • helps to ensure that everything flows smoothly
  • identify possible points where something would go wrong (identify fail points) - fail points have to come from the service company aspect
  • highlight possible fail points, take preventive measures; prepare contingency
  • helps to highlight key potential fail points or bottlenecks
  • identify opportunities for service improvements

Service Recovery

Service failure

occurs when customers experience dissatisfaction as the service was not delivered as expected or planned

may be due to customer had better service (prior experience), heard something from others, but expectation not met when went there for the service

types of service failure

Outcome failure - basic service was not performed

Process failure - created by people, process and technology required to deliver the service (E.g. rude and unprofessional staff)

four characteristics of service

  • Inseparability: affected more as service is done at the same time it is delivered (there is no way to correct it )
  • Variability: service provided varies, some staff would be rude, etc

key elements of service recovery

  1. Acknowledge: company should aware/acknowledge and admit that it is their fault
  2. Explain: explain to customer why it happened after investigating
  3. Empathize: company should understand how they feel from patient's point of view
  4. Apology: company should apologize for incident that happened
  5. Solve: company should give solution in how they are going to solve it
  6. Compensation (e.g. complimentary drink)
  7. Extra value (e.g. free gift)
  8. follow-up: ask customer whether the issue have been resolved adequately?

customer's perception of service recovery

  • procedural justice: Is it easy to invoke?
  • Interactional Justice: Was staff nice and patient assisting customer?
  • Outcome justice : Is compensation received?

effective service recovery system

  1. Proactive: service recovery needs to be initiated on the spot, ideally before customers have a chance to complain
  2. Taught: effective training for front-line staff so they would be able to manage/handle patients
  3. Planned: contingency plans have to be developed for service failures
  4. Empowered: employees should be empowered to use their own judgement and communication to develop solutions to help satisfy complaining customers