A PASport to Service Quality

Part 1 of this article discussed the current service quality environment in which academic libraries find themselves operating, and the challenge for staff performance assessment as an integral element of maintaining and improving effective service quality levels. As referenced in Part 1, Millson-Martula and Menon in a 1999 article in College and Research Libraries suggest that no effort to enhance customer satisfaction will succeed unless students and faculty are convinced that library staff, as service providers, care about the quality of service they provide and the manner in which they do it. However, library staff will not demonstrate a high degree of commitment and caring unless they believe that library management cares about the staff as well. Simply put, customer satisfaction equals employee satisfaction. [Millson-Martula and Menon, p.46]. It is difficult to separate employee satisfaction from appropriate performance assessment. But this performance appraisal must be found in the context of a larger effort which includes staff interpersonal understanding (connection), service evaluation, personal and professional development opportunities, and appropriate recognition. Without those, performance assessment alone could appear to be punitive. It is in this broader context that the performance assessment system, PASport, was developed at the Centennial Library

Diagnosing Service Quality in Retailing: The Case of Singapore

This paper examines the service quality perceptions of consumers towards retailers in Singapore. We applied SERVQUAL, a popular measure of service quality to a sample of 172 consumers to assess service quality perceptions, expectations and gaps in service quality. We first examined the dimensionality and reliability of this scale. Subsequently, analysis by various demographic groups revealed significant gaps in service quality; the gaps in quality were much higher for some service quality dimensions than for others. The implications of these results for Singapore retailers and retail entrepreneurs are then presented along with future research directions

Pengaruh Service Quality terhadap Affective Responses dan Dampaknya pada Behavioral Intentions (Studi pada Nasabah Kredit PT. Bank Panin, Tbk Cabang Solo)

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk (1) Mengetahui pengaruh langsung service quality pada satisfaction, dan pengaruh tidak langsung purchase intentions. (2) Mengetahui pengaruh langsung service quality pada trust, dan pengaruh tidak langsung pada Positive Word-Of-Mouth Intentions. (3) Mengetahui pengaruh langsung satisfaction pada Positive Word-Of-Mouth Intentions dan purchase intentions. (4) Mengetahui pengaruh langsung trust pada Positive Word-Of-Mouth Intentions dan purchase intentions. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh nasabah kredit Bank Panin Cabang Solo. Populasi dalam penelitian ini sebanyak 1.562 nasabah. Teknik pengambilan sampel yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah probability sampling. Sampel yang diambil sebanyak 150 nasabah kredit Bank Panin Cabang Solo. Hasil uji hipotesis menunjukkan bahwa (1) service quality berpengaruh negatif dan signifikan secara langsung pada satisfaction dan secara tidak langsung dengan purchase intentions. (2) service quality berpengaruh secara langsung pada trust dan berpengaruh secara tidak langsung pada Positive Word-Of-Mouth Intentions. (3) Ada pengaruh positif dan signifikan satisfaction pada Positive Word-Of-Mouth Intentions dan satisfaction berpengaruh positif dan tidak signifikan pada purchase intentions. (4) Ada pengaruh positif dan signifikan trust secara langsung pada Positive Word-Of-Mouth Intentions dan berpengaruh secara langsung pada purchase intentions

A review of service quality and service delivery: Towards a customer co-production and customer-integration approach

© 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide researchers with an overview of the service quality and delivery domain, focussing on the inclusion of customer co-production and customer integration. Specifically, this paper concentrates on service quality (including quality measurement), the service environment, controls and their consequences. Design/methodology/approach: A comprehensive review of the literature is conducted, analysed and presented. Findings: The review shows that service delivery is both complex and challenging, particularly when considering the unique characteristics of services and the high level of customer involvement in their creation. The facilitation, transformation and usage framework identifies how failures can occur at each stage of service delivery, beginning with the characteristics of the service environment, while control theory offers insights into the formal and informal controls that may be applied in the facilitation and transformation stages, which may reduce the likelihood or extent of such failures. Originality/value: Despite the fact that it is widely accepted that service quality is an antecedent to customer satisfaction, it is surprising that this customer co-creation aspect has been largely neglected in the extant literature. As such, the role that customer co-production plays in service quality performance has been examined in this paper. It is hoped that this examination will enhance both theoretical and practical understanding of service quality. It would be useful to find modern tools that can help in improving service quality performance

Quality-aware model-driven service engineering

Service engineering and service-oriented architecture as an integration and platform technology is a recent approach to software systems integration. Quality aspects ranging from interoperability to maintainability to performance are of central importance for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed service-based systems. Architecture models can substantially influence quality attributes of the implemented software systems. Besides the benefits of explicit architectures on maintainability and reuse, architectural constraints such as styles, reference architectures and architectural patterns can influence observable software properties such as performance. Empirical performance evaluation is a process of measuring and evaluating the performance of implemented software. We present an approach for addressing the quality of services and service-based systems at the model-level in the context of model-driven service engineering. The focus on architecture-level models is a consequence of the black-box character of services

Comparing tools for Service Quality Evaluation

Service quality evaluation is one of the main issues that have recently drawn managers' and researchers' attention. The definition of an evaluation standard not dependent on any particular service context has determined the popularity of many different quality tools. In this paper we show a comparative analysis of the affected tools that are widely used. These are summarized in an orientation map. Moreover we present some results of an experiment carried out with two of the major quality tools (SERVQUAL and QUALITOMETRO). The results identify good qualities as well as weaknesses for both tools. Possible improvement strategies are presente

Implications of customer participation in outsourcing noncore services to third parties

Purpose Focal service providers increasingly involve customers in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties. The present study investigates how customers' outsourcing decisions affect the formation of the waiting experience with the focal service provider, by which the objective waiting time, environmental quality and interactional quality act as focal drivers. Design/methodology/approach To test our hypotheses in the context of cancer care, we gathered process data and experience data by means of a patient observation template (n = 640) and a patient survey (n = 487). The combined data (n = 377) were analyzed using Bayesian models. Findings This study shows that opting for a service triad (i.e. outsourcing non-core services to a third party) deduces customers' attention away from the objective waiting time with the focal service provider but not from the environmental and interactional quality offered by the focal service provider. When the type of service triad coordination is considered, we observe similar effects for a focal service provider-coordinated service triad while in a customer-coordinated service triad the interactional quality is the sole experience driver of waiting experiences that remains significant. Originality/value By investigating the implications of customer participation in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties, this research contributes to the service design, service triad and service operations literature. Specifically, this study shows that customer outsourcing decisions impact waiting experience formation with the focal service provider.Purpose Focal service providers increasingly involve customers in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties. The present study investigates how customers' outsourcing decisions affect the formation of the waiting experience with the focal service provider, by which the objective waiting time, environmental quality and interactional quality act as focal drivers. Design/methodology/approach To test our hypotheses in the context of cancer care, we gathered process data and experience data by means of a patient observation template (n = 640) and a patient survey (n = 487). The combined data (n = 377) were analyzed using Bayesian models. Findings This study shows that opting for a service triad (i.e. outsourcing non-core services to a third party) deduces customers' attention away from the objective waiting time with the focal service provider but not from the environmental and interactional quality offered by the focal service provider. When the type of service triad coordination is considered, we observe similar effects for a focal service provider-coordinated service triad while in a customer-coordinated service triad the interactional quality is the sole experience driver of waiting experiences that remains significant. Originality/value By investigating the implications of customer participation in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties, this research contributes to the service design, service triad and service operations literature. Specifically, this study shows that customer outsourcing decisions impact waiting experience formation with the focal service provider.A