Authors On Customer Loyalty Service Quality And Delivery Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

2.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter reviews literature from eminent authors on customer loyalty, service quality and delivery; and the framework for this study under the following sub headings:

Features of Services

Service Delivery and its Innovations

Service Delivery Innovation

Theoretical Framework

Service Quality Perception

Service Quality and Organisational Effectiveness

Gaps in Organisational Service Quality

Criticisms of the Gap Model

Best Practices in Customer Service

Organisational Service Culture

Conclusion

2.2 CUSTOMERS REPORT CARD

Customers seem to carry around a sort of invisible report card in their heads. Every time they do business with you, they are, without fully realizing it, scoring you on how well you are doing, not only at giving them what they want, but at fulfilling six basic needs. The six needs are as follows:

Friendliness - Is the most basic of all customer needs, and it's usually associated with being greeted politely and courteously. Friendliness brings you close to the customer and enhances your excellent service life.

Understanding and empathy - Customers need to feel that the service person understands and appreciates their circumstances and feelings without criticism or judgment.

Fairness - The need to be treated fairly is high up on most customers' list of needs.

Control - They don't want to be controlled but rather want to be in control or perceive they are in control

Options and alternatives - Customers need to feel that other avenues are available to getting what they want accomplished.

Information - Customers need to be educated and informed about the products, policies, and procedures they encounter when dealing with your company.

There are basically two types of customers. Your customers fall into two categories: ones who think and behave similarly to you, and ones who do not. With the first group, it often seems you know what they are going to say even before they say it, how they will respond, and what it will take to satisfy them. The second group of customers is harder to relate to. You are often surprised by what they say, puzzled by how to react, and uncertain about how to satisfy them. The most successful service providers have learned how to work with both groups of customers, especially the ones who think and act differently than they do. This is called working styles. When you are able to speak another person's language, it becomes easier to understand -and be understood -by them. The place to start is by identifying your own individual working style.

2.3 FEATURES OF SERVICES

Services have four distinctive characteristics that greatly affect the design of marketing programs: intangibility, inseparability, variability, and perishability (Kotler & Keller, 2009:405).

Intangibility

Unlike physical products, services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are bought. The person getting a face-lift cannot see the results before the purchase, and the patient in the psychiatrist's office cannot know the exact outcome. To reduce uncertainty, buyers will look for evidence of quality. They will draw inferences about quality from the place, people, equipment, communication material, symbols, and price that they see. Therefore, the service provider's task is to "manage the evidence" to "tangibilise the intangible". Whereas product marketers are challenged to add abstract ideas, service marketers are challenged to add physical evidence and imagery to abstract offers.

Service marketers must be able to transform intangible services into concrete benefits. To aid in "tangibilising the intangible," Carbone and Haeckel (1994:17) propose a set of concepts called the customer experience engineering. Companies must first develop a clear picture of what they want the customer's perception of an experience to be and then design a consistent set of performance and context clues to support that experience. In the case of a bank, whether the teller dispensed the right amount of cash is a performance clue; a context clue is whether the teller was properly dressed. The context clues in a bank are delivered by people and things (mechanics). The company assembles the clues in an experience blueprint, a pictorial representation of the various clues. To the extent possible, the clues should address all five senses. The Disney Company is a master at developing experience blueprints in its theme parks; so are companies such as Jamba juice and Barnes & Noble in their respective retails stores.

At Ritz-Carlton Hotels, employees around the world gather every day from every department for a 15-minute meeting known as "the line-up". They first review guest experience, resolve issues and discuss ways to improve service. Every meeting each day also shares one "wow story" by a staff person who provided exemplary service by going above and beyond the call of duty (Kotler & Keller, 2009:159).

Inseparability

Services are typically produced and consumed simultaneously. This is not true for physical goods, which are manufactured, put into inventory, distributed through multiple resellers, and consumed later. Now because the consumer is also in attendance as the service is produced, provider-consumer interaction is a special feature of services marketing.

Variability

Services are highly variable because it depends on who provides them and when and where they are provided. Some doctors have an excellent bedside manner; others are less patient with their patients. Some surgeons are very successful in performing a certain operation; others are not. Service buyers are aware of this variability and often talk to others before selecting a service provider.

Perishability

Services cannot be stored. Perishability is not a problem when demand is steady. When demand fluctuates, service firms have problems. For example, public transportation companies have to own much more equipment because of rush-hour demand than if demand were even throughout the day. Some doctors charge patients for missed appointments because the service value exists only at that point.

Customer Value, Satisfaction and Loyalty

Peters and Waterman (1982) in their book "In Search of Excellence" argued that successful organisations differed from organisations that were lagging behind not because of their structure but because of their culture. In Search of Excellence was the right book with the right message and at the right time: It told of companies that had done exceptionally well during a substantial downturn in the American economy. The simple message was that certain firms can outperform the market no matter what the economic conditions, because their primary motivation is consumer satisfaction superior to any other competitor.

Today, companies face their toughest competition ever. Moving from a product-and-sale philosophy to a holistic marketing philosophy, however, gives them a better chance of outperforming competition. The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain, owned by Marriott International, is known throughout the world for its singular focus on providing guests with luxurious amenities and exceptional service. This customer- centred approach is expressed by the company's motto: "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." Guest at any of the 62 Ritz-Carlton hotels in 21 countries notice the brand's famed personal touch immediately upon checking in, when they are greeted by name. To ensure guests' total experience at the hotel is of the utmost quality, Ritz-Carlton creates a daily "Service Quality Index" (SQI) at each of its locations, so employees can continually monitor key guest service processes and swiftly address potential problem areas. At the brand's corporate headquarters in Maryland, SQIs for each hotel are displayed in a central command room, allowing instant analysis of how well a single location is performing. Other customer service initiatives include the CLASS (Customer Loyalty Anticipation Satisfaction System) database, which contains preferences and requirements of repeat Ritz-Carlton guests. These initiatives helped Ritz-Carlton win its second Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1999, becoming the only service company to win twice. Its dedications to customers also enables Ritz-Carlton to forge lasting relationships with them, as evidenced by the hotel's top 20 ranking on the Brand Keys 2006 customer loyalty index (Kotler & Keller, 2009:159).

Creating loyal customers is the heart of every business. As marketing experts Peppers and Rogers (2004) say, the only value your company will ever create is the value that comes from customers - the ones you have now and the ones you will have in future. Businesses succeed by getting, keeping and growing customers. Customers are the only reasons you build factories, hire employees, or engage in any business activity. Without customers, you don't have a business.

A customer's decision to be loyal or to defect is the sum of many small encounters with the company. Many companies now strive to create a "branded customer experience" The service level of a firm is tested at each service encounter. If the service level does not meet the expected service, customers will think twice about doing business again with that company. Whether the buyer is satisfied after purchase depends on the offer's performance in relationship to the buyer's expectations and whether the buyer interprets any deviations between the two. In general, satisfaction is a person's feeling of pleasure or disappointment that result from comparing a product/service's perceived performance (or outcome) to their expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. If the performance matches the expectations, the customer is satisfied. If the performance exceeds expectations, the customer is highly satisfied or delighted. The customer-centred firm seeks to create high customer satisfaction by increasing its services and invariably reducing customer detection and also increasing profitability.

Building Customer Loyalty

Creating a strong, tight connection to customers is the dream of any organisation and often the key to long-term organisational success. Companies that want to form strong customer bonds need to attend to a number of considerations;

Create superior products, services and experience for the target market.

Get cross-departmental participation in planning and managing the customer satisfaction and retention process.

Integrate the "voice of the customer" to capture their needs or requirement in all business decisions.

Organize and make accessible a database of information on individual customer needs, preferences, contacts, purchase frequency and satisfaction.

Make it easy for customers to reach appropriate company personnel and express their needs, perceptions and complaints.

Run award programs recognizing outstanding employees.

How do customers form their expectations? Expectations result from past buying experiences; friends' and associates' advice; and marketers' and competitors' information and promises. If marketers raise expectations too high and don't deliver performance to match, the buyer is likely to be disappointed. However, if the company sets expectations too low, it won't attract enough buyers (although it will satisfy those who do buy). Some of today's most successful companies are raising expectations and delivery performances to match. In general, customers compare the perceived service with the expected service. If the perceived service meets or exceeds their expectations, they are apt to use the provider again. Successful companies add benefits to their offering that not only satisfy customers but surprise and delight them. Delighting customers is a matter of exceeding expectations.

Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) service model highlights the main requirements for delivering high service. It identifies five gaps that cause unsuccessful delivery:

Gap between consumer expectation and management perception - Management does not always correctly perceive what customers want. Hospital administrators may think that patients want better food, but patients may be more concerned with more responsiveness.

Gap between management perception and service-quality specification - Management might correctly perceive customers' wants but not set a performance standard. Hospital administrators may tell the nurses to give "fast" service without specifying in minutes.

Gap between service-quality specifications and service delivery - Personnel might be poorly trained, or incapable of or unwilling to meet the standard; or they may be held to conflicting standards, such as taking time to listen to customers and serving them fast.

Gap between service delivery and external communications - Consumer expectations are affected by statements made by company representatives and ads. If a hospital brochure shows a beautiful room, but the patient arrives and finds the room to be cheap and tacky looking, external communications have distorted the customer's expectations.

Gap between perceived service and expected service - This gap occurs when the consumer misperceives the service quality. The physician may keep visiting the patient to show care, but the patient may interpret this as an indication that something really is wrong.

Based on this service model, researchers identified the following five determinants of service delivery in order of importance.

Reliability - The ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.

Responsiveness - The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service.

Assurance - The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.

Empathy - The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers.

Tangibles - The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication and materials.

Value of Customer Base

A key driver of shareholder value is the aggregate value of the customer base. Winning companies improve the value of their customer base by excelling at strategies that will further improve service delivery such as:

Reducing the rate of customer defection: selecting and training employees to be knowledgeable and friendly increases the likelihood that the inevitable shopping questions from customers will be answered satisfactory.

Increasing the longevity of customer relationship: the more involved a customer is with the company, the more likely he is to stick around. Some companies treat their customers as partners - especially in business to business markets, soliciting their help in the design of new products or improving their customer service. Instant Web Companies (IWCO), a Chanhassen, Minnesota, direct-mail printer, launched a monthly customer spotlight program where guest companies provide an overview of their business and direct-mail programs and comment on IWCO practices, products and services. IWCO's staff not only gain exposure to customers but also develops a broader perspective on customers' business and marketing objectives and how to add value and identify options that help meet its goals.

Focusing disproportionate effort on high-value customer: the most valuable customers can be treated in a special way. Thoughtful gesture such as birthday greetings, small gifts or invitations to special sports or arts events can send a strong positive signal to the customer.

2.4 SERVICE DELIVERY AND ITS INNOVATIONS

Kotler and Keller (2006:6) described an exchange as the process of obtaining a desired product from someone by offering something in return and listed a number of conditions that must be satisfied before an exchange can occur as follows:

There are at least two parties.

Each party has something that might be of value to the other party.

Each party is capable of communication and delivery.

Each party is free to accept or reject the exchange offer.

Each party believes it is appropriate or desirable to deal with the other party.

When an agreement is reached in an exchange, a transaction takes place (Kotler & Keller, 2006:7). They also show that marketers are basically involved in marketing 10 types of entities: goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information and ideas; while also stating categorically that "the marketplace isn't what it used to be" (Kotler & Keller, 2006:13) as a result of major and sometimes interlinking societal forces that have created new behaviours, new opportunities and new challenges listed as; changing technology, globalization, deregulation, privatization, customer empowerment, customization, heightened competition, industry convergence, Fleet management transformation and disintermediation.

As a result of the changing market place, the marketing concept emerged which shifted businesses from a product centred; make and sell philosophy, to a customer-centred; sense and respond philosophy which aims to find the right products for customers. Basic marketing concepts as explained in BSN MBA Phase 1 manual are:

Human needs: The first marketing concept suggests that marketing must always be consumer oriented; marketing people should be conscious of the needs of the customers and the product/service sold should be beneficial to the client. A lot of factors influence the desires of customers, for example, schools, churches, societies amongst others thus making it the job of the marketer to transform a certain need into a willingness to buy a specific product.

The product: A product is any offering that can satisfy a need or want. It is necessary to note that consumers do not buy products just for the sake of it but because they have a certain benefit or value for that consumer, hence the duty of marketing involves not only selling the product itself but also the benefits a product provides.

Use of Value: This is the third marketing concept and the reason why consumers choose a certain product over another. Consumers will choose products that provide them with maximum benefit; however this does not mean they purchase the most useful product.

Exchange and Transactions: This is the fourth marketing concept and explained earlier in this chapter.

The market: This is the fifth marketing concept and is defined as "Consisting of potential clients who have a certain need in common and who are not only willing but also able to satisfy their needs or desires by means of a business exchange" (BSN MBA Phase 1, 342). Some key customer markets identified by Kotler and Keller (2006:11) are consumer markets where companies selling mass consumer goods and services such as soft drinks, cosmetics and air travel spend time trying to establish a superior brand image; Business markets where companies selling business goods and services often face well-trained and well-informed professional buyers who are skilled in evaluating competitive offerings; Global Markets, companies selling goods and services in the global market place face additional decisions and challenges because they must decide which countries to enter, how to enter and how to adapt the product and service features to each country and finally Non-profit and Government markets, companies that operate here need to price carefully because these organizations have limited purchasing power.

Since Sifax Off Dock is a service based organization, it becomes necessary to review literature pertaining to the marketing of services amongst others. Kotler and Keller (2006:402) defined a service as "any act or performance that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything".

The traditional view of marketing as a function for specialists planning and executing a marketing mix may not be altogether true where services are concerned (Gronroos, 1990). Services have four distinctive characteristics that affect the design of marketing programs (Kotler & Keller, 2006:405-407) as discussed below:

Intangibility: Services cannot be seen, tasted felt, heard or smelled before they are bought, unlike physical products. As such, buyers would look for evidence of quality in order to reduce tangibility, thus service companies must try and demonstrate their service quality through physical evidence and presentation.

Inseparability: Services unlike physical goods are typically produced and consumed simultaneously because the client is also present as the service is produced.

Variability: Services depend on who provides them and when and where they are provided, thus making them highly variable. Service buyers as such often talk to others before selecting a service provider. In order to increase quality control, firms should:

Invest in good hiring and training procedures.

Standardize the service-performance process throughout the organization.

Monitor customer satisfaction.

Perishability: Services cannot be stored, so when demand fluctuates, service firm have problems. For example, transportation companies have to own much more equipment because of rush-hour demand than if demand were even throughout the day.

Porter (1985) defined service as the support of customers after the products/services are sold to them (www.netmba.com) and Maitra (2009) also iterated that service is a process where a customer is involved sometimes for long or short periods of time and sometimes on a regular basis therefore, the definition of customer service by Scott (2002) as retrieved from wikipedia.org as a "series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction; that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation" is appropriate for this research. Considering that the customer is a company's only true "profit centre" as stated in Kotler and Keller (2006:140), it becomes imperative for service delivery to be effective since customers are becoming more informed as a result of the rise in digital technology. The ability to deliver a high quality service that meets the needs and expectations of customers is the key to building and maintaining good customer relationships which in turn gives competitive advantage to an organization

Dawson and Horenkamp (2007:5) acknowledge that because clients have become increasingly sophisticated, competition more intense as a result of online information and market globalization, service firms must evaluate their business models to ensure that they can deliver the greatest value to every client on every project. Otherwise if they continue business as usual these firms will face eroding profit margins, increased operational complexity and under leveraged partnerships.

In order to best respond to the market forces as stated above, Dawson and Horenkamp (2007:7) stated that a firm must find new ways to deliver its services such that it surpasses client expectations. They also listed 3 primary areas where service firms must consistently deliver on client service innovation as:

Resourcing and Partnering: This involves talent resourcing which involves drawing on an effective available pool of external global talent while using internal resources as efficiently as possible.

Co-creating Value: This involves senior resources from the firm working together with the client across organizational boundaries to create new products or develop new ideas. This kind of relationship plays a complementary role in creating value.

Packaging: This involves delivering services in an ad-hoc manner for every client or packaging services in structured yet flexible ways.

Service Delivery Innovation is an ongoing process and must be embedded into the way a professional services firm functions and develops new products and services (Dawson & Horenkamp, 2007:10).

Employees and Quality Service Delivery

In order for service delivery to be effective the most important aspect in any firm is for everyone from the executive team on down to continually seek better ways to deliver services (Dawson & Horenkamp, 2007:10). Citing Zeithaml et al (2006), Spetz and Butler (2008:7) acknowledges that with increased competition, competitive marketing lies in the quality of service provided by the frontline employee and expressions like "the provider is the service" and "employees frequently are the service" have become more common. They therefore suggested the need to effectively utilize human resources to maintain a consistent customer oriented workforce.

Service quality can be defined as the representation of the discrepancy between customers' expectations and their perceptions of the service performance (Jackie, 2004), "closing the gap between the customers' expectations and the actual service delivery will consequently increase the service quality" (Spetz & Butler, 2008:7). It is also important to note the effects of organizational strategies on staff attitudes as well since service oriented attitudes predict behaviours of front line service staff; and these service behaviours positively impact customers' evaluations of the service they receive, hence enhancing the organization's effectiveness (Beaton, Lings & Gudergan, 2008). The need for skilled and motivated workers cannot be overemphasized if employees are to be used as a competitive advantage since the frontline employee is the main concern when reaching the customer and their expectation of service (Spetz & Butler, 2008:8).

2.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The service profit chain establishes relationships between profitability, customer loyalty and employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity. Heskett et al (1994) postulated that profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty; loyalty as earlier said is a direct result of customer satisfaction.

Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers; value is created by satisfied, loyal and productive employees while employee satisfaction results primarily from high-quality support services and policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers. The concepts of employee satisfaction, retention, service delivery, customer satisfaction and loyalty have all been reviewed earlier on in this chapter; however, the concept of internal service quality will be treated now. Hallowell, Schlesinger and Zorni (1996) referring to a number of authors concluded that internal service quality even though approached from different perspectives possesses the underlying belief that organizations attempting to deliver quality services to their external customers must begin by serving the needs of their internal customers.

Hallowell et al (1996) defined internal service quality as "employee satisfaction with the service received from internal service providers" while proposing that internal service quality is important because it relates to both customer and job satisfaction. This explains the observations that while job satisfaction may not lead to customer satisfaction directly, service firms rarely have satisfied customers without having satisfied employees.

According to Bulgarella (2005) who quoted a number of empirical studies, there is a strong positive relationship between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Referring to Benhardt, Donthu and Kenneth (2000) who measured the relationship between employee satisfaction customer satisfaction and profit longitudinally, Bulgarrella (2005) stated that although the effects of employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction on business profit at a given point in time might not be detectable, they become visible and prominent over time. Also shown in the article, is the model by Hee, Yoon and Beatty (2001) that presents two antecedents to employee service quality and job satisfaction. The 2 antecedents are:

Supportive management; that is, the extent to which management is supportive of and shows concern for employees.

Service climate; that is, employees shared perceptions of how much the organization values service.

Figure 2.1: Model on Employee Service Quality.

Work Effort

Service Climate

Employee Service Quality

Job Satisfaction

Supportive Management

Source: Bulgarella (2005)

The above model illustrates the fact that while service climate affects work effort alone, supportive management influence both work effort and job satisfaction which tend to employee service quality. The framework also coincides with the concept of the virtuous circle (Schlesinger & Heskett, 1991) earlier described in this dissertation.

The research was also based on the theory of Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry (1985:41). The authors argued that there were gaps in customers' service expectation versus the perception of actual service received. Therefore, a service quality model was formulated that highlighted the main requirements and dimensions for delivering high service quality. Parasuraman et al (1985:44) called this conceptual model of service quality ServQual. See illustrations below.

Figure 2.2

Source: Parasuraman et al. (1985:44) Conceptual Frame Work of the Servqual Model

2.6 SERVICE QUALITY PERCEPTION

Recent studies revealed that services account for over fifty percent of gross domestic product in the USA and many European countries, and over one quarter of world trade (Farrell, Souchon & Durden 2001:577). With this revelation and considering that "levels of service which may have been tolerated only a generation ago are now regarded as unacceptable" (Donnelly & Shiu 1999: 498), the improvement of service quality becomes a fundamental requirement to services marketers.. Service quality represents a customer's assessment of the overall level of service offered by an organisation and this assessment is often based upon perceptions formulated during service encounters (Kotler & Keller 2006:412). The term service encounter is used to denote person-to-person interactions between a customer and an employee of an organisation during the purchase of a service (Farrell et al. 2001:578; Liljander & Mattsson 2002:839). Bitner, Booms and Tetreault (1990:72) provided a broader definition of service encounter as a period of time during which a consumer directly interferes with a service. This includes all aspects of the service firm with which the consumer may interact ranging from the personnel to physical facilities and other visible elements. Empirical research in service quality affirms the importance of the quality of customer-employee interactions in its overall assessment (Bitner et al. 1990:72). Therefore, employees have an important role to play in influencing customers' perception of service encounters.

Encounters have been shown to affect critical outcomes such as customer satisfaction, intention to repurchase, word-of-mouth communications, relationship quality and loyalty (Bitner, Brown & Meuter 2000:139). Ineffective or unsuccessful service encounters can result in significant costs to the firm such as performing the service again, compensating customers for poor performance, lost customers, and negative word of mouth (Bitner et al. 2001:139). Therefore, employees' behaviours are important in a service company as they connect the organisation with its customers and represent a critical factor in developing effective working relationships with customers. Employees' behaviours and general attitude equally affect customers' perception of service quality and satisfaction (Kattara, Weheba & El-Said 2008:310; Yavas 2006:30). Customer service perception is defined as "the degree of concordance between expectations and experience, where compatibility is apparent, the customer is deemed to be satisfied" (Kattara et al. 2008:310). Any service encounter is assumed to contain learned and consistent behaviour patterns and each participant should enact certain behaviours in order for the transaction to proceed smoothly. Kattara et al. (2008:842) also emphasised the importance of employee behaviours for customer satisfaction, and suggest that the communication behaviour may be more important than the content of what is communicated. Customer evaluation of service employee behaviours is of particular interest to study in relation with customer mood. In interpersonal interactions, employees should, at best, be able to interpret and respond to the emotional cues displayed by customers (Dube´ & Menon, 1998:41).

This task is rendered difficult by the fact that milder moods are less conspicuously expressed than the more intense emotions, and the service provider may not be able to distinguish a mildly negative mood from a mildly positive and act accordingly. However, it can be assumed that regardless of the service employee's responses, customer evaluation of service behaviours, including the employee's display of emotions, will be coloured by the customer's pre-interaction mood. There is evidence that familiarity with the evaluated object may obliterate any mood effects on object evaluation (Liljander & Mattsson 2002:843). If this were the case, mood effects would be nonexistent, or at least diminished for services that are provided repeatedly within a customer relationship. A cheerful customer might expect a cheerful response, and an irritated customer may expect to be placated. However, such effects are easier to investigate in an experiment than in a field study. The above proposition is therefore limited to positing that mood will have an effect on service evaluation, as proposed by Liljander and Mattsson (2002:844). It is also possible that customers react to service behaviours only when they differ substantially from ordinary experiences. Despite the variability of services, most service encounters within a relationship are not perceived to differ substantially from normal performance. Therefore, service behaviours may have a stronger influence on satisfaction in non-ordinary service encounters than in more ordinary, repetitive encounters (Liljander & Mattsson, 2002:845).

According to Bertrand (1990:35), the fatal flaw of service marketing is simply assuming knowledge of what customers perceive as service quality. Therefore, understanding customers' perceptions of service quality is particularly important because such perceptions are influenced by and are susceptible to cultural influences and variations (Cunningham, Young & Lee 2005:43). For instance, in a fast-paced society such as the United States where "time is money" automated Sifax Off Dock Terminal Limited service has been quickly adopted and considered as 'good' service, whereas in Asia (Cunningham et al. 2005:44), automated service removes one of the most fundamental components of 'good' service, which is personal contact. Successful business service marketers are learning that the customers' point of view; whether rational or not defines the quality of services they render. Competitive advantage comes from service superiority, in terms of customer wants, expectations and perceptions. Bertrand (1990:35) argued that understanding how to improve service quality demanded a two-step approach namely: 1) measuring customer attitude and satisfaction. 2) gauging the organisation's actual performance in delivering the service. Customers have an increasing rate of expectation for services and a decreased tolerance for poor service. Consequently, clients are increasingly likely to migrate to competitors with a higher quality of service or at least a higher perceived quality (Bertrand 1990:35). Since services are intangible (Kotler & Keller 2006:405), it is difficult to develop the conformance specifications used in measuring quality. One of the few service dimensions that can be measured objectively is time; as a result service performance evaluations often focus on how quickly a customer's problem is resolved. However, time measurements tend to reveal nothing about other hard-to-measure service quality dimensions such as civility, attentiveness and perceptiveness (Farrell et al. 2001:579), and courtesy (Bertrand, 1990:35); yet these factors are critically important to the customers. Becker and Wellins (1990:51), in their survey posited that good service keeps customers coming back while poor service loses customers even previously loyal ones. Therefore, it is important that organisations monitor and evaluate the perceptions customers have of their customer-facing staff and also to understand their own service people's view of the quality of customer service. It follows, therefore, that the job skills of customer service people need to be enhanced through training (Becker & Wellins 1990:51) equipping them with necessary skills for increased productivity which will lead to greater service quality, value and customer satisfaction. Cronin, Brady and Hult (2000:195) argued that "… customer satisfaction is the result of a customer's perception of value received… where value equals perceived service quality relative to price''. The authors further posited that the first determinant of overall customer satisfaction is perceived quality while the second determinant of overall customer satisfaction is perceived value. The third construct, however according to Cronin et al. (2000:195) is that customer satisfaction is recognised as being highly associated with value and is based conceptually on the amalgamation of service quality attributes. Therefore, service quality influences behavioural intentions mainly through value and satisfaction.

The absence of technology is apparent in service encounter research and in the frameworks used by service marketers. The interpersonal focus of service encounter research is not surprising as most encounters have traditionally been facilitated by interpersonal contact. Consumer services in such diverse industries as health care education, travel, and Fleet management have, until recently, been delivered by human providers. The same holds for business-to-business services such as consulting, equipment repair and maintenance, administrative support, and other outsourced services. Due to the emphasis on "high touch," virtually all of the service research has explored the interpersonal dynamics of the encounter. The growing role of technology in service encounters has been largely ignored (Bitner, Brown & Meuter 2000:141). Yet, across industries, technology is dramatically altering interpersonal encounter relationships and, in some instances, eliminating them altogether. In some cases, technology may dramatically alter the negative perceptions a customer has for a firm because the traditional physical market space has changed to a virtual space where products and services exist as digital information and can be delivered through information based channels (Bitner et al. 2000:141). The content, context, and infrastructure surrounding customer-company interactions have all significantly changed in this new market-space environment. Based on the evolution of the market space, it is no longer necessary to have a physical buyer and a physical seller present to facilitate a successful transaction. Bitner et al. (2000:141), in their studies revealed that research on self-service technologies challenges the notion that employee-customer interaction is an essential feature of service marketing. In a related vein, the authors also point to the "human-resources trap" in services, contending that firms are overly focussed on human and interpersonal aspects of service delivery at the neglect of other non-personal ways to interact with customers.

According to Bitner et al. (2000:141), the changing landscape of service encounters has necessitated an enhancement to the Services Marketing Triangle. Based on the current services marketing pyramid, the service encounter is now viewed as the dynamic relationship that exists between the firm, employees, customers, and technology. The original triangle helped shape the direction of service encounter research, the current adapted services marketing pyramid model will encourage and direct research incorporating the important and growing role of technology in customer perception of service delivery.

2.7 SERVICE QUALITY AND ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Organisational culture has primarily been viewed as an internal phenomenon, having an impact on staff behaviours and attitudes, and ultimately influencing organisational performance and effectiveness (Macintosh & Doherty 2007:45). It has also more recently been conceptualised as an important factor in shaping a company's image in the marketplace. Macintosh and Doherty (2007:45) argued that external perception of organisational culture is significantly associated with clients' satisfaction and intention for repeat business. The authors' findings support the studies by Hung and Wong (2007:497) which revealed that customer satisfaction has a direct influence on customer loyalty and that customers' intention to repurchase a product or service is determined primarily by their satisfaction with prior use of that product or service. Organisational perception of customer satisfaction is defined as how organisational leaders perceive the extent to which the customers of their products and services are satisfied (Hung & Wong 2007:497). Organisations need quality information in order to understand the responses of their customers accurately. Unfortunately, useful and accurate information is not always available to organisations. The consequences of customer satisfaction are the course of action pursued by customers. This could be either a positive one, which can be shown by their repeated purchases, or a negative one, which can be shown by the extent of customer complaints. In services marketing organisations, spontaneous cooperative actions seem especially relevant (Rego & Cunha 2008:542). Several aspects of services require non-mandated employee behaviour that can be critical to customer satisfaction and their perceptions of service quality in the so-called 'moments of truth' during service encounters. Identification of 'moments of truth' is vital if quality service is to be achieved with the highest level of consistency since each moment of truth is an opportunity for the organisation to demonstrate the quality of service (Christopher, Payne & Ballantyne 1991:18). The organisation cannot provide a customised service if their employees stick to the prescribed tasks as previously defined. Even if some behaviour may be explicitly defined for instance, 'wear a smile when dealing with customers'; others are perhaps more abstract and dependent on employee attitudes and motivations for instance 'understand real customer needs'.

Rego and Cunha (2008:542) posited that to foster positive interactions and customer satisfaction, loyalty and trust, employees must adopt a variety of behaviours some of which are difficult to specify in an organisation's handbook. Both externally directed, for example helping the customer in a personal matter, and internally directed behaviours are relevant. For example, an employee who voluntarily replaces a colleague in performing an administrative task can liberate him/her to devote better effort for helping a customer. The authors further opined that when employees behave as good organisational citizens toward each other, they promote a positive internal climate, which in turn may have a positive impact in the way customers are served. The behaviours of an organisation's employees are indeed relevant facilitators of organisational effectiveness and can contribute to customers' perception of service quality (Rego & Cunha, 2008:543). For instance, potential problems with service delivery can be identified early by employees performing the service. Thus, conscientious and altruistic employees help customers and go beyond their expectations, engaging in more committed behaviours towards them and increasing their satisfaction and loyalty to the company. Employees who help customers and behave courteously towards them may foster the sense of gratitude in customers, leading them to repeat the service acquisition, to disseminate a positive image of the organisation and remain loyal even when the 'appeals' of competitors are 'seductive'. Furthermore, recent research (Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry, 1996:34) offers some evidence that customer satisfaction and service-quality perceptions positively affect intentions to behave favourably or unfavourably. Therefore, the use of customer evaluations according to Haynes and Fryer (2000:242), as an index of organisational effectiveness is more appropriate in the service sector where organisational dynamics have a direct impact on the people the organisation serves.

2.8 GAPS IN ORGANISATIONAL SERVICE QUALITY

Recent studies (Negi, 2009:32) indicated that in the past few decades' service quality has become a major area of attention to practitioners, managers, and researchers owing to its strong impact on business performance, lowering costs, improving customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and profitability. Among many concepts of service quality, the service quality gaps model plays a significant role in the service management literature. The gaps approach proposes valuable propositions on how service quality might be understood and how the service quality emerges across a service organisation (Urban 2009:631). This assertion agrees with the research findings of Negi (2009:35) that the gap analysis is accurate in identifying service shortfalls in an operation. Also, addressing the identified shortfalls is the foundation for planning strategies to ensure customer experiences that are consistent with their expectations. In most services, quality is measured by customers during service delivery, usually in an interaction between the customer and customer-facing employee of the service firm. For this reason, service quality is highly dependent on the performance of employees, an organisational resource that cannot be controlled to the degree that components of tangible goods can be engineered (Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry, 1988:35). The authors further argued that consumers' quality perceptions are influenced by a series of four distinct gaps occurring in organisations. These gaps on the service provider's side can potentially impede delivery of services that consumers perceive to be of high quality. They are enumerated below:

Gap 1: Difference between consumer expectations and management perceptions of consumer expectations

Gap 2: Difference between management perceptions of consumer expectations and service quality specifications

Gap 3: Difference between service quality specifications and the service actually delivered.

Gap 4: Difference between service delivery and what is communicated about the service to consumers.

Delivering consistently good service quality is difficult, as organisations have discovered. Some of the reasons for this difficulty can be traced to communication and control processes implemented in organisations to manage employees (Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry, 1988:37). Other factors involve consequences of these processes for instance role ambiguity and role conflict which affect the delivery of service quality.

Reasons for Organisational Service Quality Gaps

In their studies, Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry (1988:37) proposed the main theoretical constructs and specific variables associated with the four organisational service quality gaps. These constructs are summarised below.

Gap 1: Difference between consumer expectations and management perceptions of consumer expectations

Service firm executives may not always understand what features constitute high quality to consumers. They also may not understand what attributes a service must have in order to meet consumer needs, and what levels of performance on those features are necessary to deliver high quality service. Since there are few clearly defined and tangible cues for services, the gap between what consumers expect and what managers think they expect may be considerably larger than it is in firms that produce tangible goods. The size of gap 1 in any service marketing firm is proposed to be a function of marketing research, orientation, upward communication, and layers of management.

Gap 2: Difference between management perceptions of consumer expectations and service quality specifications

Managers of service firms often experience difficulty in attempting to match or exceed customer expectations. A variety of factors-resource constraints, short term profit orientation, market conditions, management indifference-may account for the discrepancy between managers' perceptions of consumer expectations and the actual specifications established by management for a service. The size of gap 2 in any service firm is proposed to be a function of management commitment to service quality, goal setting, task standardisation, and perception of feasibility. An explanation for gap 2 is the absence of total management commitment to service quality. Emphasis on other objectives such as cost reduction and short-term profit has outcomes that are more easily measured and tracked and may supersede emphasis on service quality.

Gap 3: Difference between service quality specifications and the service actually delivered

Gap 3 is the discrepancy between the specifications for the service and the actual delivery of the service. It can be referred to as the "service performance gap," that is, the extent to which service providers do not perform at the level expected by management. The service performance gap occurs when employees are unable or unwilling to perform the service at the desired level. Some of the main theoretical constructs proposed to account for the size of gap 3 are lack of teamwork, employee-job fit, perceived control, supervisory control systems, role conflicts and role ambiguity. In high performing groups, people function as a team to accomplish their goals by allowing group members to participate in decisions. Critical to the success of organisational team work is the extent to which employees view other employees as customers, the extent to which employees feel management cares about them, the extent to which employees feel they are cooperating rather than competing with each other, and the extent to which employees feel personally involved and committed.

Gap 4: Difference between service delivery and what is communicated about the service to consumers

Media advertising and other communications by a firm can affect consumer expectations. Discrepancies between service delivery and external communications in the form of exaggerated promises or the absence of information about service delivery aspects intended to serve consumers well can affect consumer perceptions of service quality. Horizontal communication and the propensity to overpromise within an organisation can affect the size of this construct. An important aspect of horizontal communication is the coordination or integration of departments in an organisation to achieve strategic objectives. An obvious form of coordination necessary in providing service quality is consistency in policies and procedures across departments and branches.

Companies need to install an ongoing service research process that provides timely and relevant current data that managers must rely on for better decision making Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry ( 1994:33). Therefore, building a service quality information system which provides a deeper insight and a sense for the pattern of future changes should be embedded into an organisation's service culture.

2.9 CRITICISMS OF THE GAP MODEL

Although SERVQUAL remains the most widely applied measure of service quality today and the popularity of the Parasuraman et al inspired literature has become the perception of what service quality really is, the efficacy of this has however been criticized by different authors for different reasons.

Woodall (2001:597) differs on the popularity and assertions of Parasuraman et al in his article in view of the fact that service quality has effectively become SERVQUAL in interpretation. He is of the opinion that service quality, a result of its market-speak interpretation is interpreted as 'customer service' implying more rather than better. In other words, service quantity stands proxy for service quality, and the essence of quality - doing things better consistently - has been lost in the translation. As a consequence, the connection of 'quality' to 'service' is now anchored, unreservedly - by association - to heterogeneity and diversity. Service quality is no longer achievement of the highest possible standards of execution but an essentially functional property - an indispensable, but variable, process-oriented component of any 'product consumption system'.

Sureshchandar et al (2001:112) even opines that most of the items evaluated by SERVQUAL seem to have left out certain aspects of service quality, such as features relating to the core service, standardization of service delivery and even goodwill relating to the firm's societal responsibility. Rather it concentrated on aspects of human interaction and service tangibles. It was also highlighted that Cronin and Taylor refuted the framework of Parasuraman et al with respect to the conceptualization and measurement of service quality. In its stead they propounded a performance-based measure known as SERVPERF as a better tool advocating that service quality is a form of consumer attitude. An alternative model was also developed by Teas, Kenneth and Palan (1997) based on evaluated performance and normative performance (Sureshchandar et al 2001:114).

2.10 BEST PRACTICES IN CUSTOMER SERVICE

Various studies have shown that well managed customer service companies share the following common practices: a strategic concept, a history of top management commitment to exceptional customer service, high standards, self-service technologies, systems for monitoring service performance and customer complaints, and an emphasis on employee satisfaction. Rackspace, a U.S.-based Web-hosting company that provides space on servers to make their clients' Web sites accessible on the internet, embodies many of these practices.

2.11 ORGANISATIONAL SERVICE CULTURE

Service culture refers to a specialised culture within the broader concept of organisational culture in which one dominant philosophy is promoted among all members of the organisation (Zerbe, Dobni & Harel 1998:168). Further, the authors defined service culture as "a culture where an appreciation for good service exists, and where giving good service to internal as well as ultimate, external customers is considered a natural way of life and one of the most important norms by everyone". The factor to satisfying customers of an organisation is the creation of a customer service culture. This means defining the type of interaction with customers and improving the delivery of customer service. It also means deepening this culture within the context of organisational change for which employees have a significant role in improving customer service. According to Cole (2005:129), creating a customer service culture is more than training. The author opined that it entailed defining the desired customer service culture and identifying the crucial moments of truth or interactions with the customer and ultimately deciding how each of these interactions will be managed. A company with a customer service culture also uses frustrations or breakdowns in customer service as opportunities to add value to the customer while at the same time improving the customer- service delivery system. Furthermore, Cole (2005:129) proposed that organisational change involved two aspects namely defining the structural components of the change process and ensuring employees adapt behaviours that will improve customer service. Both tracks must be in gear to successfully improve an organisation's customer service culture. In a study (Zerbe, Dobni & Harel 1998:166), the authors reported that research in service sector organisations, with the use of various methodologies, has found support for a positive relationship between employee perceptions of organisational practices and customer ratings of organisational effectiveness. Services are intangible (Kotler & Keller 2006:405) and customers are active participants in their production; also services tend to be produced and consumed simultaneously, relative to goods.

Consequently, they cannot be inventoried neither can they be repaired or discarded if faulty. Therefore, the development of valid measures of their output is difficult thus the need to add physical evidence and imagery to the service rendered. Efforts to promote service quality must therefore be based on managing employee behaviour before the customer-employee interaction, rather than measuring service outcomes after the fact (Zerbe et al. 1998:167). In other words, service quality must be promoted through the appropriate management of human resources.

Zerbe et al. (1998:167) proposed the use of internal marketing as a means of promoting service behaviour among employees of an organisation. Internal marketing is intended to ensure that all employees understand and internalise the objectives and philosophy of the organisation, know their roles and responsibilities in the context of a customer-oriented environment, and are motivated for service-oriented behaviour. The authors further opined that internal marketing is intended to nurture a commitment to the organisation's goals by educating and selling employees on the service offering. With internal marketing, rationale behind management's decisions concerning service quality is communicated by promoting shared organisational values concerning customer service and service quality. Clearly, the intended objective of internal marketing is the creation of a service culture.

2.12 CONCLUSION

Understanding service quality improvement is an important issue in the field of organisational management (Freisleben, 2005; William et al., 2006 and Lai et al, 2009). Service quality is a tactic that companies could employee to gain competitive advantage over others. There has also been a growing support for the link between service quality and profitability (Deshparde, Farley, and Webster 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990; Schneider 1991). It must however be pointed out that the delivery of quality service does not just happen on its own, efforts must be made to facilitate employees in their effort to deliver quality service, they must receive adequate resources and training, have the required equipment and supplies and supportive managerial practices and assistance they need (Burke, Kapinski, Dunlop and Davidson, 1996; Schneider and Bowen, 1985,1993; Schneider, White and Paul,1998 ) Reynoso and Moores further points out that "if management wants its employees to deliver an outstanding level of service to customers, then it must be prepared to do a great job with its employees. The internal functioning of the organisation must be suitable for quality service delivery. Schneider and his colleagues demonstrates that the way employees perceive their organisation service climate was related to the way customers perceive the service they receive Schneider, Parkinton, and Buxton, 1980, Schneider and White 2004).