Customers' experiences as a factor affecting perceived service quality ...

ISSN 1822-6515 EKONOMIKA IR VADYBA: 2010. 15

ISSN 1822-6515 ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT: 2010. 15

CUSTOMERS’ EXPERIENCES AS A FACTOR AFFECTING PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY Wiesław Urban Bialystok Technical University, Poland, [email protected]

Abstract This paper aims to verify if the intensiveness of prior customers’ experiences with the same services provider and other providers affects service quality. The empirical investigation was conducted in auto service sector. Empirical research concludes that customers’ experiences specified by lengths of relationships with a service provider and frequency of service use do not influence whole aspects of service quality. But there are some aspects of service quality that are affected by customers longitudinal experiences, they are: expectations of service assurance, perceptions concerning reliability and responsiveness, and the quality gap concerning assurance. The results also have consequences for mangers responsible of service operations. Keywords: service quality, quality gaps, customers’ experiences, SERVQUAL.

Introduction Nowadays economies are called economies of services because the service sector plays a significant role in the wealth creation measured by such indicators like GDP and added value. Service sector has the crucial meaning because it employs vast numbers of people. Therefore, the growth of service sector is affecting positively all the economy. Many scientific works mention variety of growth factors, from many differentiated points of view; among them quality of service and quality management analysed in the level of enterprises seem to be potentially very interesting direction. Improving the service quality, companies might achieve many competitive advantages, thanks to which they are winning growth and development. Quality management was formed in the early fifties of the previous century and was considered as the significant factor of companies’ success. Nowadays quality management is still a very appealing aspect of management, it leads companies to sustainable development. The concept of quality management was born in heavy industries, but in recent decades it has appeared as a very useful management approach also in service sector. Quality in service reality has a different meaning in comparison with quality of goods. Service quality contains significantly many more intangible elements, such elements which are much more difficult to measure; more subjective, emerging from human relationships in the meeting of servers’ staff and customers. Service quality is described mostly from customers’ perception point of view – so called “perceived services quality”. In the literature output there is rather consensus that service quality is a critical determinant of companies performance and long-term growth (Bolton & Drew, 1991; Gale, 1994). Service quality has direct positive impact on consumers affecting their satisfaction, which afterwards leads to customer word-of-mouth, attitudinal loyalty, and purchase intentions (Gremler & Gwinner, 2000). In service quality there are many interesting and not clarified questions concerning how perceived service quality is formed, this is still interesting field of research in management and marketing. Considering how interesting and challengeable service quality formation is, it is proposed to investigate the influence of customers’ experiences on the perceived service quality. In this paper the assumed meaning of service quality is a gap between customers’ expectations and customers’ perception; this meaning was originally proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985 & 1988) and still is one of the most employed in scientific researches. The empirical investigation conducted in auto services tends to verify if the intensiveness of prior customers’ experiences with the same services provider, and other providers from the same sector, affects in any way service quality. Variety of components of service quality are considered while investigating the role of customers’ experiences: expectations level, quality perception, quality gap. Before the presentation of empirical data and its discussion, the literature output concerning service quality gap concept and factors affecting service quality will be critically analysed.

Service quality as a gap Service quality is the notion that might be understood in many different ways. Mostly how researchers and practitioners understand this notion depends on (1) which aspect of service product the authors’ attention is focused on, (2) what the assumptions concerning customers are and (3) for what kind of management purpose the definition of service quality is created (Urban, 2007). One of the most known and most cited 820



meanings of service quality is service quality as a gap between customers’ expectations and customers’ perceptions. The service gap concept was proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985) along with a detailed approach to measure this concept called SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1998). During the last twenty years service quality as a gap and SERVQUAL as a method for its measurement widely spread, which became a standard in measuring service quality (DeMoranville & Bienstock, 2003). Service quality as a gap is also called as disconfirmation model because it bases on the fact that service quality is often worse than it was expected by customers (Urban, 2009). Originally SERVQUAL proposed to define service quality gap in five dimensions, the authors achieved them starting with ten dimensions. These five dimensions enclose all the attributes of service quality gap. The mentioned dimensions are as follows (Parasuraman et al., 1998): • Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel. • Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. • Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service. • Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence. • Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the firm provides for its customers. During the purification process authors eliminate many additional dimensions by combining them into the five ones listed above. There had been quality attributes like: credibility, security, competence, courtesy, understanding/knowing customers, and access. Many followers proposed further developments of quality gap attributes, mostly the proposals were starting from original five dimensions and proposed the adjusted dimensions concerning particular service sectors. For example, in banking services a set of attributes was developed (Avkiran, 1994) which contains four dimensions, which noticeably differs from original one, they are: staff conduct, credibility, communication, access to teller services. There are almost hundreds of different proposals in the literature output developed in specific conditions. The wide variety of modifications of original quality gap measurement instrument have brought many evaluations which are not identical. The opinions concerning quality gap and SERVQUAL are either positive and supportive, or point out problems connected with these concept. First of all, many continuators proposed developed service quality dimensions (attributes), in this way the universality of the original five was questioned, directly or indirectly. Some researchers concluded that the original quality gap dimensions are improper description of services quality (Carman, 1990; Smith, 1995; Sureshchandar et al., 2001; Morrison, 2004). But, on the other hand, many authors state that SERVQUAL is the best-known and leading measurement’s instrument, it is universal and widely used by academics and managers in variety of industrial, commercial and not-for-profit settings (Bahia & Nantel, 2000; Sachdev & Verma, 2004; Chiu, 2002). We should consider many doubts concerning service quality gap concept. There are problems in the estimation of customers’ expectations (Morrison Coulthard, 2004), especially because usually customers expect more than they get (Rosen et al., 2003). Many empirical research projects and theoretical deductions show that due to limitations of SERVQUAL the more efficient is the measurement of only perception of quality (Carman, 1990; Cronin & Taylor Cronin, 1992; McAlexander et al., 1994; Jain & Gupta, 2004; Jayawardhena, 2004). There is also the opinion that gap measurement is better than exclusively perception measurement (Elliott, 1994), but this opinion is rather in minority. Apart from the doubts concerning quality evaluation by disconfirming it, there are also doubts referring to the gap calculation method (Teas, 1993). Moreover, authors mention that disconfirmation measurement provides limited hints how to improve service quality (Taylor & Cronin, 1994; Oppewal & Vriens, 2000; Morrison Coulthard, 2004). The question if it is better to measure the gap or only one side of the quality gap - only customers’ perception of service quality - is widely discussed by academics; it appears as interesting from theoretical point of view, but not significant in practical utilisation. According to research conducted by Urban (2009) the most surprising observation from empirical investigation in service sector concerning SERVQUAL utilisation is that the most discussed method in the literature appears to be less applicable in management practice. Practitioners are willing to employ quality measurement models and methods that are simpler in practical utilisation; measuring separately expectations and perceptions the research questionnaire and time of interviews are doubled. The gap model seems to be not attractive from business application point of view (Urban, 2009). Despite the wide discussion and many doubts, for this study the gap concept was chosen. There are strong arguments for gaps approach utilisation. First of all, it is tended to recognise exhaustively how customers prior experiences influence the quality, the gap model allows investigate it widely. The research objectives form the theoretical questions, basing on gap approach, hopefully, it brings more light on 821



understanding how the service quality is being formed, considering also the role of customers expectations. Continuing the literature critique some observations concerning service quality formation will be provided.

How service quality is formed? The classic explanation of this fundamental question “how service quality is formed?” comes from the five service quality gaps model (Parasuraman et al., 1985). According to it customer quality gap is formed directly by five factors: (1) word-of-mouth communications, (2) personal needs, (3) past experiences, (4) the service product content, and (5) external communications of a service provider with customers (Zeithaml et al., 1990). The first three and the fifth factor influence customer’s expectations, whereas the fourth one forms quality perception. Altogether the five factors form perceived service quality. The service product factor is widely discussed in service quality literature output, especially attributes of service quality focus researchers attentions, as it mentioned above, authors test existing and propose new sets of service quality attributes. Other factors, except customers’ experiences, are relatively well researched in relation to service quality. Word-of-mouth is often investigated as an effect of service quality (Yavas et al., 2004; Swanson & Davis, 2003); they are lead to repurchase behaviours being significant element of pre-purchase evaluation of services (Sweeney et al., 2008; Dean & Lang, 2008; Murray, 1991). It is not questionable that they strongly affect customers’ expectations. Customer needs and company outer communication are the fundaments of marketing, they are researched in thousands of means. The role of experiences as service quality predicator is not exhaustively explained, there is a noticeable lack of research of customers’ experiences in this context. Customers service consumption experiences might essentially affect what customers expect next time and from other service providers. According to longitudinal study predictive expectations were higher following a positive experience and remained relatively stable following a negative experience (Tam, 2005). It is expectable that duration of the constant consumption of particular service might have an influence on how customers perceived this particular service and what they expect from it, and similarly the frequency of particular service consumption. Prior research suggests that people as customers learn to cope with newly perceived marketers tactics gradually over time (Friestad & Wright, 1994), it might be expected as well that they remember and learn from service experiences during a service process. Therefore, it is interesting what, in service quality formation, the role of the length of cooperation with one service provider, or the frequency of consumption is? As well as what is the influence of how intensively a customer consumes other competitive services? It is expected that there is the influence of mentioned aspects on the customers’ expectations, as well as on customers’ service perceptions, and finally on overall service quality. Quality guru Bo Edvardsson states that customers experiences are not stressed enough either in scientific research or in the business sphere, considering that the full discovering of the role of customer experiences is the future of services (Edvardsson, 2005). According to him an experience means the service encounter and/or service process that create the customer’s cognitive, emotional and behavioural responses in customers memories and stay on them for relatively long time. He also mentions that customers’ experiences will have a strong impact on customers’ quality perceptions (Edvardsson, 2005). Edvardsson notices that some first class companies (like Ikea and Volvo) design service components to physical products stressing experience-based quality, physical products become platforms for service experiences.

Research method In this study the survey method is employed. The standard SERVQUAL tool (Parasuraman et. al 1988) was slightly modified for the purpose of auto repair and check-up services peculiarity. The 22 questions concerning customers’ expectations and similar 22 concerning perceptions was broadened by a few questions focused on the previous customer experiences in the car services. The added questions concern: the length of using this particular car service, the frequency of the use of this service, and the frequency of the use of other competitive providers serving similar services. The SERVQUAL questions are assessed by clients in the seven-points Likert scale, alike additional questions. One authorised car service of the first league automotive brand was chosen for empirical investigation. 72 reliable questionnaires were gathered, they were fulfilled in direct interviews. The help of a field researcher who works for the mentioned car service was priceless (sincere thanks to Mr. Zalewski). The empirical data was statistically analysed, namely the statistically significant relationships between variables were identified. The software Statistica 9.0 was utilised.

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Carrillat et al. (2007) researched the validation of SERVQUAL instrument across different service industries. Their achievement leads to the conclusion that quality gap construct is highly appropriate for services called “service shops”; they are services with intermediate level of customization and judgement from service employees, where value added is generated in both the back and front offices. The research object is included in this kind of services. It is a proper choice for research the quality gap and factors that forms it.

Findings and discussion At the beginning typical SERVQUAL indicators will be shortly analysed. Quality gaps in whole quality dimensions were calculated by subtracting expectations from perception for each item and average them, the overall service quality index is obtained as the average. The results are presented in Table 1. Table 1. SERVQUAL results Mean -0.83 -0.77 -0.6 -0.72 -0.78 -0.74

QGTangibles QGReliability QGResponsiveness QGAssurance QGEmpathy QGOverall

SD 1.18 1.07 0.94 0.84 0.89 0.78

According to the results, the overall service quality gap index equals -0.74, the highest gap is identified in the dimension tangibles -0.83 with the bigger standard deviation. It might be considered that according to researched customers the physical facilities and equipment and staff appearance bring the biggest discrepancy between expectation and perception. Indeed the service spot is located in the industrial part of town having relatively old and worn-out facilities. Results between variables do not differ much, the interval between the highest and lowest scored variables is 0.23. The lowest dimension is responsiveness, the willingness of service staff to provide responsive and helpful service. The objective of the study is the investigation of the influence of experiences on the service quality. For this purpose the three additional questions were asked in the questionnaire: A: How long have you used the service provided by company “X” (“Lengths”)? B: How frequently have you used the service provided by company “X” in the last few years (“Frequency”)? C: How frequently have you used the services provided by other companies in the same service sector (“Others Frequency”)? For these variables the statistical relationships were calculated using statistical software. All variables from which the quality gap index is composed were taken into consideration. Evaluating the strength of relationships the correlation coefficients Gamma and Kendall Tau were calculated, which are proper for such kind of variables and sample size (Nonparametric Statistics, 2010). All quality dimensions were considered as expected (prefix Exp) and perceived (prefix Perc), as well as the gap (prefix QG) between them. Unexpectedly the statistical significant relationships were identified between merely few pairs of variables. There were expected more significant relationships between more measured variables, but the results show that only a few of them depend on experiences. Relationships with the overall service quality index are not significant. All significant relationships are shown in Table 2. The lack of statistical significant relationship between variables concerning experiences and overall quality index do not decide that there is no influence of customers experiences on service quality. According to the data presented in Table 2, there is an influence of some variables of customers’ experiences on customers’ expectations. The expectations concerning assurance are under the influence of the lengths of cooperation with a service provider and the frequency of use. The correlation coefficients are negatives, therefore, it is concluded that the longer period of cooperation and higher frequency of use, the lower the expectations are. This is a really peculiar conclusion. We must consider that assurance in SERVQUAL mostly consists of trust to companies’ employees, customers feeling of confidence, politeness and adequate support for customers. The reliable explanation of this relationship bases on the trust to service provider and to providers staff. Being trustful customers expect less than new customers and those that come more

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seldom. It might be paraphrased that a customer knows her/him “enemy”, and she/he prefers well known “enemy” than an unknown one. Simultaneously the higher frequency leads to higher quality assessment in the variable assurance; the correlation coefficient is negative, so the quality gap is lower. Finally, we might consider that experiences with the same service provider lead to better perceived service quality in the dimension assurance, and this is achieved by lower expectations from current service provider. Table 2. Correlation coefficients N 72 72 72 72 72 72 N 72 72 72 72 72 72

PercReliability & OthersFrequency PercResponsiveness & Lengths PercResponsiveness & Frequency ExpAssurance & Lengths ExpAssurance & Frequency QGAssurance & Frequency PercReliability & OthersFrequency PercResponsiveness & Lengths PercResponsiveness & Frequency ExpAssurance & Lengths ExpAssurance & Frequency QGAssurance & Frequency

Gamma 0.198171 0.264065 0.196850 -0.298507 -0.330346 -0.207188 Kendall Tau 0.174337 0.232317 0.170045 -0.237300 -0.259415 -0.178373

Z 2.16620 2.88661 2.11287 -2.94853 -3.22332 -2.21635 Z 2.16620 2.88661 2.11287 -2.94853 -3.22332 -2.21635

p 0.030296 0.003894 0.034612 0.003193 0.001267 0.026667 P 0.030296 0.003894 0.034612 0.003193 0.001267 0.026667

Not only is the dimension assurance affected by customers’ experiences, but also the others: reliability and responsiveness, however, only the influence on the perceptions is noticed. The perception of reliability is in the connection with frequency of the use of other competitive services. Reliability seems to be the only quality dimensions that are compared to competitive services by customers. According to SERVQUAL, the reliability dimension mostly encloses fulfilment of promises that are given to clients, also dependability of service provider, as well as kindness and order in records. These aspects of services mostly are compared by customers with other providers. In the researched service the relationship is positive. It means that customers who use competitive services more frequently, evaluate the researched services better. The level of reliability is higher than in competitors’ services, it is not unforeseen, as it is the car services of prestigious automotive brand. If it was the opposite, the correlations coefficients would be negative. Finally, according to correlation analysis customers’ experiences affects another quality dimension responsiveness. Responsiveness depends on the length of customers use of a service and its frequency. The longer customers use a service, the more frequently they perceive a service better in terms of providing prompt service, and staff are willing to be helpful and responsive to customers’ requests. It surely bases on the fact that both sides of service become more familiar with each other; after a few visits of customers service staff start to know them and their preferences, so they could provide the exact service as needed. This influence of experiences on responsiveness explains the learning process of both sides relatively well, but mostly service staff, knowing a client better, could behave in a more responsive way. lengths

frequency

e x tangibles p e reliability c t responsiveness a t assurance i o empathy n s

q u a l i t y g a p

others frequency p e r reliability c e responsiveness p t i assurance o empathy n s tangibles

Figure 1. Influence of experiences on service quality 824



Recapitulating empirical research achievements, it should be considered that customers’ experiences specified by lengths of relationships with a service company and frequency of service use, including other services provided by competitors, do not influence all aspects of service quality implied as quality gaps (Figure 1). But there are some aspects of service quality that are affected by customers longitudinal experiences with a particular kind of services; they are: expectations of assurance level, perceptions concerning reliability and responsiveness; and finally experiences affecting the quality gap concerning assurance. Plus and minus signs in the correlation analysis prove that experiences have positive influence on service quality ingredients. There is a reduction of service gap size, as well as experiences reduce customers’ expectations, which is definitely positive influence.

Conclusions First of all companies might take advantage of identified dependences. Two out of five dimensions of service quality are entirely independent from customers experiences, they are tangibles and empathy. The conclusions for managers is that in these aspects of service quality customers need new impressions each time, and existing clients expect the same as new clients. Especially empathy is the field that brings many potential moments of true (moments of magic) for all customers equally. It seems that loyal customers (behavioural loyalty) expect lower level of service assurance because they trust service provider more. Service providers should consider this fact while redefining service encounter; namely, thanks to this observations, special attention might be redirected from loyal clients to new clients. Reliability is the special field of benchmarking with competitive services, because this dimension remains in relationship with the use of service provided by others. And finally, responsiveness appears to be particularly tied to personal relationships, therefore, very sensitive to improper human resources policy by a company, especially some particular situations like rapid staff exchange.

Limitations of this study This study undoubtedly has many limitations. The serious one is the size of research sample, only 72 customers, which is acceptable, however, a bigger one would definitely be better. During the research it was realised that car services of the prestigious automotive brand serving for superior market segment have relatively many loyal clients, who repurchase the service systematically. This fact might have an influence on achieved results. The research was conducted only in one service sector, thus it is interesting if the same dependences would be found in other sectors.

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