Service Quality Dimensions

    

• Tangibles - Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.
• 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 convey trust and confidence.
• Empathy - The firm provides care and individualized attention to its customers.

References:

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V., Berry, L.L. (1988), "SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of quality", Journal of Retailing, 64 (1), 12-40.

Average Usage and Service Quality

The In-Touch study shows that the better the service quality, the more often people will turn to a particular service. The meaning that people use more what they like more – and that the service quality does have an impact on operator revenues (http://unite.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/adwords/article/view/id/46, retrieved May 4, 2009). Another study by Nam et al (2007) about the effects of service quality and word of mouth on customer acquisition, retention and usage found a direct effect of service quality and usage. 

Race and Service Quality

Illias et al (2008) shows that service quality in higher education would be the same irrespective of races. Therefore whether the students are Chinese, Indians or Malays, the perceptions on service quality are still the same. 

Reference:

Illias, A, Hasan, H.F.A, Rahman, R.A and Rushdan, M., (2008), “Student Satisfaction and Service Quality: Any Differences in Demographic Factors”, International Business Research, 1(4), 131 – 143.

Parents Lie

Parents lie to their kids for all sorts of reasons -- to protect them from the outside world, to keep them from harm, and to make themselves, or their kids, feel better, more reading here. Honesty may seem to be the best policy and a value that parents want to teach their children but a new study has found that parents lie to their children more often than we think. 

Researchers decided to run two studies in which parents and students commented on nine hypothetical circumstances where a parent lied to a child to either shape behavior or make them happy. For instance, one behavior-molding scenario reads: "A parent is embarrassed by a child's crying and says, 'The police will come to make sure that you behave if you don't stop crying now.'"

The researchers tested the scenarios on approximately 130 parents, mostly moms, asking each participant to indicate whether they had told similar lies. Parents also rated on a scale from 1 (very bad) to 7 (very good) what the parent in each vignette had said. More than 70 percent said they teach their children that lying is unacceptable. Even so, nearly 80 percent of parents indicated they had told at least one similar lie (Tyler Woods Ph.D.)........ more reading here.

Gender and Service Quality

Gender segmentation has grown in use over the years as marketers have recognized that women are a lucrative market segment; therefore, marketers have become more sensitive to women’s attitudes and needs (Kotler and Armstrong, 1991). However, study by Jusoh et al. 2004 in measuring the service quality performance of a faculty in public university revealed that there are no significant differences on the student’s evaluation of service quality by gender. The finding is consistent with the result by Illias et al (2008), which also found there is no significant difference between male and female in their perceived service quality.

 Another research in banking industry conducted by Al – Tamimi and Al - Amiri (2003) in analyzing service industry in the UAE Islamic Bank, there was no significant difference in the level of service quality in the UAE Islamic banks based on the customer's gender. 

reference: 

Jusoh, A, Omain, S.Z, Majid, N.A, Hishamudin and Shamsuddin, A.S, (2004), “Service Quality in Higher Education: Management Students’ Perspective”, Project Report, University of Technology Malaysia.Illias, A, Hasan, H.F.A, Rahman, R.A and Rushdan, M., (2008), “Student Satisfaction and Service Quality: Any Differences in Demographic Factors”, International Business Research, 1(4), 131 – 143.

Al – Tamimi, H.A.H., and Al – Amiri, A., (2003), “Analysing Service Quality in the UAE Islamic Banks”, Journal of Service Marketing, 8, 119 – 132.