Comparative Study of Service Quality Metrics: An Empirical Study in the Service Sector

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, Sikkim Manipal University Bangalore (Manipal Institute of Technology), course: MBA , language: English, abstract: The SERVPERF and SERVQUAL are the two Service quality measurement instruments widely used in the measurement of service quality in various service sectors such as banking, hospitals, tourism, insurance etc. But the service quality literature indicates that there exists a significant difference in the philosophy of service quality measurement in these two metrics, and also, the results while these two metrics are used need not necessarily match.

Hence, the problem identified in this research is: do these two metrics concur in their results, or is there a significant difference in their outcomes as applicable to a given service sector. The study also extends to the correlation between the outcomes of these two metrics and looking into the possibility of drawing implications based on the combined outcome.

The research is partly qualitative and partly quantitative in nature. Qualitative in the sense that it analyses existing metrics of service quality based on meta-analysis and, through the use of secondary data, discusses the relative importance of both the metrics in service sectors. The research becomes quantitative, as it deals with descriptive statistics and tests various hypotheses using standard statistical tools. Keviat diagrams have been used to identify the service quality gaps.

The research has clearly indicated that there is a significant difference in the outcomes of SERVQUAL and SERVPERF metrics. The reliability of the study was 0.8815, which is at adequately acceptable level. Tangibles and Reliability are highly scored, and Empathy and Assurance are least scored, whereas, Responsiveness is moderately scored Service quality dimension. It can be concluded that if meaningful outcome has to be obtained, both these metrics have to be applied to a service sector and based on the combined inference drawn, suggestions should be made for quality enhancement.