2. Introduction
• According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization
(2003) as cited by Omondi (2019) quality is “ the result of a
process that guarantee the satisfaction of all the legitimate
product and service needs, requirements, and expectations of the
consumer, at an acceptable price, in conformity, with mutually
accepted contractual conditions and the underlying quality
determinants including safety and security, hygiene, accessibility,
transparency, authenticity, and harmony of the tourism activity
concerned with its human and natural environment.”
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4. Learning Objectives:
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:
• Explain the relationships between service quality, productivity, and profitability;
• know the different dimensions of service quality;
• understands the importance of customer feedback;
• familiarize with the tools used to analyze service quality problems;
• learn the different system approaches to service quality and productivity; and
• know and differentiate the kinds of organizations based on service leadership.
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5. Relationship between service Quality; Productivity; and
Profitability
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• Businesses thrive because they earn profit.
Profitability is realized if companies earn to provide
quality service and to become productive. Customer
satisfaction is an evaluation of a single consumption
experience.
• In contrast , service quality refers to relatively stable
attitude and beliefs about a firm (Wirtz & Lovelock,
2018).
6. Relationship between service Quality; Productivity; and
Profitability
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• Satisfied customers would most likely lead to repeat
purchase, higher spending, and referrals. Similarly,
companies that have higher productivity would be more
profitable since cost would be less.
• If the relationship between profitability and productivity
as well as service quality are direct and simple, the
relationship between productivity and service quality is
more complex.
7. Measuring Service Quality
Presentation title 7
• Service quality (SQ) is one of the key factors and result-oriented
strategies to satisfy customers and to convince them to become loyal
customers by delivering quality-based products and services to reach
their needs and desires (Othman, Harun, Rashid, & Ali, 2019)
8. There are two (2) suggested criteria on how to
measure service quality.
•The first type of measure are those rated based on
nonquantifiable process and are not easily observed.
This category is generally called as soft standards.
•The other category is known as hard standards. This
type of measure is collected or processed based on
activities and outcomes that can be calculated, timed,
or computed.
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9. Measures are done in relation to a set target.
Companies measure service quality in order to
understand their current status and to learn to
set directions for improvement.
10. Understanding the Dimensions of Service
Quality
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• The perception of quality of service may be influenced in different
ways. Customers may also have different appreciation of an
organization’s service when the yields are varied and may not suit
the customer’s expectations. Service organizations must be
consistent in their outputs and be sensitive to the needs of their
clients.
11. The following discussions provide an idea on the different
dimensions of service quality and share information on the different
attributes of each dimension:
1. ASSURANCE
Service organizations continually review and resolve their process issues to
avoid missteps when rendering services. This dimension is about the ability
of organizations to communicate guaranteed quality service to customers.
The ability to convince the customer to put their trust and confidence to an
organization is difficult to achieve but is an important aspect.
Organization would like to be known and associated with the terms,
“credibility” and “competence”. Organization with these qualities provide
an assurance that the customer has chosen the right service provider.
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12. 2. EMPATHY
Some hotels are practicing empathy by making an effort to learn about their
regular customers and knowing the specific requirements of each customer.
Personnel are trained to be friendly, approachable, considerate, respectful, and
courteous not only top be customers, but also to guests’ belongings and
properties.
3. RELIABILITY
Service organizations are able to deliver the same results and satisfaction at
different periods or transactions among customers. These services follow a set
of parameters wherein the customers’ needs are met. This dimension is
centered on following a process that is not affected by any changes in variables
such as human or time factors.
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13. 4. RESPONSIVENESS
Customers expect nothing less from what they think is due to them. It is
expected that organizations are ready, willing, and adaptive to the requirements
emanating from guests. Clients may decide not to come back whenever they
feel that the organization cannot provide the needs that they demand.
5. TANGIBILITY
Service delivery is enhanced when complemented with the appropriate physical
facilities, correct tools and equipment, competent personnel, and even by other
guests. Theme parks must be able to create an ambience that would heighten
the experience of park goers. Tools and equipment must function properly and
adequately to deliver the expected outputs. Delivering the request. It is
expected that organizations are ready, willing, and adaptive to the requirements
emanating from guests.
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14. Objective of Customers Feedback
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• As cited by Misuraca, Scepi, and Spano (2019) from Sun and Shibo (2011) and Vidgen, Shaw,
and Grant (2017), collecting and analyzing customer feedback is an essential key to success
since it allows organizations to learn continuously and adapt their offerings to customer
preferences and needs. This task is more and more strategic since organizations that analyze
customer data regularly are averagely five percent (5%) more productive and six percent
(6%) more profitable than their competitors.
15. Most organizations strive to be customer-driven in
order to be relevant to clients’ needs and wants. The
key to being such is to be aware and sensitive to
costumer feedback. Customer feedback is very useful
in understanding the customers in relation to the
performance of the organization.
16. 1. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
Customer feedback are often studied in order to learn the performance of
the organization in comparison to its previous accomplishments or in
comparison to its competitors. This could also provide indications on the
impact of investments or service innovations that the organization has made
in the past as well as the future.
2. CUSTOMER FOCUSED ORGANIZATION
A customer-focused organization relies on feedback in order to understand
the needs an wants of the clients and to provide customer satisfaction. The
organization provides services with the customer’s welfare and satisfaction in
mind. Also, through the inputs from customer feedback, an organization can
define a service quality culture that would be dedicated to the delight of its
clients.
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17. 3. CUSTOMER DRIVEN GROWTH
Understanding the customer feedback would guide the
organizations on what to offer customers to be loyal to
them. The directions for improvement and innovation are
based on the inputs shared by the customers.
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18. Tools Used to Analyze Service Quality
Problems
• In the operation of business, there are obstacles encountered or
problems that occur for service quality. The following are some
of the tools that can be used to determine thew problem in
order to avoid such from happening again:
Tools to Analyze Service Quality:
• Fishbone diagram.
• Pareto Chart.
• Blueprinting.
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19. 1. THE FISHBONE DIAGRAM
Stakeholders identify and list down all the possible reasons that
might be causing the problem. The identified reasons are grouped
into different categories and presented similar to a diagram
resembling a fish bone. Once the specific problems have been
identified, the categories are subjected to another tool to
determine the magnitude of impact.
2. PARETO ANALYSIS
The combined tool of fishbone diagram and Pareto analysis is
often used in the service industry to identify the main reasons of
service failures. This type of analysis often yields the eighty
percent (80%) of a certain problem is caused by only 20% of all
the possible reasons.
Presentation title 19
20. 3. BLUEPRINTING
A well-designed blueprint provides easy detection on
where the problem occurred, and allows planners to
anticipate segments of fail points. This would also allow
planners to understand on how much effect an issue can
generate onward to the next steps in the service delivery
process.
Presentation title 20
21. Understanding Productivity
• Productivity is basically the quantity of goods, products, and
services produced from the amount of materials, resources,
and assets used. Discussions of increase in productivity would
mean an increase of quantity of output based on a given level
of inputs.
• Measuring productivity in some areas of a service firm may be
a challenge as compare to others. The services avail by spa
customers could be determined per day or per week, but the
delight of customers may vary due to several factors including
customer preference, attendant’s skills and customer
experiences.
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22. •As a final point, productivity refers to the output based
on a certain amount of inputs. Effectiveness is the degree
to which an organization meets its objectives and desired
outcomes.
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23. Refining Service Productivity
•In the service industry, being productive does not
guarantee a successful business venture. These
organizations continually employ strategies in
order to provide the best services in the most
efficient ways.
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24. Strategies in Improving Service
Productivity
The following are some of the suggested general strategies that can be
undertaken in order to improve service productivity:
1. Utilizing technology, innovations, and data analysis that would help
employees to work faster and provide a higher quality of service.
2. Training, equipping, and motivating employees to be more efficient
and productive.
3. Deploying workers who are capable of multitasking to eliminate
bottlenecks and downtime by deploying workers wherever they are
needed most.
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25. 4. Maintaining a lean and mean workforce.
5. Operationalizing customer-operated self-service
technologies (SSTs).
6. Redesigning customer service processes to be more
productive and effective.
7. Controlling and minimizing costs at different levels of
the service process.
8. Outsourcing some nonessential tasks that can be done
by third parties more efficiently and cost-effective.
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26. Improve Productivity though Customer-
driven Strategy
• For organization who customer are part of the service
production process, the following are some suggested
strategies that can be utilized to improve service productivity.
1. Organizations may be encouraged to use more cost-effective
and efficient delivery channel such as the Internet,
applications, or automated machines.
2. Broaden the participation of “partial employees” in the
organization by giving customers more active roles as co-
creators of the service.
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27. 3. Third party service providers can undertake support
functions. Further, these service providers have the specialized
skills to perform tasks in more efficient and cost-effective
method. This would allow the firms to focus on its core
expertise.
4. Companies must be good in managing demand and capacity
to maximize use of resources (refer to Managing Customer
Demand and Capacity discussions in the previous chapters).
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28. Systems of Service Quality and
Productivity
• These are approaches often used for service organizations to
develop customer-focused, service quality-oriented, and
productivity-inclined culture. Some of these approaches and
their short overview are presented as follows;
1. Total Quality Management (TQM)- It may be the most
popular approach when it comes to process improvement in
service organizations. TQM assists organizations related to
service excellence, productivity, and innovative Process
improvements.
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29. 2. International Organization for Standardization (IOS) 9000
Certification- it deals with assessment and certification of an
organization’s quality management system. ISO is an international
organization that develops standards to guarantee quality and
efficiency of products and services.
3. Six Sigma- it deals with organizations that have high-volume
processes which aim to reduce defects and cycle times and to improve
productivity.
4. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA)- it was
developed with the goal of promoting best practices in quality
management and recognizing and publicizing quality achievements
among U.S. organizations.
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30. SERVICE LEADERSHIP
•A firm’s performance would define its ability to
become competitive and the length of its existence
as a business. Service firms should be excellent in
most areas of its operation in order to achieve an
advantage over the others. These areas may include
operation and management design, marketing, and
human resource.
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31. 1. Fourth Class Firm- Subservient Firms. Focused on minimizing
cost of the operations and insensitive to customers’ needs and
wants. Customers would only avail of their services if there is a
high level of workforce turnover. The firms are in the lowest rank
among the four types of firms.
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32. 2. Third Class Firm- Traditional Firm. The firm believes that
productivity is related to keeping costs below the allocated
budget. Strategies in marketing are simple, making use of price
discounts and promos. Market segmentation is simplified as well,
and it targets one or two segments whose needs the firm ‘can
meet’.
3. Second Class Firm- Maven Firm. Customers seek out these
firms because they consistently meet customer expectations. The
firms display a no-nonsense professionalism in operating an
organization. These firms recognize the importance of the
customer’s’ role in creating value for service. They are amenable
to continuous innovation and improvement to deliver a high level
of customer satisfaction.
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33. 4. First Class Firm- Innovator Firm. Regarded for their
innovativeness and excellence. They provide seamless
service to their identified markets; actively collaborate
with customers for productivity improvement and quality
service. Often, they raise the bar of customer expectations
to new levels. Employees of these firms are innovative and
empowered.
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