Measuring Service Quality: SERVQUAL vs. SERVPERF Scales Sanjay K Jain and Garima Gupta Quality has come to be recognized as a strategic tool for attaining operational efficiency and improved business performance. This is true for both the goods and services sectors. However, the problem with management of service quality in service firms is that quality is not easily identifiable and measurable due to inherent characteristics of services which make them different from goods. Various definitions of the term ���service quality��� have been proposed in the past and, based on different definitions, different scales for measuring service quality have been put forward. SERVQUAL and SERVPERF constitute two major service quality measurement scales. The consensus, however, continues to elude till date as to which one is superior. An ideal service quality scale is one that is not only psychometrically sound but is also diagnostically robust enough to provide insights to the managers for corrective actions in the event of quality shortfalls. Empirical studies evaluating validity, reliability, and methodological soundness of service quality scales clearly point to the superiority of the SERVPERF scale. The diagnostic ability of the scales, however, has not been explicitly explicated and empirically verified in the past. The present study aims at filling this void in service quality literature. It assesses the diagnostic power of the two service quality scales. Validity and methodological soundness of these scales have also been probed in the Indian context ��� an aspect which has so far remained neglected due to preoccupation of the past studies with service industries in the developed world. Using data collected through a survey of consumers of fast food restaurants in Delhi, the study finds the SERVPERF scale to be providing a more convergent and discriminant- valid explanation of service quality construct. However, the scale is found deficient in its diagnostic power. It is the SERVQUAL scale which outperforms the SERVPERF scale by virtue of possessing higher diagnostic power to pinpoint areas for managerial interventions in the event of service quality shortfalls. The major managerial implications of the study are: �� Because of its psychometric soundness and greater instrument parsimoniousness, one should employ the SERVPERF scale for assessing overall service quality of a firm. The SERVPERF scale should also be the preferred research instrument when one is interested in undertaking service quality comparisons across service industries. �� On the other hand, when the research objective is to identify areas relating to service quality shortfalls for possible intervention by the managers, the SERVQUAL scale needs to be preferred because of its superior diagnostic power. However, one serious problem with the SERVQUAL scale is that it entails gigantic data collection task. Employing a lengthy questionnaire, one is required to collect data about consumers��� expectations as well as perceptions of a firm���s performance on each of the 22 service quality scale attributes. Addition of importance weights can further add to the diagnostic power of the SERVQUAL scale, but the choice needs to be weighed against the additional task of data collection. Collecting data on importance scores relating to each of the 22 service attributes is indeed a major deterrent. However, alternative, less tedious approaches, discussed to- wards the end of the paper, can be employed by the researchers to obviate the data col- lection task. KEY WORDS Service Quality Measurement of Service Quality Service Quality Scale Scale Validity and Reliability Diagnostic Ability of Scale Executive Summary R E S E A R C H includes research articles that focus on the analysis and resolution of managerial and academic issues based on analytical and empirical or case research VIKALPA ��� VOLUME 29 ��� NO 2 ��� APRIL - JUNE 2004 25 25

Qimprovedbusinessperformance(Andersonand uality has come to be recognized as a strategic tool for attaining operational efficiency and Zeithaml, 1984 Babakus and Boller, 1992 Garvin, 1983 Phillips, Chang and Buzzell, 1983). This is true for the services sector too. Several authors have discussed the unique importance of quality to service firms (e.g., Normann, 1984 Shaw, 1978) and have demonstrated its positive relationship with profits, increased market share, return on investment, customer satisfaction, and future purchase intentions (Anderson, Fornell and Lehmann 1994 Boulding et al., 1993 Buzzell and Gale, 1987 Rust and Oliver, 1994). One obvious conclusion of these studies is that firms with superior quality products outperform those marketing inferior quality products. Notwithstanding the recognized importance of service quality, there have been methodological issues and application problems with regard to its operation- alization. Quality in the context of service industries has been conceptualized differently and based on dif- ferent conceptualizations, alternative scales have been proposed for service quality measurement (see, for instance, Brady, Cronin and Brand, 2002 Cronin and Taylor, 1992, 1994 Dabholkar, Shepherd and Thorpe, 2000 Parasu- raman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985, 1988). Despite considerable work undertaken in the area, there is no consensus yet as to which one of the measurement scales is robust enough for measuring and comparing service quality. One major problem with past studies has been their preoccupation with assessing psycho- metric and metho- dological soundness of service scales that too in the context of service industries in the de- veloped countries. Virtually no empirical efforts have been made to eva- luate the diagnostic ability of the scales in providing managerial insights for corrective actions in the event of quality shortfalls. Furthermore, little work has been done to examine the applicability of these scales to the service industries in developing countries. This paper, therefore, is an attempt to fill this existing void in the services quality literature. Based on a survey of consumers of fast food restaurants in Delhi, this paper assesses the diagnostic usefulness as well as the psycho- metric and methodological soundness of the two widely advocated service quality scales, viz., SERVQUAL and SERVPERF. SERVICE QUALITY: CONCEPTUALIZATION AND OPERATIONALIZATION Quality has been defined differently by different au- thors. Some prominent definitions include ���conformance to requirements��� (Crosby, 1984), ���fitness for use��� (Juran, 1988) or ���one that satisfies the customer��� (Eiglier and Langeard, 1987). As per the Japanese production phi- losophy, quality implies ���zero defects��� in the firm���s offerings. Though initial efforts in defining and measuring service quality emanated largely from the goods sector, a solid foundation for research work in the area was laid down in the mid-eighties by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985). They were amongst the earliest researchers to emphatically point out that the concept of quality prevalent in the goods sector is not extendable to the services sector. Being inherently and essentially intan- gible, heterogeneous, perishable, and entailing simulta- neity and inseparability of production and consump- tion, services require a distinct framework for quality explication and measurement. As against the goods sector where tangible cues exist to enable consumers to eva- luate product quality, quality in the service context is explicated in terms of parameters that largely come under the domain of ���experience��� and ���credence��� prop- erties and are as such difficult to measure and evaluate (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985 Zeithaml and Bitner, 2001). One major contribution of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) was to provide a terse definition of service quality. They defined service quality as ���a global judgment, or attitude, relating to the superiority of the service���, and explicated it as involving evaluations of the outcome (i.e., what the customer actually receives from service) and process of service act (i.e., the manner in which service is delivered). In line with the propositions put forward by Gronroos (1982) and Smith and Houston (1982), Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985, 1988) posited and operationalized service quality as a differ- ence between consumer expectations of ���what they want��� and their perceptions of ���what they get.��� Based on this conceptualization and operationalization, they proposed a service quality measurement scale called ���SERVQUAL.��� The SERVQUAL scale constitutes an important land- mark in the service quality literature and has been extensively applied in different service settings. 26 MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY: SERVQUAL vs. SERVPERF SCALES 26