An Empirical Study of Servqual as a Tool for Service Quality Measurement

Abstract

To survive and excel in today's competitive market organizations must realize the significance of customer-oriented business philosophies and quality management approaches in managing the business. Customers are becoming more aware of their requirements. Their expectations and perceptions are continually evolving making it more difficult for the service providers to measure and manage services effectively and efficiently. Implementation of total quality in the service industry is comparatively more complex and difficult due to the fact that quality of services cannot be defined objectively. Additionally, service industry by nature has less control over factors which affect quality. Very few methods are considered to be effective measurement tools for services so far while a number of methods have been introduced and practiced for measuring the quality of physical goods. This paper attempts to highlight the implication of SERVQUAL, one of the widely accepted methods for measuring service quality. The SERVQUAL methodology is briefly demonstrated by a small survey conducted on a randomly selected bunch of customers regarding the service quality provided by a particular commercial bank. The paper concludes with some recommendations regarding further research topics related to service quality measurement.