Measuring service quality: A hybrid methodology

This paper considers definitions of service quality, outlines the issues in the measurement of service quality (including criticisms of SERVQUAL, the most common instrument for measuring service quality) and proposes a hybrid methodology which overcomes many of the problems of existing approaches. The customer value workshop (CVW), the proposed approach, integrates qualitative and quantitative techniques to provide insights into what creates value for customers. It achieves this through the use of technology and a modification to the focus group method. Conceptually, it incorporates a variation on the gap model. A by-product of the CVW is that it acts as a very powerful impetus for service quality improvement through the provision of specific information (the enunciation of what customers would value in the ideal or world's best practice service, how they perceive current performance against their own set of best practice values and what they find irritating), through the involvement of employees in the process and through the partnering with customers that results. Although a somewhat risky approach when real commitment to quality management goals does not exist, this approach provides direction for quality programmes and can form part of the organizational development process. The CVW is proposed as the preferred method of business-to-business market research when customer focus, quality service and quality improvement are goals of the organization.