An Empirical Assessment of the Servperf Scale

Abstract

Service economies worldwide are becoming increasingly transnational in nature (Drucker 1992). The prevailing view is that the primary means to attain a long-term strategic advantage in these emerging transnational markets is through the provision of best-in-the-world service quality (Quinn 1992). However, the measurement of service quality is a problem which continues to perplex marketing researchers and practitioners (Gronroos 1993). The preponderance of recent evidence suggests that service quality is best captured by measures of service firm performance (such as SERVPERF) instead of disconfirmation-based measures such as the SERVQUAL scale. The current study continues this discussion by investigating the psychometric properties of the SERVPERF scale. Results of a multi-industry study suggest that the SERVPERF scale appears to suffer from the lack of a consistent and generalizable factor structure. Marketing practitioners are thus encouraged to investigate the factor structure of service quality data obtained using the SERVPERF scale specific to their own setting. The results further suggest that academicians revisit the research objective of deriving a reliable and valid multidimensional scale of service quality which exhibits generalizability across service settings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steven A. Taylor

Steven A. Taylor (Ph.D Florida State University) is an assistant professor of marketing at the Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Dr. Taylor’s research interests currently include the conceptualization and operationalization of the service quality and customer satisfaction constructs. His work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Health Care Marketing, and the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, among others.

J. Joseph Cronin

J. Joseph Cronin, Jr. (Ph.D. Ohio State University) is a professor of marketing at the Florida State University. His current research is focused on the measurement and strategic application of service quality, service value, and customer satisfaction. Dr. Cronin’s research also considers the role of service quality in business-to-business relationships and the encounter speaker dimensions of service performance, his work has been published in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Networking, the European Journal of Marketing, the International Journal of Service Industries Management, the Journal of Marketing Channels, the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, the Journal of Health Care Marketing, the Journal of Services Marketing, and others.