How to Create a Service Quality Survey / How to Build a Service Quality Survey

How to Measure Service Quality

Many researchers have struggled with the issue of how to measure service quality.  Perhaps the most widely used measure is based on a set of five dimensions which have been consistently ranked by customers to be most important for service quality, regardless of service industry. These dimensions defined by the SERVQUAL measurement instrument are defined as follows:

Tangibles: appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials;

Reliability: ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately;

Responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service;

Assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence; and

Empathy: the caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.
(Source: Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry )

These five SERVQUAL dimensions are used to measure the gap between customers' expectation for excellence and their perception of actual service delivered.

The SERVQUAL instrument, when applied over time, helps service providers understand both customer expectations, perceptions of specific services, and areas of needed quality improvements.

SERVQUAL has been used in many ways, such as identifying specific service elements requiring improvement, and targeting training opportunities for service staff.  Proper development of items used in the SERVQUAL instrument provides rich item level information that leads to practical implications for a service manager.

The service quality dimensions evaluated by SERVQUAL should be adjusted for optimal performance in different industry, public and private sector applications. SERVQUAL scores are highly reliable, but when used in different industries may fail to produce a clear delineation of the five basic dimensions

Other measures, such as the Six Sigma model should be considered for applicability in quantifying the gap between service expectations and perceptions.

QUALITY OF SERVICE (SERVQUAL) Questionnaire

Based on your experiences as a guest in a hotel, please think about the kind of hotel that would deliver excellent quality of service.  Think about the kind of hotel in which you would like to stay. 

Please show the extent to which you think such a hotel would possess the feature described by each statement.  If you feel a feature is not at all essential for excellent hotels such as the one you have in mind, circle the number 1. If you feel a feature is absolutely essential for excellent hotels, circle 7.  If your feelings are less strong, circle one of the numbers in the middle.   There is no right or wrong answer - all we are interested in is the number that truly reflects your feelings regarding hotels that would deliver excellent quality of service.

Listed below are five features pertaining to hotels and the service they offer.  We would like to know how important each of these features is to you when you evaluate the service offered by a hotel.  Please allocate a total of 100 points among the five features according to how important each feature is to you - the more important a feature is to you, the more points you should allocate to it.  Please ensure that the points you allocate to the five features add up to 100.

1.    _____  points:
The appearance of the hotel’s physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials.                          

2.    _____  points:
The hotel’s ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.

3.    _____  points:
The hotel's willingness to help guests and provide a prompt service.
4.   _____  points:
The knowledge and courtesy of the hotel personnel and their ability to convey trust and confidence.                                                   

5.   _____  points:  
The caring, individualized attention the hotel provides its guests.
________________________________________________________________

100    TOTAL points allocated

Which one feature of the above five is most important to you ?        _____

 (Please enter the feature's number)

Which feature is second most important to you  ?                            _____

Which feature is least important to you ?                                           _____

The following set of statements relate to your feelings about the hotel you have visited.  For each statement, please show the extent to which you believe the hotel has the feature described by the statement. 

Once again, circling a 1 means that you strongly disagree that the hotel you have attended has this feature and circling a 7 means that you strongly agree. 

You may circle any of the numbers in the middle that show how strong your feelings are.  There is no right or wrong answer - all we are interested in is a number that best shows your perceptions about the hotel which has treated you.

SERVQUAL procedures

Dimensions – Statement Mapping

Statements         1-4        Tangibles
Statements         5-9        Reliability
Statements     10-13       Responsiveness
Statements     14-17       Assurance
Statements     18-22       Empathy                   

Procedures

1.         Compute the ‘gap’ for each statement pair for each consumer.
          SERVQUAL score = Perceptions Score - Expectations Score

2.         Compute the dimensions scores for each respondent by averaging the gap score over the relevant number of statements (either 4 or 5 statements)

3.         Derive SERVQUAL respondent’s scores in the following way:
          Un-weighted scores Sum the scores for the 5 dimensions and divide by 5

           Weighted scores   

                               
Tangibles *               (Tangibles Weight/100 )                   
Reliability *               (Reliability Weight/100)                                                           
Responsiveness *   (Responsiveness Weight/100)
Assurance *             (Assurance Weight/100)                                                           
Empathy *                (Empathy Weight/100)

4.        Derive total SERVQUAL scores by totaling the scores and dividing by the number of respondents