Service Quality and

Productivity
Service Productivity
• Productivity measures the amount of
output produced relative to the amount of
inputs used.
• So improvement in productivity requires
an increase in ratio of outputs to inputs.
• It can be achieved either through cutting
the resources required to create a given
volume of output or by increasing output
obtained from a given level of inputs.
• Intangibility nature of service
performances makes it more difficult to
measure the productivity of services.
• Measuring productivity is difficult in
services when output is hard to
define.
• Major problem in measuring service
productivity is variability.
Improving productivity
• Generic productivity improvement
strategies:
Careful control of costs at every step in
process
Efforts to reduce wasteful use of materials
Matching productivity capacity to average
levels of demand
Replacement of workers by automated
machines
Providing equipment to workers for fast
work
• Customer driven approaches:
Changing the timing of customer
demand
Involve customers more in
production and service delivery-ATMs
Ask customers to use third parties
Prescriptions for closing
Quality Gaps
• Gap 1: what service provider believe
customers expect & customers’ actual
expectations
• Gap 2: difference between managements’
prescription of customers’ expectations &
quality standards established for service
delivery
• Gap 3: difference between specified
delivery standards & service provider’s
actual performance on these standards
• Gap 4: difference between what company
think about its service quality & what the
company is actually able to deliver
Gap 1: Prescription-learn what
customers expect
• Understand customer expectations
through research, complaint analysis
etc
• Increase direct interactions between
managers & customers to improve
understanding
• Improve upward communication from
contact personnel to management
• Turn information & insights into
action
Gap 2:Prescription-establish
the right service quality
standards
• Ensure the top management displays ongoing
commitment to quality as defined by customers
• Set, communicate & reinforce customer oriented
service standards
• Train managers in the skills needed to lead
employees to deliver quality service
• Become receptive to new ways of doing business
that overcome barriers to deliver quality service
• Standardize repetitive work tasks to ensure
consistency & reliability by substituting hard
technology for human contact & improving work
methods.
• Establish clear service quality goals
that are challenging, realistic &
explicitly designed to meet customer
expectations
• Clarify which job tasks have the
biggest impact on quality & should
receive the highest priority
Gap 3:Prescription-ensure that
service performance meets
standards
• Clarify employee roles
• Ensure that all employees understand how their
jobs contribute to customer satisfaction
• Match employees to jobs by selecting for the
abilities & skills needed to perform each job well
• Provide employees with the technical training
needed to perform their assigned tasks
effectively
• Develop innovative recruitment & retention
methods to attract the best people & build loyalty
• Enhance performance by selecting the most
appropriate & reliable technology & equipment
• Teach employees about customer expectations,
perceptions & problems
• Train employees in inter personnel skills,
especially for dealing with customers
under stressful conditions
• Eliminate role conflict among employees
by involving them in the process of setting
standards
• Train employees in time management
• Measure employee performance & tie
compensation & recognition to delivery of
quality service
Gap 4:Prescription-ensure that
communication promises are
realistic
• Seek inputs from operations personnel when new
advertising programs are being created
• Develop advertising that features real employees
performing their jobs
• Allow service providers to preview
advertisements before customers are exposed to
them
• Get sales staff to involve operations staff in face
to face meetings with customers
• Develop internal educational, motivational &
advertising campaigns to strengthen links among
marketing, operations & human resource
departments
• Ensure that consistent standards of
services are delivered across multiple
locations
• Ensure that advertising content accurately
reflects those service characteristics that
are most important to customers in their
encounters with the organization
• Manage customers’ expectations by letting
them know what is & what is not possible-
& the reasons why