Current State of Research on Service Assessment

Assessing services from the customer’s perspective is common-sense

Because of this, research on service quality and customer satisfaction has been active mainly since the 80s. Common among differing trends in this research is the idea that “assessment of services should be done from the perspective of customers and users, and self-assessment by the providing companies is an unreliable method.” This is exemplified, for example, by a 2006 survey conducted by Bain & Company on 362 service-providing companies and their customers. In this survey, 8% of the customers responded that “the experience gained through the service provided was outstanding,” while 80% of the companies were confident that “the experience we provide to our customers is outstanding.”

This indicates that there are limits to understanding service quality from company-side research, and research on consumers and end-users is important.

What is the basis for assessment?

Past research on service assessment can be classified into two schools. The first is the American school originating with Parasuraman, where SERVQUAL is the representative method. This framework assesses service quality in five dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Based on user surveys, SERVQUAL was developed and tested across four completely different services: banking, credit cards, long distance phone calls, and repair and maintenance. It is said that “services are widely varied”, and the SERVQUAL method reflects researcher’s awareness of trying to discover some kind of a commonality without getting tied down in specific services.

Improving service quality is, in fact, difficult under the thinking that “opinions concerning services from other industries aren’t useful.” For example, the Sugamo Shinkin Bank came out with the concept of “financial services” and maintains high standards in both customer satisfaction and profitability. Because examples to reference in the financial industry were scarce, it drew upon examples such as the Ritz-Carlton and emphasizes the “necessity to always keep our antenna high.”

In contrast to this line of thinking is the Nordic school established by Gronroos. Service quality is divided into two dimensions: technical quality and functional quality. The former refers to the perceived quality of the results or effects of the service, while the latter can be thought of as the quality experienced during the process. In line with this thinking, Rust and Oliver introduce a three-dimension model that also takes environmental factors into account. This is one of the leading assessment frameworks used today.

In recent years, revision and developmental methods of SERVQUAL have been researched, and attempts to integrate the three-dimension model and SERVQUAL have been made. However, the discussion regarding service assessment methods has yet to be settled.

IT interface and customer experience

In the past, services were generally face-to-face encounters. Recently, however, website-mediated services as well as services where the service encounter is mediated by IT such as call centers, telemedicine, and various automatic terminals have become common in every day life.

Research on frameworks that assess such services remains scarce, and is expected to become more active in the future. Some research predicts that “results will become more important than the process regarding IT interface services.” According to a FRI Economic Research Center survey, however, Japanese consumers attach importance to their level of satisfaction in the process and interaction even with IT interface services.

Four services – call centers (questions regarding computers), price comparison sites, ATMs, and electronic retail stores (computer purchases at the store) – were divided into several processes, and a survey targeting general users was conducted regarding both the individual process and overall level of satisfaction.

Electronic retail stores are traditionally face-to-face services, while the other three are representative IT interface services. The analysis results show that the correlation between process satisfaction and overall satisfaction is higher among IT interface services. In addition, when dividing the process into three stages, it was found among all four services that speed is valued in the early stage; reliability backed by knowledge and capability is valued in the middle stage; and sympathy in the sense of feeling consideration and sincerity from the service provider is valued in the final stage.

Of course, applying these results outside of the four services must be done carefully. However, the fact that consumers’ opinions on both traditional services and IT interface services are surprisingly similar is worth attention.

In the undeveloped stages of IT, general users were amazed by the technology itself and were more accepting. As IT matures, however, its specialness gradually fades in the eyes of users. For example, until several years ago nearly 80% of users would “accept a reply within 24 hours” from a service that responds to consumer questions by e-mail. A recent survey shows that over half of consumers now require “replies within four hours.”

Whether face-to-face or face-to-IT, the user is still a person. For services that use IT to be accepted, IT should not be perceived as something special. Rather, after placing IT within the general service, it is necessary to thoroughly analyze customer experience and quality from the perspective of users.