SERVICES QUALITY



Services Quality

Services Quality

The aim of this essay is to explain the importance of customer satisfaction in service organisations. Clear meaning of the customer satisfaction has been provided along with the causes and results from the effective implementation. J. Heskett's "service-profit chain" model has been used in order to understand the relationships between profitability of a service organisation with customer satisfaction and loyalty and the outcomes of this relationship. Examples has been illustrated based on the first five case study from Lovelock's book "Services Marketing: A European Perspective" (See appendix 1). Furthermore the identification of methods and techniques of customer satisfaction measurement has been illustrated. Finally techniques and strategies for customer satisfaction improvement have been discussed.

More and more service organisations nowadays recognise that customer satisfaction is crucial for business success. Additional, understanding and anticipating what customers want and require for the future, has led service organisations scrutinising for possible service features and managerial factors that will enable them to stimulate a positive response and astonish their customers. However, a question has been raised of which service attributes and qualities are decisive for the satisfaction of the customer and which features merely prevent dissatisfaction (Matzler et al., 1996).

Employee satisfaction sequentially will mean that employee retention and loyalty accelerates with consequential benefits as far as service standards are concerned. Where employees remain in the organisation for several years, customers can experience continuity and at the same time the firm spends less on recruitment, selection, training and service familiarisation. In "Euro Disney: an American in Paris" case study there has been mentioned a problem of employee turnover and retention, which was not effectively handled and affected several problems to the company's management.

It is quite difficult for Euro Disney to expect from those employees who interact with the customers face-to-face to be retained and consequently be productive when they are not satisfied with their working conditions. Something unmanageable can cause this kind of problem as the weather but employee's needs and wants must be fulfilled as well, in order to be productive and for that reason the notion of employee as customer has been previously developed. For example, Berry (1981) states that whether managing customers or employees "the central purpose remains the same: the attraction of patronage through the satisfaction of needs and wants" (Rust et al.). In both cases individuals and organizations are involved in exchange. The nature of what is exchanged may vary, but the importance of satisfying needs and wants remains constant, meaning that the management of employees is often similar to the management of customers.

In turn, employee retention and loyalty will result to the outcome of efficient productivity by employees. Positions must be designed so that employees can perform several jobs if necessary. For example from "Benihana comes to London" case study can be understood that the effective scheduling programme along with the reservation system and the layout of the restaurant have helped outlet's management to enhance productivity with the best way and at the same time to keep ...