Literature Review on SERVQUAL Model in Marketing Research (MKT00106)

This report presents a comprehensive literature review on the SERVQUAL model, a critical tool for evaluating service quality in marketing research. It begins with an introduction to service quality and the importance of meeting customer expectations. The review then delves into the SERVQUAL model, exploring its five dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Each dimension is discussed in detail, supported by relevant research and findings. The report also examines criticisms of the SERVQUAL model, covering both theoretical and operational aspects. Furthermore, it outlines the research methodologies employed in studies related to SERVQUAL. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the significance of quality in the service industry and how businesses can utilize the SERVQUAL model to enhance performance and fulfill customer expectations.

Running head: MARKETING RESEARCH
Marketing Research
5/10/2019

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review on SERVQUAL.......................................................................................2
Reliability...........................................................................................................................3
Tangibles............................................................................................................................3
Empathy.............................................................................................................................4
Responsiveness..................................................................................................................4
Assurance...........................................................................................................................5
Criticism of the SERVQUAL Model.................................................................................6
Theoretical Criticism..........................................................................................................6
Operational Criticism.........................................................................................................6
Research Methodologies........................................................................................................7
Summary............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Service quality talks about the degree to which the delivered service matches the
anticipations of the customers. The main critical task of service businesses is the quality
management of service. Quality highlights the level of excellence in service performance.
Customers observe the service quality by going through the procedure of consumption and by
relating the experience with their anticipations (Ryu, Lee and Gon Kim, 2012). Though
customers are considered as co-producers and their contribution also distresses the quality,
but, for this company cannot blame the consumer. Service organizations need to be
accountable for quality performance by an operative strategic framework. The aim of this
review is to highlight the use and development of the SERVQUAL Model that is used as the
research instrument for evaluating the quality of the service. The paper is also highlighting
the criticism of SERVQUAL Model in the service industry.
Literature Review on SERVQUAL
SERVQUAL model is recognized as the key tool of measurement of the customer
expectation. According to Mathew and Jagannathan (2015), the assessment of the service
quality leads to best outcomes, if the customer expresses their expectations. The SERVQUAL
is comprised of five dimensions that are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and
empathy.
The tangible dimension of SERVQUAL Model deals with the accessibility of the physical
facilities, personnel, and equipment. Reliability is the capability of the provider of the service
precisely and consistently. Responsiveness is related to the service provider willingness in
order to support the consumer and distribute quick services. Assurance reflects that consumer
can inject their trust on the provider of the service and Empathy is modified care and courtesy

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that is received by the consumer from the service delivery (Ravichandran, Mani and
Prabhakaran, 2010).
Reliability
Reliability is the competence of the service supplier to meet its promise to offering
dependable services accurately to the customer. The consumer considers reliability as the
combination of promises and adopts the right procedure to meet the promise.
As per the innovative study of Shodhganga (2019), focus grows a behavioural procedure
model of apparent service quality. The insights of quality dimension create the basis for the
overall quality perception of a person, which forecasts the intended behavior of an individual.
The findings of this study are the insights of quality intensely affect behavioral intentions.
The study conducted by Barroso, Carrión and Roldán (2010), recognized the key fundamental
service quality dimensions of online retailing as apparent by online consumers. The findings
of the study highlighted that the access dimension had a substantial effect on the complete
quality of the service, but does not affect the satisfaction level. Hence, it could be said that
there is a majorly optimistic relationship between the satisfaction of the customer and quality
of service.
Tangibles
The appearance of any of the physical facility likes equipment, written material, and
personnel in store in order to entice customers are known as tangible dimension. The notion
of physical aspects is determined as the appearance of the retail store.
The information reflected by Akhlaghi, Amini and Akhlaghi (2012), in his empirical study
concentrate on the comparative prominence of quality dimensions, the performance of the
service quality in relation to ‘should’ and ‘would’ expectations and the part of context

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markers. The findings of the research presents that the provider of the service has to improve
its performance at maximum level extent.
The study of Chikwendu, Ejem and Ezenwa (2012), disapprovingly inspects how the
complete service quality perception of the store and associated CSR, can work on
diminishing the perception of the customer towards the risk of purchasing private labels. In
the findings, the researcher reflects that Grocery products incline to possess lower social risk.
Empathy
Empathy is the individualized courtesy provided to the consumer by the store or business
employees. It highlights the knowledge of the sales staff about new service or product, price,
and other aspects of offerings of the store, as well as remarking on the prominence of
handling the consumer with care as well as respect.
In an innovative study of Naik, Gantasala and Prabhakar, (2010), evaluates that the national
culture has a major influence on the service quality perceptions. The findings of the study
offer an analysis created as the contributing step on a road in the direction of better
knowledge of cultural effects on service quality perceptions.
According to Carlson and O’Cass (2010), the major focus must be provided to the e-service
quality and whether the quality of e-service elements must be observed by the dimensions, as
precursors to an international assessment of e-service quality, or as a determinative outline to
forecast behavioral intents. According to the research findings, the satisfaction of the
customer performs a major role of mediating on behavioral intentions in these models of e-
service quality.

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Responsiveness
Responsiveness is considered as the willingness to support the consumer and offer quick
service by the staff of the business or store.
Heinonen, Strandvik and Voima (2013), in his study, offered an impression of the existing
literature on the experience of the customer and enlarge on it to inspect the formation of
customer experience from the holistic perspective. The investigator of the study made use of
a conceptual model, through which it discussed the elements of customer experience. It has
been identified that it is very important to offer the best customer experience which results in
increasing the retailer's attention.
In the innovative study of Norudin and Ali (2010), the researcher recognized the perception
of the customer towards the retailing activities of the business. The findings highlight a
robust relationship between quality of service, risk, and attitude towards the local customer
perception.
Assurance
The assurance is provided to the customers through the comprehensive knowledge of the staff
members and their courtesy and their capability to encourage customers to purchase products.
According to the study conducted by Thiel and Romaniuk (2012), it seeks to compare how
the users of the brand and users of non-brand presently place private labels and national
brands in their three categories of packaged goods. The findings highlight that the perceptual
classification in the brands with private label and national brands varies once the private label
product is bought.
The employees of the business or store are trained properly to offer good services and
increase confidence as well as trust regarding the business or store. The store brand users do
not consider the brand as less trustworthy in comparison to other store brands. Assurance is

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utilized to recognize the gaps between anticipations and opinions of consumers about the
service quality rendered at the store. Stores will put efforts to enhance their quality of service
particularly assurance towards filling the gap between the perceptions and expectations.
Criticism of the SERVQUAL Model
In today's scenario, there is increasing application as well as the popularity of the
SERVQUAL model that has been exposed to a variety of operational and theoretical censures
that are discussed below:
Theoretical Criticism
Paradigmatic objections – This Model is dependent on the disconfirmation pattern in place
of attitudinal pattern. The SERVQUAL Model flops in drawing on recognized economic,
psychological and statistical theory (Daniel and Berinyuy, 2010).
Gaps model – There are very few indication that proves that consumer gets the quality of the
service in terms of P – E gaps.
Process orientation – This model only concentrate on the procedure of the delivery of the
service, and not on the consequences of the service meet.
Dimensionality – The SERVQUAL model’s five dimensions are not accepted at the
universal level. The sum of dimensions including quality of service is contextualized (Daniel
and Berinyuy, 2010).
Operational Criticism
Expectations – The work anticipation is polysemic meaning and has a number of meanings;
customers consider standards in place of expectations to access the quality of the service.
Hence, the SERVQUAL Model framework fails in evaluating absolute service quality
expectations.

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Item composition – Five items in a list could not cover the inconsistency in every service
quality dimension.
Moments of truth – the assessment performed by the customer can differ from MOT to
MOT (Daniel and Berinyuy, 2010).
Polarity – The inverted polarity of objects in the scale results in a respondent error (Daniel
and Berinyuy, 2010).
Research Methodologies
Under this, the investigator has nominated interpretivism philosophy to gather data. With the
help of this philosophy, the investigator is able to gather reviews of the different authors and
research participants. In addition to this, the researcher is able to present a reasonable
conclusion for the research topic.
The approach of the research that has been selected by the researcher is the inductive
approach because it allows the investigator in gathering the subjective data for the research
issue. In addition to this, the research design that has been accepted by the academic is
descriptive research (Gioia, Corley and Hamilton, 2013). With the support of this research
design, the investigator is capable to consider the characteristics of the individual as well as
group perceptions. Besides this, the research strategy adopted by the researcher is surveying
through a questionnaire, through which the research will identify the perceptions and
opinions of different employees regarding the use of the SERVQUAL Model at their
workplace.
The method of data collection that has been adopted by the researcher is the primary and
secondary method. The primary data collection method has supported the researcher in
presenting new information that yet has not been presented by any other author. On the other

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side, the secondary data collection method has been adopted by the company to present the
reviews and findings of different researchers and academies.
Summary
From the above analysis, it could be summarized that the quality of the service talks about the
degree to which the delivered service level matches the expectations of the customers.
Service organizations need to be accountable for quality performance by an operative
strategic framework. In order to do so, businesses adopt the SERVQUAL Model.
SERVQUAL scale is recognized as the key tool of measurement which is used to evaluate
the expectation of the consumer.
Conclusion
The above report has highlighted the significance of quality in the industry of service and
how it could be improved by following different frameworks. From the above analysis, it has
been identified that to maintain the quality of the service, businesses have to enhance their
performance and try to fulfil the consumer anticipations. The model that could support the
businesses in improving this is SERVQUAL Model. SERVQUAL is the tool utilized to
measure customer expectations in the market and supporting businesses in meeting them.
However, there are various criticisms available for the SERVQUAL Model that has been
highlighted in this paper.

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References
Akhlaghi, E., Amini, S., and Akhlaghi, H. (2012) Evaluating educational service quality in
technical and vocational colleges using SERVQUAL model. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 46(2012), 5285-5289.
Barroso, C., Carrión, G.C. and Roldán, J.L. (2010) Applying maximum likelihood and PLS on
different sample sizes: studies on SERVQUAL model and employee behavior model. In
Handbook of partial least squares 1st ed. Berlin: Springer.
Carlson, J., and O’Cass, A. (2010) Exploring the relationships between e-service quality,
satisfaction, attitudes and behaviours in content-driven e-service web sites. Journal of Service
Marketing, 24(2), 112-127.
Chikwendu, D.U., Ejem, E. and Ezenwa, A. (2012) Evaluation of service quality of Nigerian
airline using servqual model. Journal of Hospitality Management and tourism, 3(6), 117-125.
Daniel, C.N., and Berinyuy, L.P. (2010) Using the SERVQUAL Model to assess Service
Quality and Customer Satisfaction [online]. Available from
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:327600/fulltext01.pdf [accessed 10 May 2019]
Gioia, D.A., Corley, K.G. and Hamilton, A.L. (2013) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive
research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational research methods, 16(1), 15-31.
Heinonen, K., Strandvik, T., and Voima, P. (2013) Customer dominant value formation in
service. European business review, 25(2), 104-123.
Mathew, J.J., and Jagannathan, L. (2015) Study Based on Servqual Dimensions in Service
Industry - A Literature Review [online]. Available from https://www.omicsonline.org/open-

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access/study-based-on-servqual-dimensions-in-service-industry--a-literature-review-2169-
0316-1000167.php?aid=58067 [accessed 10 May 2019]
Naik, C.K., Gantasala, S.B. and Prabhakar, G.V. (2010) Service quality (SERVQUAL) and
its effect on customer satisfaction in retailing. European journal of social sciences, 16(2),
231-243.
Norudin, M., and Ali, S.H. (2010) A B2C Business Agenda: Analyzing Customers’
Perceptions towards Bumiputera Retailers. Asian Social Science, 6(7), 132-137.
Ravichandran, K., Mani, B.T., and Prabhakaran, S. (2010) Influence of service quality on
customer satisfaction application of SERVQUAL model. International Journal of Business
and Management, 5(4), 117.
Ryu, K., Lee, H.R. and Gon Kim, W. (2012) The influence of the quality of the physical
environment, food, and service on restaurant image, customer perceived value, customer
satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. International journal of contemporary hospitality
management, 24(2), 200-223.
Shodhganga (2019) Literature Review Of Service Quality Dimensions [online]. Available
from https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/160880/8/08_chapter%202.pdf
[accessed 10 May 2019]
Thiel, M.N., and Romaniuk, J. (2012) Value-for-money perceptions of supermarket and
private labels. Australasian Marketing Journal, 20(2012), 171-177.