Benefits and Limitations of SERVQUAL Model in Fashion Retail Sector

This report delves into the application of the SERVQUAL model within the fashion retail industry, examining its advantages and disadvantages as a tool for measuring and improving service quality. The study begins by introducing the fashion retail sector as a service industry, highlighting its reliance on understanding market trends and customer perceptions. The report then defines the SERVQUAL model, outlining its dimensions (reliability, responsiveness, competence, etc.) and how it measures key success factors in service marketing. The analysis explores the benefits of the SERVQUAL model, such as its ability to provide insights into customer perceptions, identify areas for improvement, and adapt to fast-fashion trends. However, the report also acknowledges the model's limitations, including its theoretical and operational flaws, such as the over-reliance on customer expectations and the use of a Likert scale. Finally, the report offers recommendations to marketers on how to effectively utilize the SERVQUAL model, including the use of Customer Relationship Management techniques and regular managerial audits. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of the SERVQUAL model as a service measuring tool, while also acknowledging the need to be aware of its flaws and to use it effectively.

Running head: THE SERVQUAL MODEL IN FASHION RETAIL
The Benefits and Pitfalls of using SERVQUAL in Fashion Retail
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1THE SERVQUAL MODEL IN FASHION RETAIL
Executive summary
The main purpose of this project is to identify the benefits and pitfalls of using the SERVQUAL
Model in the Fashion Retail Service industry. It was being identified that the SERVQUAL
Model is quite beneficial in identifying customers’ expectations from a company and perceptions
of the industry in terms of the service quality. However, the model has few flaws broadly
classified into two categories, Theoretical and Operational. The paper also gives a few pieces of
recommendations to a marketer to help him or her effectively reap more benefits from the
SERVQUAL Model.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction to the Fashion Retail SERVICE industry................................................................3
2. What is SERVQUAL and how it is used to measure key success factors in services marketing4
3. The benefit to this industry..........................................................................................................5
4. Where does it lack in...................................................................................................................6
5. Recommendations to a marketer in terms of other tools to use for measuring success factors
more effectively...............................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction to the Fashion Retail SERVICE industry
Fashion retail like other retail sectors is a service industry; however, it is slightly different
in terms of their approach to manufacture, promote and sell the goods. Fashion retailers possess a
high interest in knowing the market demands, identifying the market trends and getting to know
the post-purchase feeling of the customers. To be able to fulfill these set of objectives fashion
retailers follow various marketing strategy and service tools. They follow various marketing
strategy to provide high consumer visibility to their products. Similarly, they follow service tools
to capture and analyse the service level satisfaction with a product. Some of the most popular
marketing strategy followed by fashion retailers are promoting products through the
merchandisers, print and other types of media advertising, promoting through media such as
fashion journalists and fashion magazines (Goworek, Perry and Kent). The fashion retail industry
uses many service tools such as SERVQUAL (Yang, Song and Tong 1266). SERVQUAL is a
diagnostic tool that is used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a firm in terms of service
quality. It mainly consists of two different sets of questions. Each set consists of 22 different
questions. The first set of questions covers consumers’ expectations from major companies in an
industry. The second set of questions is about identifying what consumers perceive a company.
Zara is one of the most popular names in the fashion retail service industry (Zara.com).
The company invented a fast fashion business model to achieve a few distinct characteristics of a
retailer like flexible production, smart data usage, well-coordinated logistics, passion to meet the
latest trends, and lean and fast organisation. Zara is more focused on improvements rather than
transformation. Their continuous growth has been due to four reasons like entering new markets,
launching segmented chains, the inclusion of new selling interfaces and the development of new
product categories (Zara.com). These all pieces of information just show that fashion retail

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service industry is highly competitive and very much reliant on improving the service quality
level of a firm.
2. What is SERVQUAL and how it is used to measure key success factors in services
marketing
The SERVQUAL or Service Quality Model was first developed and implemented by
marketing experts in America. It is a very handful method to capture and measure the service
quality level of a firm as experienced by customers. The SERVQUAL Model is a qualitative
analysis. The survey captures the transactions between buyers and suppliers. The service quality
level is measured through mostly generic and environmental factors. The SERVQUAL Model
mainly follows ten dimensions such as those mentioned below (Alnaser, Ghani and Rahi 455):
1. Reliability
2. Access
3. Responsiveness
4. Competence
5. Credibility
6. Courtesy
7. Communication
8. Tangibles
9. Security
10. Knowing the customer
These dimensions are being used to measure key success factors in services marketing. The
reliability dimension is used to assess the extent the service is honest and accurate.

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Responsiveness helps to check the promptness in responding to customer complaints and
concerns. Competence notifies of the level of expertise that an organisation has. Access
determines the efficiency of a firm in providing quick access to customer queries. Courtesy
indicates whether the firm is polite enough to their customers. Communication indicates whether
a firm offers clear and prompt information to their clients. Credibility measures the extent to
which the organisations’ message and functions are believable. Security informs on the level of
trust that a firm adds to its service. Knowing the customer indicates the capability of a firm to
use technologies to be able to respond to customers’ needs. The Tangibles indicate the
information, which is visible to customers in a variety of forms like the visibility of staff, the
neatness of the office building and other infrastructure, etc. (Alnaser, Ghani and Rahi 455)
3. The benefit of this industry
The SERVQUAL Model is highly advantageous for the fashion retail service industry.
One of the benefits of using this model is to be updated with customer perceptions of one
company as compared to its competitors (Sharar and Yousef). This special feature of the model
will help to uncover the strong and weak areas of a fashion retailer in regards to its service
quality. The strong areas will suggest that the range of strategies adopted so far are being
perfectly placed. The weak areas will be like alarming a signal of a threat to the retailer.
Moreover, this will explore spaces to be filled up with appropriate strategy and technology.
This model provides an opportunity for a firm to examine its service quality from the
different dimensions of the SERVQUAL Model (Sharar and Yousef). This provides an
opportunity to know the critical areas that are creating success for the concerned company.
Moreover, the fashion retailer will also be able to know the areas where they still need
improvement. The model thus provides a very good opportunity to be aware of the weak areas

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and implement a continuous improvement program. In an era where the Fast fashion Retail
Model is picking up, the SERVQUAL Model gives an opportunity to react quickly to the current
and the rising trend. Moreover, the findings of the surveys conducted using the SERVQUAL
Model will help in redesigning the plans and using innovative strategies.
The SERVQUAL Model is applicable across a range of industries, in different empirical
context, ethical backgrounds and various countries (Sharar and Yousef). This benefit gives a real
opportunity to understand different market segment across the globe with diverse ethical
backgrounds. Moreover, the marketer or a firm will be able to understand the perception and
expectation of consumers in the target market for a specific service and a firm respectively. For
example, Zara, which is one of the leading names in the fashion retail industry would always
want to improve their capability to understand their customers. This model provides a set of
dimensions that will help Zara and other fashion retail brands to understand what they should
offer to their customers.
The SERVQUAL Model is a tested instrument. This can be used for benchmarking with
the competitor firm. For example, Zara has always preferred going for improvements rather than
the transformation (Zara.com). They do it to strengthen their strategic capability. Now, the needs
to go for improvements can be understood by doing a survey through the SERVQUAL Model
and using the findings of the survey to benchmark with the competitors. The list of factors in the
SERVQUAL Model is used to benchmark two competitors.
4. Where does it lack in
There are a few areas where the SERVQUAL Model lacks in. These areas can be divided
into two sub-segments like theoretical and operational (Rezaei et al. 2101).

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There is still very little research on the fact that customers gain access to quality service
by just following a notion, which consists of perception and expectations of customers. The
SERVQUAL Model is process oriented. It gives importance to the process to be followed for
service delivery. It does not consider the outcomes of the service. Notably, process and end-
result could be the better predictors of service quality rather than accessing alone the process
(Rezaei et al. 2101). The ten different dimensions in the SERVQUAL Model are not all general.
Indeed, five of the dimensions are not general. This means the research being carried with these
dimensions may not be entirely original. The SERVQUAL Model is more dependent on an
expectation model. This model does not draw on establishing a psychological and economic
theory.
At the operational level, the SERVQUAL Model lacks as well. The model uses
expectations, which is polysemic. Instead, consumers prefer requirements over expectations to
judge the service quality. There are flaws in seven-point Likert size. The Likert size has already
faced several criticisms. Although none of these seven points are specific to SERVQUAL, still
these seven points have an indirect influence on the model. This has been criticised for a lack of
verbal labeling. This may result in overusing the extreme ends of the size by the respondents
(Rezaei et al. 2101).
5. Recommendations to a marketer in terms of other tools to use for measuring
success factors more effectively
The SERVQUAL Model is an essential service measuring tool; however, has a few
flaws. This model should effectively be used to remain safe from the flaws, which this model
has. In this context, a few pieces of recommendation can be given to a marketer to help him or
her to effectively use the success factors in the SERVQUAL Model.

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The marketer should use an effective Customer Relationship Management Techniques
to be able to accurately profile and know their customers in terms of their needs, tastes and
expectations of the business. Managerial involvement is utterly required in redefining the
services, which they have committed to deliver. For example, Zara should enhance their
capability to understand their customers to define its services. Managers must do audits on a
regular basis to know that they are effectively fulfilling the service expectation of their
customers. Communication with customers should be in a more acceptable form and must avoid
using any fraudulent terms to mislead customers.

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References
Alnaser, F., M. Ghani, and S. Rahi. "The Impact of SERVQUAL Model and Subjective Norms
on Customer’s Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in Islamic Banks: A Cultural Context." Int J
Econ Manag Sci 6.5 (2017): 455.
Goworek, Helen, Patsy Perry, and Anthony Kent. "The relationship between design and
marketing in the fashion industry." Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management 20.3 (2016).
Rezaei, Satar, et al. "Measurement of quality of educational hospital services by the
SERVQUAL model: the Iranian patients’ perspective." Electronic physician 8.3 (2016): 2101.
Sharar, Abu, and Mohammed Yousef. "Measurement and Evaluation of Hotel Services Quality
in the Light of International SERVQUAL Model and Ways for its Development Case study:
Hotels operating in the Gaza Strip." Measurement and Evaluation of Hotel Services Quality in
the Light of International SERVQUAL Model and Ways for its Development Case study: Hotels
operating in the Gaza Strip(2017).
Yang, Shuai, Yiping Song, and Siliang Tong. "Sustainable retailing in the fashion industry: A
systematic literature review." Sustainability 9.7 (2017): 1266.
Zara.com. "ZARA Official Website". Zara.Com, 2019, https://www.zara.com/.