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In today’s variable and dynamic environment many organizations ought to perform ND utilize competitive advantages and application, efficacy and profitability methods In order to separate themselves with increasing growth of competition. Therefore It Is without reason that measuring services quality is the main subject of various conceptual and practical studies in services marketing. The fundamental point is that the place or role and performance of the customer should be correctly defined in the culture of any bank, paying attention to servicing the customer as a value, so that the banks can be place itself In the correct circuit.
That Is paying attention to the subject of presenting services quality to customers for the continuation of organizations durability, especially in banking sector, is considered as a registered principle. Service quality can be defined as the agreement between the service and the customer’s needs. To further this analysis, CABS Bank has been used as a case and different gaps has been identified in its service quality process delivery. The following five types of gaps have been identified in Its service delivery:
The first gap Identified Is the Customer Gap, the gap between customer expectations and customer perceptions. This is the difference between customer expectations and customer perceptions. Customer expectation is what the customer expects according to available resources and is influenced by cultural background, family lifestyle, personality, demographics, advertising, experience with similar products and information available online. Customer perception Is totally subjective and is based on the customers interaction with the product or service.
Perception Is derived from he customers satisfaction of the specific product or service and the quality of service delivery. The customer gap is the most crucial gap in CABS service delivery and in an idealized world customer’s expectation seems to be almost identical in all facets, to the customer’s perception. In resolving this gap CABS is being advised to form a customer orientated strategy. That is delivering a quality service for a specific product should be based on a clear understanding of the target market. Understanding customer needs and knowing customer expectations could be the est. way to close this gap.
The second gap is the Knowledge Gap, the gap between consumer expectation and management perception, the knowledge gap is the difference between the customer’s expectations of the service provided and the company’s provision of the service. In this case, managers are not aware or have not correctly Interpreted the arises mainly due to lack of insufficient knowledge of the management in relations to customer’s expectation. It has been seen that CABS bank management is offering customer’s unnecessary services like playing movies in banking halls which is not adding any value to customers.
If managers who have complete responsibility and power in policy making and determining the trend of the bank lack or do not have correct customer’s expectations in relation to their services, chain selection of improper decision results in non-optimum devote of resources and facilities of the bank to whose logical results is non- satisfaction of the customers from the security of services offered. If a knowledge gap exists, it may mean companies are trying to meet wrong or non-existing consumer needs, like as identified above playing movies n a banking hall is trying to satisfy non-existing need.
In a customer-orientated business it is important to have a clear understanding of the consumer’s need for service. To close the gap between the consumer’s expectations for service and management’s perception of service delivery, CABS management is recommended to do a comprehensive market research to identify exact market needs. The third gap is Policy Gap, the gap between management perception and service quality specification, according to Gasper et al, this gap reflects management’s incorrect translation of the service policy into rules and guidelines for employees.
It has seen that CABS management is experiencing some difficulties in translating consumer expectation into specific service quality delivery, thus the difference between development and making customer-oriented servicing criteria and the real performance by the staff of the bank. This includes poor service design, failure to maintain and continually update their provision of good customer service or simply a lack of standardization. Loco and Mac. Dog, (1996) states that service performance s the core and relational dimension and important guidance to customer satisfaction.
This gap may see consumers seek a similar product with better service elsewhere. The Delivery Gap: The Gap between Service Quality Specification and Service Delivery This gap exposes the weakness in employee performance. Organizations with a Delivery Gap may specify the service required to support consumers but have subsequently failed to train their employees, put good processes and guidelines in action. As a result, employees are ill equipped to manage consumer’s needs.
Some of he problems experienced if there is a delivery gap are: Employees lack of product knowledge and have difficulty managing customer questions and issues Organizations have poor human resource policies Lack of cohesive teams and the inability to deliver The fifth gap is of non-agreement of performance and commitments and promises, thus the gap between service delivery and external communications. It has been identified that in some cases, promises made by CABS through advertising media and communication raise customer expectations.
When over-promising in advertising goes not match the actual service delivery, it creates a communication gap. Expected service and consequently may seek alternative product sources. The fundamental reason of this problem is non conformity among the people who are busy advertising and describing the service to the customers with the ones with who are presenting the services. That means, when the first group doesn’t have exact knowledge of the presented service, exaggerated commitments and unreal advertisements would be the results and finally leads to a gap between customer’s expectations and the services presented.