A. Parasuraman

A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research

The attainment of quality in products and services has become a pivotal concern of the 1980s. While quality in tangible goods has been described and measured by marketers, quality in services is la...

The behavioral consequences of service quality

If service quality relates to retention of customers at the aggregate level, as other research has indicated, then evidence of its impact on customers’ behavioral responses should be detectable. Th...

Reassessment of Expectations as a Comparison Standard in Measuring Service Quaiity: implications for Furtiier Research

The authors respond to concerns raised by Cronin and Taylor (1992) and Teas (1993) about the SERVQUAL instrument and the perceptions-minus-expectations specification invoked by it to operationalize...

E-S-QUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing Electronic Service Quality

Using the means-end framework as a theoretical foundation, this article conceptualizes, constructs, refines, and tests a multiple-item scale (E-S-QUAL) for measuring the service quality delivered by Web sites on which customers shop online. Two stages of empirical data collection revealed that two different scales were necessary for capturing electronic service quality. The basic E-S-QUAL scale developed in the research is a 22-item scale of four dimensions: efficiency, fulfillment, system availability, and privacy. The second scale, E-RecS-QUAL, is salient only to customers who had nonroutine encounters with the sites and contains 11 items in three dimensions: responsiveness, compensation, and contact. Both scales demonstrate good psychometric properties based on findings from a variety of reliability and validity tests and build on the research already conducted on the topic. Directions for further research on electronic service quality are offered. Managerial implications stemming from the empirical findings about E-S-QUAL are also discussed.

The Nature and Determinants of Customer Expectations of Service

A conceptual model articulating the nature and determinants of customer expectations of service is proposed and discussed. The model specifies three different types of service expectations: desired service, adequate service, and predicted service. Seventeen propositions about service expectations and their antecedents are provided. Discussion centers on the research implications of the model and its propositions.

Service Quality Delivery Through Web Sites: A Critical Review of Extant Knowledge

Evidence exists that service quality delivery through Web sites is an essential strategy to success, possibly more important than low price and Web presence. To deliver superior service quality, managers of companies with Web presences must first understand how customers perceive and evaluate online customer service. Information on this topic is beginning to emerge from both academic and practitioner sources, but this information has not yet been examined as a whole. The goals of this article are to review and synthesize the literature about service quality delivery through Web sites, describe what is known about the topic, and develop an agenda for needed research.

Communication and control processes in the delivery of service quality

Delivering consistently good service quality is difficult but profitable for service organizations. Understanding why it is so difficult and how it might be facilitated is the purpose of the articl...

Alternative scales for measuring service quality: A comparative assessment based on psychometric and diagnostic criteria

Service quality measurement is an area of growing interest to researchers and managers. It is also an area characterized by debate concerning the need for measuring customer expectations and how they should be measured. Building on a synthesis of the extant literature on customer expectations and service quality measurement, this article identifies unresolved issues and develops three alternative questionnaire formats to address them. It then discusses an empirical study that evaluated the three formats in four different sectors. The article concludes with practical implications and directions for further research stemming from the study’s findings.

The impact of technology on the quality-value-loyalty chain: A research agenda

In this article, the authors first propose a simple model summarizing the key drivers of customer loyalty. Then, on the basis of this model and drawing on key insights from the preceding articles in this issue, they outline a set of issues for further research related to the quality-value-loyalty chain. Next, the authors develop a conceptual framework that integrates the quality-value-loyalty chain with the “pyramid model,” which emphasizes the increasing importance of technology-customer, technology-employee, and technology-company linkages in serving customers. Using this integrated framework as a spring-board, they identify a number of avenues for additional inquiry pertaining to the three types of linkages.

The Influence of Store Environment on Quality Inferences and Store Image

The study reported here examines how combinations of specific elements in the retail store environment influence consumers’ inferences about merchandise and service quality and discusses the extent to which these inferences mediate the influence of the store environment on store image. Results show that ambient and social elements in the store environment provide cues that consumers use for their quality inferences. In addition, store environment, merchandise quality, and service quality were posited to be antecedents of store image—with the latter two serving as mediators—rather than components of store image (as they are typically treated in the store image literature). Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.