Service quality

[2] A business with high service quality will meet or exceed customer expectations whilst remaining economically competitive.

[3] Evidence from empirical studies suggests that improved service quality increases profitability and long term economic competitiveness.

Customers form service expectations from past experiences, word of mouth and marketing communications.

The measurement of subjective aspects of customer service depends on the conformity of the expected benefit with the perceived result.

[9] Given the emphasis on expectations, this approach to measuring service quality is known as the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm and is the dominant model in the consumer behaviour and marketing literature.

In particular scholars have pointed out the expectancy-disconfirmation approach had its roots in consumer research and was fundamentally concerned with measuring customer satisfaction rather than service quality.

In other words, questions surround the face validity of the model and whether service quality can be conceptualised as a gap.

Research has also indicated that the presence of service quality leads to several outcomes including changes in perceived value, customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions with consumers.

Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Malhotra (2005, p. 5) define e-service quality as the “extent to which a website facilitates efficient and effective shopping, purchasing, and delivery.” Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003, p. 183) define e-service quality as “the beginning to the end of the transaction including information search, website navigation, order, customer service interactions, delivery, and satisfaction with the ordered product.”.

[18] The author identified four dimensions of e-service quality: website design, fulfillment, customer service, and security and privacy.

Some of these include guaranteeing; mystery shopping; recovering; setting standards and measuring; statistical process control and Customer involvement management.