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Measuring Service Quality

Copyright 2008 Craig Cochran
About 2,100 words.
As a quality practitioner, services can be hard to get our arms around. Were accustomed
to measuring the physical attributes of a product: dimensions, angles, power, hardness,
tensile, color, and many other characteristics. A service is more nuanced. There are often
no physical attributes to measure, or the physical attributes dont clearly reflect on the
essential nature of the service. We have to think about what really matters about the
service through the eyes of the customer. This is the case with all products, both goods
and services, but it takes on special significance with a service. Lets examine the nature
of services and discuss the most effective ways of gauging their effectiveness.
Manufacturing measures dont help
The first thing to keep in mind about services is that its very different from
manufacturing. The things you take for granted in manufacturing simply dont exist in
many service situations. Consider these facts:
1. Manufacturing takes place in an environment that you control. Even if you
subcontract manufacturing to an outside firm, you can still stipulate the
environmental conditions. With a service, the environment is often dictated or
strongly influenced by the customer. You have to adapt to these environmental
issues, which can be a huge challenge.
2. In a manufacturing environment, the customer is usually not present. Sure, the
customers presence is felt through specifications, tolerances, and product
requirements, but the customer is not standing in front of you tapping his foot.
With a service, on the other hand, the customer is front and center. He is right
there, throwing curve balls and changing requirements midstream.
For these reasons, service provision is radically different from manufacturing. Measures
of output that are applied in manufacturing make no sense in a service situation, due to
the fact that the customer has such a strong influence over our environment. Think about
these traditional measures of output:
Number of customer processed per hour
Minutes spent on each call
Report generated per day
Average time per repair
Rooms cleaned per shift
I have seen all of these measure applied aggressively in service environments, and all of
them backfired frequently because they ignored the high-customized nature of service
provision. You can meet output objectives, and still produce very low customer
satisfaction. Thats why the best way to understand service effectiveness is through
customer perceptions.

Copyright 2008 Craig Cochran

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Customer perceptions are key

Customer perceptions are critical in any product context. In the world of service delivery,
they become especially critical. This is due to the highly personal and interactive nature
of services. You may satisfy every stated requirement, and still fail to satisfy the customer
in a profound way. The ground is shifting as the service is performed, and what you think
was perfect may be far from satisfactory. Thats why you must specifically ask your
customer what they think about your services. Dont give them a long survey that probes
every aspect of the service experience; ask them a few simple questions that enable you
to make improvements. These are two of the most useful questions Ive seen yet for
service providers:
How satisfied are you with the quality of our services?
1
2
3
4
Very
Unsatisfied
Satisfied
Very satisfied
unsatisfied
How likely are you to recommend our services us to a colleague?
1
2
3
4
Very unlikely
Unlikely
Likely
Very likely
These two questions apply to nearly any service situation and industry. The first question
addresses basic satisfaction. Its one of the most fundamental questions imaginable,
essentially asking if the services met all requirements. The second question takes this a
step further and addresses true commitment: Do you feel strongly enough to recommend
our services to somebody else? These represent two different places on the same
continuum, and both are necessary for long term success:

Its worth noting that satisfaction only represents the middle point on the continuum. The
blunt reality of business is that basic customer satisfaction is no longer adequate to

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remain successful. Satisfaction is little more than the absence of dissatisfaction, and
theres no glory in just slipping by. Satisfaction is a reasonable starting point, but the
ultimate goal is the kind of commitment that results in customers telling their friends and
colleagues about your organization and recommending your services. Thats what you
should be striving for. Basic satisfaction simply means that they might use your services
in the futureunless a better offer comes up.
The two questions include a 4-point response scale. Some data gurus might question a 4point response scale providing much resolution. Keep in mind that people are not very
reliable measuring instruments. With subjective judgments, 4 or 5 degrees of resolution
are about as much precision as you can expect. Combine the preceding questions with
these two open-ended questions and youll have a very useful tool for measuring your
services:
How can we improve our existing services? This is one of the simplest, yet most
effective, questions ever conceived. It strikes at the very heart of quality: improvement. It
puts the ball entirely into the customers course, and they can do with it what they will.
The responses will provide a clear path to making improvements that your customers
value.
What services would you like to see us offer in the future? Innovation is the key to
long term survival, and this question enlists your customers in making you an innovator.
The range of responses are only limited by the imaginations of your customers.
In the case of the open-ended questions, the results can be aggregated into similar
categories. These categories can then be plotted on a Pareto diagram to provide guidance
on the actions that should be taken. Many quality practitioners bristle at open-ended
questions because they dont produce data in a traditional sense. The responses can be
converted to data, however, without much difficulty. Even more importantly, the results
point the way to exactly the sorts of improvements and innovations that your customers
desire.
You now have a dynamic tool that will take less than a minute of somebodys time. The
scaled questions probe two timeless issues and produce solid data that can be tracked
over time, while the open-ended questions provide direction for your improvement
efforts. Together you have one of the most streamlined and effective service surveys
imaginable. Click here to download an editable version of this in Microsoft Word.
When to capture perceptions
A perennial question is when to capture customer perceptions. This question is quite easy
to answer: ask customers for their feedback as soon as the effects of the service can be
felt. This might be immediately after the performance of the service or six months after
performance; it all depends on the type of product were addressing and the sorts of
contractual obligations that were made with the customer. Consider these service
scenarios:

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Restaurant: Feedback could be provided immediately following the experience, or

certainly within a day or two of it. The restaurant has committed to providing a meal and
an acceptable dining experience; whether or not this was provided can be determined
very quickly.
Appliance repair: Feedback could be provided immediately on certain aspects of the
service, but it would probably take a couple of weeks or more to know how effective the
repair was in a larger sense. Most appliance repair companies warranty their repairs for a
certain length of time, so the feedback horizon will follow a similar timeframe.
Management consulting: Complex consulting projects that aim to increase a companys
profitability and competitiveness might take up to a year to evaluate. Asking for feedback
any sooner would be premature.
These 3 examples illustrate a range of timeframes for feedback from immediately after
the service to a year after the service. Each organization must decide for itself when the
effects of its services can be determined and, thus, when it is appropriate to solicit
feedback.
Once youve determined when to capture feedback, the next logical question is how to do
it. Yes, you already have the tool, but how exactly will it be administered? Your choices
are almost boundless in this age of mass communications: in person, telephone, email,
website, fax, postal mail, text message. The method chosen should reflect the most
convenient process for your customers. In general, strive not to add another
communication burden to your customers. If you have frequent face-to-face contact with
your customers, leverage these interactions for getting their feedback. This also goes for
Existing communications via telephone and email. If its already happening, use it.
Providing feedback will only add a minute of extra time, and thats an investment that
most customers are glad to make.
Objective measures of performance
Everything weve discussed so far is related to subjective measures of service quality. In
other words, we are asking someones opinion of how we performed. They probably
dont have data to back up their opinions, and they may not even be able to provide
specific examples to illustrate their opinions. These opinions are the basis for making
buying decisions, however, so they are very valuable to you as a supplier of services.
Besides subjective measures of performance, there are also many objective measures that
can be applied to your services. You need only look as far as your service guarantees and
contracts to find some effective metrics. Nearly every service provider commits to
performing their service within a certain timeframe. This naturally gives rise to the
question: was the service performed on-time? No opinions are necessary here. You either
met your commitments or you didnt. The data can easily be gathered by your own
organization, charted, and analyzed. Hard data provides an excellent counterpoint to

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customer feedback, and it usually substantiates the themes that are revealed through
feedback. When data does not support the themes from customer feedback, its useful to
explore the reason for the gaps. Our customers think were always late, yet our data
shows this is not the case. What is the cause of this difference in perceptions? When
theres a difference of this sort, one of two things typically must happen:
1. Change the data collection method to better match what the customer experiences
2. Educate the customer on the true performance level. Sometimes providing
objective data can shape people perceptions, and theres nothing wrong with this.
So, what sorts of measures are helpful in managing service quality? Here are some of the
most common:
On-time delivery: We normally think of on-time delivery as pertaining to goods. It
certainly has relevance to services, though. Most services are scheduled in some manner.
The scheduled date and time is agreed to between the customer and services provider, and
deviations from this schedule can cause serious problems. On-time delivery is an
excellent measure that is usually easy to track.
Responsiveness: Closely related to on-time delivery is responsiveness. This is your
ability to respond to the customer with a reasonable amount of time. The response could
be related to a question, problem, quote, inquiry, or order change. Organizations that
cultivate customer intimacy are usually concerned about how responsive they are.
Effectiveness: All services are supposed to accomplish something: provide information,
repair an appliance, process a transaction, or develop a program, among many other
things. If you have the ability to determine if your service was effective, then this is an
important measure. Keep in mind that Im talking about an objective measure of
effectiveness, not the customers perception of effectiveness (though perceptions are
hugely important)
Availability: Services that up and running usually must be concerned with availability.
Examples include utilities that must provide water, electricity, gas, telephony, or other
resources exactly when they are needed. Being down for a few hours can mean causing
millions of dollars in losses and facing huge claims.
Audit results: The processes are providing a service can usually be audited. Either
through in-person observation or through the examination of records, an audit can reveal
whether the service was performed as planned. Ideally, conformity with the plan would
lead to the service being effective, though this is not always the case in the highly
variable world of services.
Cost control: Adherence to established budgets and spending plans, while meeting other
service objectives. You notice I didnt say cost reduction, which often is used as
justification to reduce service quality.

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In summary, a two-pronged approach is the most effective way to measure service

quality. Gauge service effectiveness through customer perceptions and through objective
data, and remember that measures are worthless unless you take action to improve them.
About the author
Craig Cochran is the north metro Atlanta region manager with Georgia Techs Enterprise
Innovation Institute. Hes the author of ISO 9001 in Plain English; Customer Satisfaction:
Tools, Techniques and Formulas for Success; The Continual
Improvement Process; and Becoming a Customer-Focused Organization, all available
from Paton Professional (www.patonprofessional.com). Visit the Georgia Techs
Enterprise Innovation Institute at www.innovate.gatech.edu.

Copyright 2008 Craig Cochran