MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF SERVICE QUALITYThe modern and customer oriented definition of service quality is the gap between customer expectations and customer perceptions. The evaluation of service quality is based on five service quality dimensions: Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment and appearance of personnel.Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.The Questionnaire that is used to evaluate Service Quality is named SERVQUAL (Parasuraman).

According to a research project by Michael Kassotakis (2000), Managers should first understand the nature of the service quality construct and the “art” of service quality measurement (service quality paradigm). Then, they can also take into consideration the reliable and valid results of a “SERVQUAL study” along with the intervention of their mind and “services marketing imagination” in order to take any strategic or innovative decisions related to service quality or service excellence. They should take into consideration the most important implications, which are derived from service quality features in terms of perceptions, expectations and gap scores of service quality. These have to be intersected and weighted with the importance of the service quality dimensions or even better with the importance of the service quality features.In respect of increasing consumer expectations, customers are found to have very high expectations of service quality across all the service quality dimensions. In particular, the highest expectations refer to the following perceived service quality features (they are listed in terms of their ranking):

1) The willingness of the staff to help customers (responsiveness).2) The genuine interest in providing solution when customers have a problem (reliability).3) The ability of the company to deliver what it promises (reliability).4) The ability of the company to provide its services at the time it promised to do so (reliability).5) The behaviour of the employees, which convey confidence to customers (assurance).6) The feeling of safety during the visit of customers in the company (assurance).7) The ability of employees to provide prompt service (responsiveness).

In addition, perceptions received are also high: customers are generally satisfied or very satisfied with most of the service criteria.In particular they are very satisfied with the performance of the service firms along the following service quality features (they are listed in terms of their ranking):

1) The neat appearance of the staff (tangibles).

2) The feeling of safety during the visit of customers in the company (assurance).3) The willingness of the staff to help customers (responsiveness).4) The genuine interest of the staff to provide solutions when customers have a problem (reliability).5) The ability of the company to perform service right at the first time (reliability).6) The consistent kind behaviour of the staff towards customers (assurance).7) The visual appeal of the company’s physical facilities (tangibles).In addition and most importantly, there are a number of “gaps” between expectations and perceptions. This point is crucial, since the diagnosis of gaps can be considered as a more valid and comprehensive way in evaluating service quality. In other words, the rankings of service quality dimensions and features deviated between expectations and perceptions, which contributes to the complexity and vagueness of service quality measurement, assessment and improvement. Therefore, service quality should be assessed through ‘’gap scores’’, which are differences between expectations and perceptions. The main ”gaps” related to the following perceived service quality features (they are listed in terms of their rankings):

1) The ability of the company to deliver what it promises (reliability).2) The ability of the employees to provide prompt service (responsiveness).3) The ability of the staff to understand customers’ specific needs (empathy).4) The willingness of the staff to help customers (responsiveness).5) The genuine interest of the staff to provide solutions when customers have a problem (reliability).6,7) The ability of the staff to give individualised attention. This can be related to the training or the recruitment of staff, which possess or can gain the above skill (empathy). In conclusion, the above indicate that there seem to be a number of areas of service quality where enhancements are needed in order not only to satisfy the customer but also to provide him “service delight”. This in turn, demonstrates the need for continuous service quality improvement even if the standard of quality provision in service firms is satisfying or high. Continuous efforts for service quality improvements can be associated with a quality guarantee image for the customers and can help companies to provide commercial credibility. In line with the previous comments and implications the following managerial guidelines are proposed for future examination and extension:-The periodical conduction of customer and employee surveys in order to enforce favourable trends and track deficiencies. Listening to customers can be associated with efforts to improve service quality. - The use of marketing tools in order to reduce expectations of service quality and communicate the commitment to continuous service quality. Marketing communications can be targeted to both external and/or internal customers (employees). These can include the effective use of the Internet, corporate public relations and other methods such as meetings, seminars, training programmes, personal contact, newsletters and appraisals in order to communicate service quality goals to employees.-The intervention of “services marketing imagination” to gain “mind access”, surprise the customer and establish customer-provider relationship. The reason

for this is that customers such as guests in excellent hotels do not expect the fundamentals as argued by Parasuraman et al (1994). They expect the best and may demand something, which can be called “service delight”.-The implementation of a human resources strategy by service firms and especially excellent hotels, which should include at a minimum the recruitment of skilful employees and the extensive training of the existing employees. The desirable skills should be in line with “item gaps”(e.g. empathy: individualised attention) and associated with “emotional intelligence“ . These can be associated with favourable images in the mind of a guest and contribute to “service delight”.-The use of internal service quality as a key contributor to improvements of external service quality. Employee involvement in service quality issues can be inspirational, provide a brainstorming of ideas and result in the closure of gaps. -The hierarchy of managerial actions in terms of the magnitude of “dimension gaps” or “item gaps”, taking also into consideration the importance of service quality dimensions. For example, the reliability and responsiveness gaps are higher than any other” dimension gap” -The development of a problem resolution system, which can respond quickly and effectively to customer complaints related to deficiencies of the service quality features. The ignorance of this issue may result in service failure of higher magnitude. Finally, service redesign should be considered as a critical issue in order to eliminate the perceived service quality gap and the gaps, which are associated with it. It is not reasonable to blame deficiencies in performance only to employees delivering service. The real reason may be poor service system design. In this case, one effective way to improve service quality is service mapping. It is a visual definition of a service system, which illustrates the chronology and pattern of performances that make up a service.

E-BCRMichael Kassotakis MCIMmk@e-bcr.comwww.e-bcr.com