Pergamon Computers ind. Engng Vol. 33, Nos 1-2, pp. 153-156, 1997

O 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved

0360-8352/97 $17.00 + 0.00 PII: S0360-8352(97)00063-6

QUALITY SERVICES MODEL ORIENTED TO CUSTOMERS.

Rosalva Martlnez and J. Francisco Rodriguez.

Departamento de Ingenieria Industrial, Instimto Tecnol6gico de Celaya.

Av. Tecnol6gico y A. Garcia Cubas s/n. Zip Code 38010. Celaya, Gto. M6xico.

ABSTRACT

Service companies face complicated situations to compete and to remain in the market. The dominant mental model of the personnel both in the internal and external environment of the companies, the origin and development of the philosophies and the continuous improvement technics strongly directed to manufacture companies, the little importance that has been given to the services not knowing their impact in the gross internal product of both the developed and developing countries and the service sector itself and its characteristics are some of the constraints. This article proposes a model of quality that by integrating the key elements, the organization and the customers, reduces the effect of those constraints. Also the article presents the results of the model application in a service company. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

KEY WORDS

Moments of truth, cycle of service, company identity, perceived quality, external communication, process design, gain contribution.

QUALITY SERVICES MODEL ORIENTED TO CUSTOMERS

The model proposed, in this paper, is the result of a bibliographical research of the models Cencade (1992), GrOnroos (1991), Johnson (1991), Schroeder (1992). However, the authors of this work believe that the models above indicated do not take enough into account the customers requirements; placing in jeopardy the livelihood of the service company.

This model considers the expected service of the customer with respect to a service m particular, this is understood through marketing process. On the other hand exists the company identity that intends to provide that service. The interaction of these two currents gives as a result the perception of the service provider, and afterwards the service strategy that will meet the customer requirements and maintain the identity of the company. The service strategy is transformed into specifications through a design process which keeps external communication with the customers to debug and update these specifications. The service delivery process serves as a feedback to the design process through an evaluation and internal analysis which jointly with the external communication compose the service perceived by the customers. The gain contribution receives feedback from the customers perception and at the same time strengthens the identity of the company. Furthermore, the perceived service is reflected in the customer gain and then the customer accomplishes an evaluation and

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154 21st International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering

external analysis that strengthens or reorients the expected service. The moments of truth are integrated in the external communication process, delivery process, and marketing process.

C U S T O M E R

t:;i SERVICE F

I F--: WITH THE CUSTOM R PRODUCT

• ! SPECIFICATION

D , F / o ~ i I / ' / , I DELIYER S"VICE - - I | I PHOCE~S I ~

. . . . ~ SERVICE PERCEIVED

II S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R I

I SERVICE PROVIDER I PERCEPTION IDENTITY I

I SERVICE STRATEGY . . . . . . . . . . . ~l_~

D E S I G N P R O C E S S [ :

S PEG[F l CATION IS p ECcO; ITcRAOT~ O N

=1 EVALOA'IONAND I INTERNAL ANALYSIS

÷ SERVICE GAIN PROVIDER

DIF. DIFFERENCE * MOMENTS OF TRUTH

I C°NTHIBUTI°N T° I CUSTOMER GAIN

~ EVALUATION AND [ EXTERNAL ANALYSIS

Fig. 1. Quality services model oriented to customers.

Study case, application of the proposed model

The model was applied in the Basaag Travel Agency which belongs to the International Felgueres group. The main activity of the agency is to provide travel services. The approach was focused in the relationship of the model elements that guide the actions that Basaag Travel Agency accomplishes to satisfy their customers. Starting with the marketing process, the needs of the customers were evaluated in accordance with the five dimensions of quality described by Cottle (1991). The results of the evaluation indicated that, according with the customer perception, safety and reliability are the main dimensions of the quality of the service. Basaag Travel Agency is unaware of these findings, since the activities of marketing and external communications are not formally performed.

E M P A T H Y R E L I A B I L I T Y 2 1 % 2 2 %

A B I L I T Y ~ F E T Y R E S P O N S E 2 2 %

2 1 % T A N G I B L E E L E M E N T S

1 4 %

Fig. 2. Importance granted by the customers to the dimensions of the quality of services.

The identity of Basaag Travel Agency established by its vision, mission and values has never been explicitly defined, and it is not known by their personnel and customers. This lack of knowledge causes differences in the personnel perception of the services provided. Further, the authors of this

21st International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering 155

study, found that there is not any strategic planning by the travel agency that yields mid and long term. There are not service strategies formally set up that guide the design process. There is a lack of design specifications of the service product, of the service delivery and of quality control, even though there has been attempts, by the own agency and its suppliers, through computerized booking and schedule formats, but quality control specification is not accomplished by the agency. The evaluation results indicate that customers are satisfied with the service delivery process. Nevertheless, the lack of external communication with the customer leads to a perception from him, that the quality of the services provided were not as expected. The results with respect to the service perceived by the customers of the agency are shown below:

Table 1. Global evaluation of Basaag Travel Agency.

IMPORTANCE TO CUSTOMER GRADES

CRITERIA POOR REGULAR GOOD VERY GOOD EXCELLENT =1 =2 =3 =4 =5

RELIABILITY 22 1.2 7.4 5 35.8 50.6

SAFETY 22 0 9.1 15.9 31.82 43.18

TANGIBLE ELEMENTS 14 0 9.1 27.27 45.45 18.18

RESPONSE ABILITY 21 0 8.33 11.67 15 65

EMPATHY 21 1.3 3.9 18.18 35.06 41.56

For example, the customer's concept of safety represents the 22 % of the total criteria for any travel service. The evaluation results for the Basaag Travel Agency in the safety item indicates that 43.18% of the customers consider the travel agency service as excellent, 31.82% very good, 15.9% good, 9.1% regular and 0% poor. It follows that approximately 75% of the customers rate the safety provided by the agency as excellent or very good. The global rating, given by the customers, to the agency was highly positive.

Cycle of service

The service cycle is a map of the moments of t n ~ . The moments of truth defined in the model; external communication process, delivery process of the service and marketing process were identified m the agency and are shown in the figure number 2.

C U S T O M E R R E Q U Z S T 8 j I N F O R M A T I O N

C U S T O M E R O B T A I N S C U S T O M E R D E F I N E S H I S T R A V E L F O L L O W U P R E Q U I R E M E N T S

C U S T O M E R E X P E C T S T R A V E L F O L L O W U P

C U S T O M E R O B T A I N S A L T E R N A T I V E O P T I O N S

C U S T O M E R O B T A I N S S E R V I C E P R O D U C T

C U S T O M E R B O O K S T H E S E R V I C E S

C U S T O M E R E V A L U A T E S T H E O P T I O N S

/

Fig. 2. Service cycle oftbe Basaag Travel Agency.

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156 21st International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering

The accomplished study was documented and delivered in a work meeting to the General Director of the agency in order to feedback the organization and specifically the model. The Travel Agency General Director is interested in instrumenting our suggestions due to that the model proposed give to him the opportunity to improve their organization.

C O N C L U S I O N S

The proposed model is directed to the customer since the customer is regarded as the key factor in the perception, design, instrumentation, supply and improvement of the service. This model permits high flexibility for application to any other type of service oriented business and it is compatible to the products defined as goods since their structure is quickly identifiable for the manufacturing companies. Further, the authors believe that the model is robust since it integrates the identification of the moments of truth which determine the total quality of the service. Based on the experience obtained through this study, the authors recommend a systematic application of the model having as support the steps mentioned below: • Company diagnosis: Philosophy, organizational structure, communication channels, personnel

functions and profile, service products, customers, benchmarking, quality perceived by the customer.

• Process identification. • Determination of the service cycle. • Processing and analysis of the information. • Conclusions and suggestions.

Finally the authors consider that the model proposed here can be improved and it can be adjusted to any other service oriented situation.

REFERENCES

Albrecht K. and J. L. Bradford (1990). La Excelencia en el servicio. Legis, Bogo~. Cencade (1992). El reto de la calidad y productividad de las agencias 'de viajes ante el acuerdo de

libre comercio. Cottle W. D. (1991). El servieio centrado en el cliente. Diaz de Santos, S.A., Madrid. GrOnroos, Ch. (1991). Service Management and Marketing. Maxwell Macmillan International

Editions, Singapore. McCann, R. and J.Vitale (1991). El placer de servir. Pax, M6xico. Johnson, P. (1991). ISO Standards ISO 9004-2:1991 [E]. USA. Schroeder R.G. (1992). Administraci6n de operaciones. Me Graw Hill, Cd. de M6xico. Schwartz, M.H. (1992). What do the words "'product" and "service" really mean for management?.

Quality Progress, 25, pp. 35-39. Zeithaml A. V., A. Parasuraman and L. Berry (1993). Calidad total en la gesti6n de servicios. Diaz

de Santos, S.A., Madrid.