Measuring Service Quality Expectation and Perception Using SERVQUAL: A Gap Analysis

The study was carried with the objective of understanding the level of gap exists between expectation (excellent bank) and perception (experience bank) among the banking customer in Pakistan in the content of service quality. This study is measuring service quality by using SERVQUALa perceived service quality questionnaire methodology. SERVQUAL examines five dimensions of service quality, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangible and Reliability. For each dimension of service quality measures both the perception and expectation of the service on a scale of 1 to 7, total questions in the questionnaire are 22. Through Gap analysis Gap score is calculated by subtracting the perception score from expectation score. A negative Gap indicates that the actual service is less than what was expected and the GAP is highlighted area for improvement. Convenience sample of 250 public and private bank’s account holders in Pakistan was used to collect the data. The finding of this study showed there is very huge Gap exists between excellent bank (expectation) and account holder experience (perception) bank in Pakistan with the regards of service quality. Finding of this study is help to minimize the GAP that was exist between excellent bank and account holder experience bank in Pakistan. This study used the word excellent bank because no bank in Pakistan up to the expectation of the account holders. Citation: Qadri UA (2015) Measuring Service Quality Expectation and Perception Using SERVQUAL: A Gap Analysis. Bus Eco J 6: 162. doi:10.4172/2151-6219.1000162 Volume 6 • Issue 3 • 1000162 Bus Eco J ISSN: 2151-6219 BEJ, an open access journal Page 2 of 6 ii. Assurance Assurance means knowledge of competence, courtesy of staff, respects of customers, probity and confidentiality, safety and security and creditability (Tables 5-7). (v) Tangible Tangible defines as visual appealing, physical facilities, equipment, employees and communication materials. Tangible is the image of the organization services and physical represent [61-70] (Tables 8-11). iii. Empathy Empathy mean treating the customers as individual and understanding the needs and wants, customer easily access to the staff of the organization and to their service and information, staff communicate clearly, appropriately timely with their customer, organization understanding the needs and wants for the consumers, organization should give the appropriate service to customers accordingly they needs, organization should give the individual attention to the every customer (Tables 12-15). iv. Responsiveness Responsiveness is the prompt attention to requests and questions, willingness to sort the problem and help, organization should provide the problem solution on demand, providing the better complaint handling service, providing the flexibility service to the customers (Tables 16-19). Conceptual Framework The Parsuraman, Zethaml, and Berry theory of the Determinants of perceived quality (Figure 1). Items Number (N) Experience bank Expectation (excellent bank) GAP=experienceExcellent RB 1 225 4.6901 4.6431 -0.047 RB 2 225 4.521 3.8741 -1.646 RB 3 225 4.7812 3.4312 -1.352 RB4 225 4.7229 3.2821 -1.44 RB5 225 4.9013 4.3432 -0.558 Total SERVQUALreliability gap 4.7233 3.9147 -0.808 Table 1: Mean score of excellent bank and experience bank items of reliability. Item Statement RB1 When Experience/excellent banks assure to do great by a certain time, they do. RB 2 When a consumer has a issue, Experience/excellent banks will demonstrate a genuine interest in solving it. RB 3 Experience/excellent banks will execute the service true during the first instance. RB 4 Experience/excellent banks will execute the service at the time they assure to do so. RB5 Experience/excellent banks will persist on error free records. The study showed there is (-0.808) gaps exist between service quality Reliability of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The excellent bank mean scores of all items of service quality-Reliability are greater than the experience bank scores which show that a gap exists in the respect of service quality RELIABILITY. If we rank the service quality in the respect of Reliability factor the highest expectation of the account holders from the experience banks are connected to the item (RB2) where gap between excellent bank and experience bank is (-1.646). Table 2: Reliability items of reliability. Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Excellent bank 23.6165 225 2. 48135 0.19376 Experience bank 19.5735 225 2.08448 0.16277 Table 3: Paired sample statistics of reliability.


Introduction
Commercial banks play the main role in the development of financial growth in the nation. Banking industry in Pakistan has been great transition during sixty-seven years of its history, especially since early 1970s. The nationalized commercial banks maintained their financial hold in financial services industry till the early part of 1990s before a major shake-up leading up to liberalization and reforms, which was instrumental in restructuring of the entire banking industry in 1990s. Berry et al. [1] investigated that service quality is measured with comparing customers' perceptions and expectations of the services extended by the business; moreover perceptions are articulated as consumer's experience about the service received and expectation as customer demand. Thus, the knowledge about customers' perceptions and expectations is significant to service marketers to achieve sustainable viable advantage by maintaining quality service. The consistency competitive edge in the banking industry highlights the significance of quality of customer service. Hence, reviewing quality of service for the customer in the service industries such as insurance, hospitals, telecommunication, hospitals, and library is very vital in determining the standard expected from the service industry. To attain this attaining competitive edge, banking industries face the exceptional challenge of meeting the needs of the customers dependably and regularly [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].

Objective of the Study
The objective of this study is to understanding the level of gap exists between expectation (excellent bank) and perception (experience bank) among the banking customer in Pakistan in the content of service quality.

Literature Review
Berry et al. [1] said service quality is the conformance to consumer specification which are counts by the customer not management. Berry et al. explored the ways to increase quality throughout a service company. Berry et al. suggested that service quality is comparison of perception with expectation. Swailes and Dawees (1999) said banks know that customers will be retaining if they provide better service quality to the customers then competitors [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Chaoprasert and Elsey investigate that core competitive strategy for the banks is service quality furthermore; all the banks around the world have similar kinds of service and competitors. They said banks should investigate customer perception gap in the service quality for getting better market share. Cowling and new man investigated that two UK banks used SERVQUAL models after that both banks enjoying substantial enhances in the profit. Zeithaml investigated that profit for any business will increase if the organization provides the better quality of the services. Heskett et al. [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] explored the positive relationship between customer satisfaction, service quality and profitabliity. Zeithaml et al. [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] investigated that service quality is most important factor for success of any organization. In the banking industry, service quality is as critical factor as any other service organization. Newman and cowling investigated that service quality broadly used to investigate the performance of banking service. Parasuraman et al. [1] highlights the gaps that cause unsuccessful delivery. Accordingly Parasuraman et al. quality has five dimensions (i) assurance, (ii) empathy, (iii) responsiveness, (iv) Reliability, (v) tangible

i. Reliability
Leonard et al. investigated that Reliability has the ability to provide the promised service regularly, consistently, timely and accurately to the consumers (Tables 1-4).

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ii. Assurance Assurance means knowledge of competence, courtesy of staff, respects of customers, probity and confidentiality, safety and security and creditability (Tables 5-7).

iii. Empathy
Empathy mean treating the customers as individual and understanding the needs and wants, customer easily access to the staff of the organization and to their service and information, staff communicate clearly, appropriately timely with their customer, organization understanding the needs and wants for the consumers, organization should give the appropriate service to customers accordingly they needs, organization should give the individual attention to the every customer (Tables 12-15).

iv. Responsiveness
Responsiveness is the prompt attention to requests and questions, willingness to sort the problem and help, organization should provide the problem solution on demand, providing the better complaint handling service, providing the flexibility service to the customers (Tables 16-19).

Conceptual Framework
The Parsuraman, Zethaml, and Berry theory of the Determinants of perceived quality ( Figure 1).

Items
Number ( Table 1: Mean score of excellent bank and experience bank items of reliability.

RB 1
When Experience/excellent banks assure to do great by a certain time, they do.

RB 2
When a consumer has a issue, Experience/excellent banks will demonstrate a genuine interest in solving it.

RB 3
Experience/excellent banks will execute the service true during the first instance.

RB 4
Experience/excellent banks will execute the service at the time they assure to do so.
RB 5 Experience/excellent banks will persist on error free records.
The study showed there is (-0.808) gaps exist between service quality Reliability of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The excellent bank mean scores of all items of service quality-Reliability are greater than the experience bank scores which show that a gap exists in the respect of service quality RELIABILITY. If we rank the service quality in the respect of Reliability factor the highest expectation of the account holders from the experience banks are connected to the item (RB2) where gap between excellent bank and experience bank is (-1.646).  The table shows that the significance value is (.000) which is less than .05 at 95% level of significance so that null hypothesis is rejected. We can conclude that there is gap exist between service quality Reliability of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan.  Table 5: Mean score of excellence bank and experience bank of assurance.

A 1
The performance of employees in the excellent/experience bank instills self-assurance in you.
A 2 You experience secure in your dealings with the excellent/experience bank. The study showed (Table 1) overall there is (-1.21) huge gap exist between service quality assurance of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The excellent bank mean scores of all items of service quality-assurance are greater than the experience bank scores which show that a gap exists in the respect of service quality assurance. If we rank the service quality in the respect of assurance factor the highest expectation of the account holders from the experience banks are connected to the item (A3).  The table shows that the significance value is (0.000) which is less than .05 at 95% level of significance so that null hypothesis is rejected. We can conclude that there is gap exist between service quality assurance of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The study showed (Table 8) there is (-0.847) gap exists between service quality Tangible of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The excellent bank mean scores of all items of service quality-Tangible are greater than the experience bank scores which show that a gap exists in the respect of service quality Tangible. If we rank the service quality in the respect of Tangible factor the highest expectation of the account holders from the experience banks are connected to the item (T1) where gap between excellent bank and experience bank is (-1.872) Table 8: Mean score of excellent bank and experience bank items of tangible.

Item Statement
T 1 Materials related with the service (brochures or reports) will be visually pleasing at an experience/excellent bank.
T 2 Employees at experience/excellent banks will be smart in their appearance.

T 3
The physical facilities at experience/excellent banks will be visually appealing.
T 4 Experience/excellent banking corporations will have modern looking equipment.   The study showed (Table 12) there is (-0.919) gaps exist between service quality EMPATHY of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The excellent bank mean scores of all items of service quality-EMPATHY are greater than the experience bank scores which show that a gap exists in the respect of service quality EMPATHY [77]. If we rank the service quality in the respect of EMPATHY factor the highest expectation of the account holders from the experience banks are connected to the item (E1) where gap between excellent bank and experience bank is (-1.329).
Table12: Mean score of excellent bank and experience bank items of empathy.

E 1
Experience/excellent banks will give clients individual attention.
E 2 Experience/excellent banks will have in service hours convenient to all their clients.

E 3
Experience/excellent banks will have employees who provide clients individual service.
E 4 Experience/excellent banks will have their clients best interest at heart The employees of Experience/excellent banks will recognize the specific needs of their clients.  The table shows that the significance value is (.000) which is less than .05 at 95% level of significance so that null hypothesis is rejected. We can conclude that there is gap exist between service quality EMPATHY of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The study showed (Table 16) overall there is (-1.21) huge gap exist between service quality Responsiveness of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. The excellent bank mean scores of all items of service quality-Responsiveness are greater than the experience bank scores which show that a gap exists in the respect of service quality Responsiveness. If we rank the service quality in the respect of Responsiveness factor the highest expectation of the account holders from the experience banks are connected to the item (R2).

R 1
Employees of excellent banks will tell clients exactly when services will be executed.
R 2 Employees of excellent banks will provide timely service to clients. R 3 Employees of excellent banks will consistently be willing to facilitate clients.

R 4
Employees of excellent banks will never be too busy to react to clients requests.

Hypothesis
The following hypothesis were prepared for the purpose of the researchi. There is no gap exist between service quality-assurance of excellent bank and experienced bank in Pakistan.
ii. There is no gap exist between service quality-empathy of excellent bank and experienced bank in Pakistan.
iii. There is no gap exist between service quality-responsiveness of excellent bank and experienced bank in Pakistan.
iv. There is no gap exist between service quality-Reliability of excellent bank and experienced bank in Pakistan.
v. There is no gap exist between service quality-tangible of excellent bank and experienced bank in Pakistan.

Methodology
The study used both secondary and primary data. Secondary data was collected from different, books, journal and websites and Primary data was collected through a structure Questionnaire. Items of the questionnaire relating SERVQUAL dimension was adopted from Berry et al. The study was conducted in Lahore City. The questionnaires were distributed among the 250 account holders in banks of Pakistan.  The table shows that the significance value is (0.000) which is less than 0.05 at 95% level of significance so that null hypothesis is rejected. We can conclude that there is gap exist between service quality Responsiveness of excellent bank and experience bank in Pakistan. Only 225 accordingly filled questionnaire were found appropriate. A convenience sampling technique is used for collecting the data within the city [71][72][73][74][75][76].

Data Analysis and Findings
Data obtained through questionnaire are punched and analyzed with help of "Statistical Package for Social Science" SPSS-17.

Conclusion and Recommendation
It is evident from the above there is gap exist between service quality of excellent bank and experience bank of Pakistan. The results of the research showed that account holders of the banks in Pakistan are not satisfied with banking services. Their expectations were higher than the experience of service quality from the existing bank in Pakistan in the all aspect of SERVQUAL. The task of banking industry under such circumstances is to develop and implement new strategy that would minimize the gap between the excellent bank and experience bank. In order to minimize the gap between the account holder's experiences and their expectation of the service quality, the officer, managers and executives in the banks have to ensure that every contact with the account holders is the positive experience for the account holders about the banks. It is important for the bank to define the service quality standards that are measurable and transparent.