Quality Service Literature

a. ) Local Literature b. ) Foreign |Literature Parasuraman et al. (1985) argued that evaluation of service quality is difficult as compared to physical goods. Physical existence of goods facilitates the customers to buy them due to its aesthetic characteristics. Services are considered as intangible because we are unable to see, touch or feel them (Hoffman and Bateson, 2002). Hanson (2000) suggested that service quality shows the organization's ability to meet customers' desires and needs.So organization must improve their services to meet the customers' wants and requirements. It is found that customers' perception of service quality is very important for managers to compete in the market (Hoffman and Bateson, 2002). Morre (1987) identified that concentration on service quality leads to differentiation that enhance the competitive position of the organization for long term benefits. Service quality and customer satisfaction became core issues for the successful survival of any servi ce organization.Service quality is considered very important indicator towards customer satisfaction (Spreng and Machoy, 1996). Service quality got popularity among professionals and academia due to increased competition. It contributes a lot to gain competitive advantage to maintain long-term relationship with customers (Zeithmal et al. 2000) Asubonteng et al. (1996) defined service quality as the difference between customers' expectations about the service before its use and their perceptions after receiving the service.Quality factors vary from one to another in reference to the importance and their impact on the satisfaction level of the customers. It was found that specific activities like increasing the speed of processing information have resulted in delighted customers. Similarly, improvement in the reliability of equipment lessened dissatisfaction (Johnston, 1997). However, it was reported that service quality is the subjective comparison between what the customers require and what they actually get (Gefan, 2002). . ) Local studies d. ) Foreign studies There are two perspectives regarding service quality i. e. one is European and other is Americans. European researchers concentrate on functional and technical aspects of services having a keen analysis of organization's image (Gronroos, 1982, 1984; Lehthinen and Lehthinen, 1982). They focus on three dimensions of service quality to measure the performance of any product by considering functional quality, technical quality and corporate image.Service quality is defined as a discrepancy between expected and perceived service. It is said that service quality is the outcome of customers' comparison between expectations and performance (Gronroos, 1982). The Americans' perspective is concentration on functional quality to measure the performance of services (Parasuraman et al. 1985, 1988, 1991; Kang and James, 2004). They investigated the service quality of different industries by dividing the service qualit y into five dimensions: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.Firstly, they identified ten dimensions but finally service quality is refined to five dimensions (Parasuraman et al. 1985, 1991). Ibanez et al. (2006) investigated service quality dimensions and found a significant effect of service quality on satisfaction in Spain. In another study, a conceptual framework to measure service quality from the customer's perspective is empirically tested for convergent validity, uni-dimensionality and reliability (Saravanan and Rao, 2007). e. ) Relevance of the presence