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Efforts aimed at evaluating quality in leisure, tourism and hospitality have concentrated predominantly on measuring perceived service quality using the SERVQUAL scale, either in its original form or with modifications. While these studies are of great theoretical and practical value, the focus on measuring consumer satisfaction may limit the potential scope of the quality-measurement process. This is particularly true in assessing the quality of complex services such as those found in the leisure, tourism and hospitality sectors, which may require the application of a range of measures that will collectively contribute to the identification of quality levels. This article critically evaluates the potentialities and limitations of the SERVQUAL scale in measuring quality in leisure, tourism and hospitality. It concludes that the SERVQUAL scale is a necessary but insufficient measure of quality within these sectors and specifies implications for future research.

A key question is whether the instruments developed for consumer services can accurately gauge the service quality perceptions of organisational customers. Reports psychometric testing of the SERVQUAL as a measure of service quality in ocean freight services. Based on a survey of a cross‐sectional sample of 114 business organisations in Singapore, which regularly utilise ocean freight services for their export needs, this study found that the psychometric properties of the SERVQUAL scale are at variance with those found in consumer services settings. Further, the SERVQUAL perceptions scores were found to be a better predictor than the SERVQUAL gap scores. In sum, the service quality measures developed for consumer services can only be applied with caution in business‐to‐business marketing. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

The purpose is to investigate, the difference between SERVQUAL and SERVPERF's predictive validity of service quality.

Data from 17 studies containing 42 effect sizes of the relationships between SERVQUAL or SERVPERF with overall service quality (OSQ) are meta‐analyzed.

Overall, SERVQUAL and SERVPERF are equally valid predictors of OSQ. Adapting the SERVQUAL scale to the measurement context improves its predictive validity; conversely, the predictive validity of SERVPERF is not improved by context adjustments. In addition, measures of services quality gain predictive validity when used in: less individualistic cultures, non‐English speaking countries, and industries with an intermediate level of customization (hotels, rental cars, or banks).

No study, that were using non‐adapted scales were conducted outside of the USA making it impossible to disentangle the impact of scale adaptation vs contextual differences on the moderating effect of language and culture. More comparative studies on the usage of adapted vs non‐adapted scales outside the USA are needed before settling this issue meta‐analytically.

SERVQUAL scales require to be adapted to the study context more so than SERVPERF. Owing to their equivalent predictive validity the choice between SERVQUAL or SERVPERF should be dictated by diagnostic purpose (SERVQUAL) vs a shorter instrument (SERVPERF).

Because of the high statistical power of meta‐analysis, these findings could be considered as a major step toward ending the debate whether SERVPERF is superior to SERVQUAL as an indicator of OSQ.

This paper reviews 20 years (1988‐2008) of research on the SERVQUAL scale for measuring service quality.

A range of studies that have applied the SERVQUAL scale in this 20‐year period are examined in a non‐exhaustive review of the literature. These studies are selected from well‐known databases – such as “ABI/Inform”, “ScienceDirect”, and “EBSCOhost”.

The paper identifies and summarizes numerous theoretical and empirical criticisms of the SERVQUAL scale. Despite these criticisms, the paper concludes that SERVQUAL remains a useful instrument for service‐quality research.

The paper provides a useful source of information on SERVQUAL and its applications. In particular, the paper summarizes a selection of 30 applications of SERVQUAL.

There have been numerous studies on measures of service quality, such as SERVQUAL and SERVPERF, in a variety of contexts, but the validity of these instruments in Asian markets is under‐researched. The present study was focused in South Korea and data on expectations, perceptions and importance measures were collected from 153 bank customers. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the measurement scales lacked validity with the South Korean sample, and principal component analyses revealed that SERVQUAL and SERVPERF were not uni‐dimensional. An amended SERVQUAL type scale showed three factors similar to the original SERVQUAL analysis, and an amended SERVPERF type scale showed two factors, with most of the original items converged on different conceptual dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an innovative and integrated approach based on service quality measurement (SERVQUAL), quality function deployment (QFD) and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) for service quality improvement.

The SERVQUAL scale is used for service quality measurement, QFD is used for service design and FMEA is used to prevent possible failures during service delivery.

A case study in a public hospital in Turkey is performed to show how the proposed approach works in practice. The results of the study show that the proposed approach can be used effectively to assess service quality in practice.

Service quality has become an important issue for service enterprises facing a fiercely competitive environment to provide sustainability. This is the first study that applies an integrated methodology based on SERVQUAL scale, QFD and FMEA to service quality improvement.

Focuses on one of the most widely used service quality measurement scales, SERVQUAL, and looks at some of the areas of concern which have recently been raised regarding its viability as a comprehensive measurement tool for the service industry as a whole. While acknowledging the significant contribution that this model has made, it is suggested that it does not go far enough ‐ the dimensions of SERVQUAL do not adequately address some of the more critical issues associated with the assessment of individual services. Having carried out citation analyses of both the 1985 and 1988 versions of SERVQUAL, it can be shown that although there is a plethora of published work in the marketing and retail sectors about its applicability, relatively little empirical work has been carried out in other service sectors. Indeed, more than one‐quarter of all published papers where SERVQUAL was a major theme, appear to have severe reservations about this scale. In place of the SERVQUAL scale, a model which takes the form of a hierarchical structure ‐ based on three main levels of attributes ‐ pivotal, core, and peripheral (P‐C‐P) is proposed. This P‐C‐P model has the ability to span any service sector since what is proposed is a skeletal framework within which to consider respective services. The authors are currently in the process of using this model for the empirical analysis of the quality of information which is provided by government bodies to the business community. The results of their empirical study will form the subject matter of the next paper in this series. This is, therefore, largely theoretical in nature with the emphasis on a critical appraisal of the existing models in the service quality arena and it also describes the authors’ own model to encourage discussion and debate among researchers, perhaps allowing them to make further refinements to their proposed model.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test a new disabled service user‐specific service quality model ARCHSECRET against a modified SERVQUAL model in the context of disabled students within higher education.

The application of SERVQUAL in the voluntary sector had raised serious issues on its portability into this sector in general and its ability to measure the experience of the disabled service user in particular. In consequence, a disabled service user‐specific service quality model – ARCHSECRET – was developed which led to this research being designed to compare ARCHSECRET and a modified SERVQUAL model in terms of their ability to predict and explain the variation in the service quality experience of disabled students in higher education.

ARCHSECRET was superior to the modified SERVQUAL in terms of its overall predictive power; ARCHSECRET key drivers were different and better in predictive power than those of the modified SERVQUAL; and ARCHSECRET was found to be reliable and valid for the measurement of the disabled student experience in higher education, while acting as a diagnostic tool for the identification of service quality shortfalls.

The reported research should be regarded as a pilot study whose results are worthy of further investigation among larger samples of disabled service users.

It is held that the disabled service user‐specific ARCHSECRET model has made a positive contribution to the measurement of service quality within the context of disabled students in higher education while demonstrating its superiority over the SERVQUAL scale which did not quite “measure up”.

This study seeks to propose a conceptual approach to assess the perceived service quality properly using Fuzzy logic. First, it aims to verify whether it is a better solution than the Likert scale. Second, it seeks to evaluate patients' feedback towards hospital service quality using Fuzzy linguistic analysis.

The SERVQUAL questionnaire was developed according to the characteristics of each hospital's out‐patient service. Three regional hospitals in Hsin‐Chu, Taiwan were evaluated. After being completed and collected, first, the effectiveness of the Fuzzy linguistic scale and the Likert scale was compared. Second, gap values of each element were evaluated to find the core service quality attributes for continuous improvement. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to segment markets using certain service quality attributes and different demographic variables.

The result indicated that the Fuzzy linguistic scale is higher than the Likert scale in terms of reliability in the measurement. Moreover, through gap analysis and ANOVA, a better focus was achieved on the 8th, 10th, 14th, 21st and 3rd service quality attributes from the SERVQUAL measurement on which management should concentrate and which they should endeavor to work out. The 1st, 2nd, 14th and 16th items from the SERVQUAL measurement can be market segment factors, respectively.

The study successfully introduced Fuzzy linguistic analysis into the Gap theory and SERVQUAL measurements, and provided more internal consistency and stability than the Likert scale. After discussing the findings of the gap analysis and ANOVA, the organization could find the critical service quality attributes and create a value for improving or enhancing them.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the best measure among several alternatives (SERVQUAL, weighted SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, weighted SERVPERF) and develop a scale which healthcare providers can use for measurement of healthcare service quality.

The study involved two phases. The first phase was through a series of in-depth interviews with experts and patients followed by a pilot study. Subsequently, the second phase involved a quantitative phase through surveys with 384 patients. Alternative measures were analyzed using coefficient (Cronbach) α, composite reliability, factor analysis and logistic regression analysis.

Findings confirmed “Weighted SERVPERF” using an interactive methodology as the most appropriate for measurement of healthcare service quality.

Using the model and scale developed, healthcare providers will be able to measure healthcare service quality and identify areas of shortfall and act accordingly to improve delivery through allocating resources in service areas that would generate the greatest returns in customer satisfaction. Enhancing satisfaction will ultimately generate patient loyalty and positive recommendation behavior.