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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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of the SERVQUAL approach to assess the quality of service of Strathclyde Police in Scotland. Measuring service quality in public services is fraught with difficulty – especially in public services where customers are vulnerable citizens whose contact with the service may be limited.

The paper reports on a SERVQUAL survey of elected representatives serving the area covered by Strathclyde Police Force. The survey captures respondents' expectations of an excellent police service and compares these with their perceptions of the service delivered by Strathclyde Police. The paper also reports on a parallel SERVQUAL survey of police officers in Strathclyde to examine how well the force understands its customers' expectations and how well its internal processes support the delivery of top quality policing services.

While there is a significant shortfall in meeting customer expectations, the police force appears to have a good understanding of what these expectations actually are. There also appear to be gaps in the formalisation of service quality standards, in the force's ability to meet established standards, and in its ability to deliver the level of service it promises to customers.

A key technical result is that the primary SERVQUAL instrument appears to be internally consistent but lacks discriminatory validity between the five SERVQUAL dimensions in this service arena.

The paper will be of interest to strategic and operational police service managers and to academics investigating the reliability and value of service quality assessment tools.

The paper reports an original application of the SERVQUAL approach to police services.

The publication of the first results of the SERVQUAL instrument provoked a debate on how best to measure service quality. With more than a decade since the publication of those results many researchers have attempted to demonstrate the efficacy, or not, of the SERVQUAL instrument, or to develop their own measurement methods. This paper reviews this debate in relation to six key aspects: the purpose of the measurement instrument; the definition of service quality; models for service quality measurement; the dimensionality of service quality; issues relating to expectations; and the format of the measurement instrument. The main areas of agreement and disagreement are identified. As a result the continued use of the SERVQUAL instrument is called into question, and areas for further research are identified.

The scope of this study is to explore and summarize the pool of dimensions, models and measurement techniques of service quality used in healthcare services and to propose a comprehensive conceptual model for practitioners and researchers.

This research employs a comprehensive review of available literature by using multiple keywords on different electronic repositories using the recommendations of the PRISMA approach for the selection of articles. A critical analysis of available studies helped in compiling a list of core service quality dimensions in healthcare services.

This paper presents a comprehensive account of different dimensions and their measurement items used by various researchers to assess service quality in healthcare systems. Most of the researchers have used SERVQUAL model either in its original or modified form while the others have proposed and used totally different dimensions to assess the service quality in healthcare. Many dimensions are just an existing dimension of SERVQUAL that has undergone a name change while others are completely new. The dimensions used by many researchers have items drawn from more than one dimension of SERVQUAL model. The availability of so many dimensions and models adds to the confusion that researchers and practicing managers experience when determining the appropriate model to be used in their work. To mitigate this confusion, there is a need to develop a comprehensive model; the current work is an attempt to meet this need. Through our analysis, we identify four major service quality dimensions: clinical quality, infrastructural quality, relationship and managerial quality and propose a model named CIRMQUAL.

After exploring all available models in the domain of healthcare, this research presents the best possible areas to enhance the quality of healthcare services. It also enhances the research insights for academicians and working professionals by developing and proposing a comprehensive model for measuring healthcare service quality. The proposed model covers almost all of the service quality dimensions used by other researchers and will make the choice of dimensions/model easy for the future researchers/practitioners interested in measuring and improving the quality of services offered by their healthcare units. Such a comprehensive model has not been developed by any researcher thus far.

The major aim of this investigation is to propose a novel approach for evaluating the implementation of the European Quality Award, i.e. the model of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).

The EFQM model includes both enablers and results, while in the service quality gaps model, only the gaps between the organization and customer are studied. In this paper, a new approach has been proposed to assess seven determined gaps in implementing the EFQM model based on the concepts of the service quality gaps model and the ServQual approach. The new approach to the EFQMQual has been examined in Isfahan Province Gas Company using different viewpoints of senior and middle managers and senior experts on four elements of determined gaps. These include perceptions of goals, expectations of goals, perceptions of assessment and expectations of assessment.

Findings indicate that leadership and key results criteria have the lowest and the highest gap values, respectively. In addition, the fifth gap, i.e. the difference between expectations of assessment and perceptions of assessment, has the lowest average, while the seventh gap, i.e. elements of the EFQM model, has the highest average. With regard to the correlation among the seven gaps, it became obvious that there is a significant correlation among the first, fifth and sixth gaps; and also between the fourth and fifth gaps. Finally, based on the Pareto rule, the priority of the criteria related to each of the gaps has also been determined.

One of the limitations of this study is the complexity of the concepts in the questionnaires, which makes it difficult for respondents to understand the items of the questionnaires. To overcome this, therefore, the researcher has attached a guideline to the distributed questionnaires.

As the literature review indicates, there has not been any research on integrating the concepts of the service quality gaps model, the ServQual approach, and the EFQM model, while also analyzing the weak and strong results obtained from implementing the EFQM model based on such an integrated approach. The significance of the study lies further in the fact that based on an approach similar to the proposed EFQMQual, such concepts can be applied for evaluating the implementation of other quality award systems.

The purpose of this paper is to implement statistical process control (SPC) in service quality using three-level SERVQUAL, quality function deployment (QFD) and internal measure.

The SERVQUAL questionnaire is developed according to internal services of train. Also, it is verified by reliability scale and factor analysis. QFD method is employed for translating SERVQUAL dimensions’ importance weights which are derived from Analytic Hierarchy Process into internal measures. Furthermore, the limits of the Zone of Tolerance are used to determine service quality specification limits based on normal distribution characteristics. Control charts and process capability indices are used to control service processes.

SPC is used for service quality through a structured framework. Also, an adapted SERVQUAL questionnaire is created for measuring quality of train’s internal services. In the case study, it is shown that reliability is the most important dimension in internal services of train for the passengers. Also, the service process is not capable to perform in acceptable level.

The proposed algorithm is practically applied to control the quality of a train’s services. Internal measure is improved for continuous data collection and process monitoring. Also, it provides an opportunity to apply SPC on intangible attributes of the services. In the other word, SPC is used to control the qualitative specifications of the service processes which have been measured by SERVQUAL.

Since SPC is usually used for manufacturing processes, this paper develops a model to use SPC in services in presence of qualitative criteria. To reach this goal, this model combines SERVQUAL, QFD, normal probability distribution, control charts, and process capability. In addition, it is a novel research on internal services of train with regard to service quality evaluation and process control.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how quality function deployment (QFD) methodology was employed for translating customer needs and expectations into the quality characteristics in a private healthcare setting. This case study illustrates how an existing approach of SERVQUAL and QFD integration can be applied for quality improvement.

Integrating SERVQUAL into QFD to set the success factors to improve quality in the healthcare industry is the main aim of this paper. A privately‐held university hospital, within the city of Istanbul in Turkey, was selected as the sampling frame. A SERVQUAL‐type of questionnaire was used and a total of 250 questionnaires were distributed and 210 of them were received. Usable responses were 170, comprising a response rate of 68 percent.

From the results of the QFD application it is seen that behavior and attitude of staff has the highest weight score, meaning that when behavior and attitude of staff is improved there will be almost 25 per cent of improvement in the hospital. Another finding was that there is strong relationship among skills of physician, behavior and attitude of staff, and having enough modern equipment.

QFD technique is able to provide hospitals with a better understanding of customers' expectations to translate these expectations into appropriate service specifications and perform existing process assessment.

The case study was a first attempt to apply this integrative approach to a service sector and thus offers practical and applied information useful to both academicians and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the critical factors to accessing the level of service quality of banks by re‐examining the SERVQUAL model, originally pioneered by Parasuraman. Further, the technique of dominance analysis is used to measure the relative importance of each critical factor in closing up overall service quality gap of banks.

The sample consists of 308 bank customers from different parts of Malaysia. The data were collected by using a structured questionnaire, which consists of three parts. Part 1 deals with consumers' usage of banking channels and their banking behavior. Part 2 contains 26 statements related to service quality dimensions based on past literatures. Finally, Part 3 contains the questions related to the socio‐demographic profiles of respondents.

The modified SERVQUAL model consists of four critical factors (dimensions) as detected by factor analysis. They are: tangibility, reliability, competence and convenience. The results reveal that there are significant differences between the respondents' expectation and their perceptions. Among the four dimensions tested, tangibility has the smallest gap whereas convenience has the largest gap. The application of dominance analysis indicates that competence and convenience together can help to reduce the SERVQUAL gap as much as 76 per cent. The banking sector needs to become more competent by being more responsive and fulfilling the assurance of the customers and providing the banking facilities more conveniently.

The paper shows that hardly any work has been conducted which applies the dominance analysis approach in SERVQUAL dimensions to determine the relative importance of the critical factors in closing the overall service quality gap. Measuring the relative importance of service quality dimensions consistently will provide insights to the banks as to what areas need to be emphasized in order to retain their customers and attract new ones. It provides the guidelines for the banks to develop proper strategies and react faster to the changes of customers' banking behavior.

The purpose of this research is to propose a systematic and integrative approach for evaluating, assessing, analysing, and improving service quality and effectiveness.

A new approach is proposed, in which SERVQUAL and overall administration effectiveness (OAE) are integrated. The recycling pavilion service process of Isfahan municipality is examined. By distributing 120 questionnaires containing the 22 questions of the SERVQUAL instrument developed by Parasuraman et al. in four pavilions of four different regions of the city of Isfahan, the services quality gap was measured and the OAE indicator performance was calculated. In OAE, the quality ratio was measured based on the quality gap, and performance and availability ratios were measured based on the characteristics of the recycling pavilion services.

The empirical findings imply that the application of the proposed approach has resulted in a reduction of 0.59 of the gap average and a 36 per cent improvement of the OAE indicator.

While a general approach is proposed for service application, the results of the case study may not be generalisable.

The proposed approach of this study presents a method for simultaneous analysis of service quality and effectiveness.

This paper begins by explaining the new context in which public services are delivered and why improving service quality is especially relevant. The SERVQUAL model has been used in a number of public service environments to assess quality of service provision in terms of what consumers expect and what they actually receive. A particular advantage of SERVQUAL is that it is a tried and tested instrument which can be used comparatively for benchmarking purposes. The two service case examples featured in this paper illustrate the use of the SERVQUAL instrument to improve both process management and strategic planning in North Lanarkshire Council. Expectations, perceptions and gap scores are compared and their significance interpreted.