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Of late, service quality has
been attracting increased at
tention among organizations, as it strongly impacts
customer satisfaction. Growth in sales and increase in market share are
directly associated with customer perception of service quality.
The mushrooming of private players in the market has provided
consumers with a variety of products and services. As consumers have a
wide array of options to choose from, marketers have to be more
concerned about the quality of their offerings. Differentiation among products
is easy because of tangibility, but differentiation among services is
difficult because of their unique characteristics such as intangibility, perishability
and heterogeneity. Service providers and researchers are actively engaged
in understanding consumer expectations and their perceptions of service
quality in order to attract customers, cater to their needs and retain
them. (Pariseau and McDaniel, 1997).
Today, most places in India have several telecommunication
companies competing with each other, but there is no clear comparison of
the quality of various services provided. This article demonstrates the use
of SERVQUAL to measure service quality in telecommunication
services by conducting a survey of telecom customers. The
respondents selected for the study have been the engineering and management
students in Rajasthan, hailing from all over India. They are using Bharti
Airtel and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.) cell phone services.
The SERVQUAL dimensions are used to identify the gap between customer
perception and expectation, in order to determine the level of service quality.
Theoretical Background. |
