An Assessment of Service Quality Delivery – A Study on Retail Banking Services of India Post

Abstract

Service quality assessment is an enigma but maintaining quality service is important for customer satisfaction and its impact on firm’s profitability. Research, Gap Model, has established 5 gaps in the service delivery process. The first gap is between the expected service and its perception by the management and second gap is in translating this into service quality specifications and standards. These service quality standards may be construed as the ideal level of service quality expected to be delivered. However, the actual level of service quality delivered may differ from the ideal level due organisational inadequacy in systems and processes, poor service delivery guidelines in adhering to service standards, lack of skills and motivation and differing customer orientation from the individuals delivering the service. This paper aims to assess the ideal level and actual level of service quality from the perspective of the service providers using the SERVQUAL Model for the retail banking services of India Post.The result indicates a statistically significant gap between the ideal and actual level of service quality for each of the five dimensions of SEVQUAL Model for retail banking services of India Post. The result also indicates a statistically significant gap for each of the items of each of the five dimensions of SERVQUAL Model. The items of all the five dimensions of SERVQUAL can broadly be classified into the organisational aspects and individual aspects of the service delivery process. The service quality delivery is falling short of the ideal level of service quality in both these aspects. Hence, India Post has to improve its organisational processes and systems as well as train employees for upgrading skills, enhancing motivation and improving customer orientation to serve its customers better.

Keywords: Service Quality; Ideal Level; Actual Level; SERVQUAL Model; India Post.