An essential part to the implementation of TQS is that companies must have clear objectives in order to be successful in defining quality. These objectives consist of the identification of the customer and the identification of the service manor that needs to be used. Stamatis (1996) rightly explores how this could vary depending on the size and nature of the business, as the objectives for successful quality service will vary from business to business. Service manor can be split into three main categories - providing helpfulness, kindness and patience. Although there should be a combination …show more content…
This is primarily due to customer service being subject to peoples differing perceptions. It is due to this that the academic field of customer service has become so broad and defining quality customer service can vary highly depending on the industry, culture, product, location etc. For the purpose of accurate and relevant research there must first be a clear understanding and objective of what form of customer service needs to be measured whether it’s the technical or perspective aspects, service delivery or service manor. Many respected researchers have been able to appreciate this and develop ways in which to measure service quality in order to improve validity and relevance. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) developed a concept for measuring service quality called SERVQUAL. This was the instrument developed in order to explore what consumers think should be provided and what they think actually has been provided (Raguz et al., n.d.). SERVQUAL consist of 22 questions that compare customer expectations and customer perceptions grouped into five dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Due to various limitations in the SERVQUAL instrument, various other researches have adapted the model to suit other areas of service quality. Bojanic and Rose (1994) used an adapted version of SERVQUAL for the purpose of looking into chain restaurants with a higher level of diverse customers and a varied menu. Stevens, Knutson and Patton (1995) revised the SERVQUAL instrument and developed a similar model called DINESERV, which is used to understand customer’s perceptions of the quality of service offered by restaurants (Raguz et al., n.d.). The latest version of this model consists of 29 measured items based around the same five-point scale used for the