In today′s competitive environment, the question is no longer whether to have quality assurance programmes, but rather how to make these programmes work. With this in mind, presents a conceptual framework outlining the components of a quality assurance system in the lodging industry setting....

Discusses the advantages of using qualitative methods for services marketing research. Describes in particular the use of an “integrative” qualitative research methodology in relation to a study concerning quality in marketing in a services context. Suggests that the development of an...

Introduces the group interview technique of nominal grouping as an alternative to the widely used technique of focus groups in qualitative market research. Nominal grouping is a highly structured technique designed to keep personal interaction at a minimum level during the process of new idea...

Given the inherent characteristics of services, the implementation of service delivery can be problematic. Looks initially at some of the more frequent implementation problems which occur in service organizations. Considers a framework for identifying and recognizing the details involved in...

This study highlights some empirical considerations when using service quality as a basis for market segmentation. Past studies have been undertaken using customers’ expectations and service quality attribute importance for deriving segments and then comparing different segments across various...

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...

Concerns the application of novel technology (the TEAMWORKER system) in the measurement of service quality. A performance‐only version of the SERVQUAL instrument was used as a basis, contextualized to suit the fast food industry. The study suggests that the use of computer‐aided...

The specific objectives of this research were to gain an understanding of the causes of advertiser account switches in New Zealand and Singapore and compare these results with Michell’s USA and UK studies. The main finding of this study is the reasons for broken agency‐client relationships...

Discusses the findings of a study in which 309 service encounters between customers and customer‐contact personnel in service businesses and retail stores were unobtrusively observed, to measure the occurrence of selected service behaviors (i.e. mostly interpersonal behaviors such as smiling,...

The importance of service quality as an indicator of customer satisfaction and organisational performance is widely acknowledged and has led to a major research thrust which has focused on a number of industries within the service sector. Some of the research relating to defining and measuring...