Five Dimensions of Service Quality

1. Introduction

With the high development of service delivery, consumers' satisfaction is becoming more important than before. Consumers' satisfaction of a service can be determined by the comparison between the service expected and received. There are three situations of the level of consumers' satisfaction---expectation exceeded, expectation met and expectation not met (Fitzsimmons, 2011). When expectations are confirmed by the high level of perceived service which means that consumers have a high level of satisfaction of service, the quality of service is satisfactory. As Caruana, Pitt and Ewing ( ) presented, the definition of service quality stands for the comparison made by customers between the expected service and perceived service. There are five dimensions which can be used by consumers to judge the service quality and they are reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles (Fitzsimmons, 2011). In order to satisfy consumers, some service companies will supply questionnaire to all of their customers and get the feedback to measure the gap between expected service and perceived service. This report will take Monash University residential service system as an example to talk about the expectation of service, dimensions of service quality and gaps of service quality.

2. Dimensions of Service Quality

In the report presented by Kim, Joung, Yuan, Wu and Chen (2009), the evaluation of service quality is made according to the kind of manner the server takes when he delivers the service and the outcomes that results from the service which is delivered. When the service is provided, the consumers will make a judgment about how well the server's manner is and whether the outcomes from the service satisfy his needs and pass muster to his expectations (Nightingale, ). To make a judgment to measure the service quality, there are principal dimensions of service quality which contain reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy and Tangibles.

2.1 Reliability

As Fitzsimmons (2011) stated in Service Management, reliability was the ability to supply a kind of service which was not only dependable but also accurate. Reliable service should be accomplished on time, in the same manner and without errors every time. In Monash residential service system, reliability dimension can stand for the ability of staffs that can supply service correctly, for example, assume that the heater is out of work in two students' rooms and these two students ask the residential office for new ones. If the residential staff delivers the heaters to both of the students' rooms correctly and immediately at the same time, then the perceived service quality will be judged as exceeding the students' expectations and both of the students will have high satisfaction with Monash residential service system. Another example can be reported as follows. Cleaning ladies will come to clean the houses belonging to Monash residence every week and one of their jobs is supplying the bin liners for the rubbish bin. If they do not give the bin bags to students living in Monash residence, then the service perceived by students may not meet their expectations and the level of Monash residential service quality will be judged as low.

2.2 Responsiveness

Responsiveness means the willingness to supply service to customers and provide (Fitzsimmons, 2011) the service immediately (Fitzsimmons, 2011). Monash residential service system, as an example, if the staffs forget to provide drink during a party then this is a kind of behaviour to lose their responsiveness and this behaviour will reduce students' satisfaction to the residence. However, Fitzsimmons (2011) also mentioned that if a service failed to be supplied, the ability to correct the failure fast and with professionalism can win customers' satisfaction back and this can provide a positive perception of quality. In the example above, the theory of Fitzsimmons can be stated like that, if Monash residential staffs supply the drink promptly when they recognize that there are no drinks, students' dissatisfaction will be recovered and this will also help the service system to win a high level of service quality.

2.3 Assurance

Assurance stands for the knowledge and manner of a staff who provides service to customers, in other words, it shows the employees' self quality which can help service companies to attract more customers. On the other hand, assurance also shows the ability of employees to make their customers trust them and gain confidence (Fitzsimmons, 2011). Fitzsimmons (2011) stated that there were some features contained in the assurance dimension, for example, the ability to deliver the service, being polite and showing respect to their customers, having effective communication with the customers and the attitude of the server to treat customers demand as an event. In Monash residential service system, if a student has an emergency requirement and residential staffs dispose the problem quickly and peacefully after having a communication with this student, then people can say that the quality of perceived service is higher than expectations and students who live in residence will be confident and happy with the high quality of service. However, if residential staffs show bad manners to a student when he asks for a service from the residential office and eventually, the problem hasn't been solved, accordingly, students' expectations are not met and the service quality will be treated as low.

2.4 Empathy

Fitzsimmons (2011) presented that empathy dimension needed employees to do care and