Title: Exploring service quality: a critical review of literature

Authors: Nirmalya Bandyopadhyay

Addresses: Department of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management, IIM Rohtak, M.D. University Campus, Haryana, Pin: 124001, India

Abstract: With the phenomenal growth of the service sector in the last few decades, research related to the creation and delivery of services has been intensified. Four well-documented characteristics of services - intangibility, inseparability, variability and perishability pose challenges to the marketers to develop appropriate strategies to meet a consumers' service need profitably. The researchers were keen in developing models to identify the attributes and understand quality dimensions of services across varied service settings and their applicability in the service industry to facilitate the service marketers in their efforts of service excellence development. This paper discusses a review of literature on service quality and presents key managerial insights to enable service marketer to formulate strategies appropriately to enhance the quality of their offerings to satisfy service customers and achieve their objectives.

Keywords: customer expectations; perceived quality; customer satisfaction; service quality; quality dimensions; literature review; service industry; services; marketing strategy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2016.078838

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2016 Vol.13 No.3, pp.358 - 377

Received: 08 Jun 2015
Accepted: 19 Sep 2015
Published online: 03 Sep 2016 *

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