Service quality of LPG Domestic Consumers article

Emprical study


Scientific Essay, 2013

15 Pages, Grade: None


Excerpt


Abstract

The Indane gas company reforms have deregulated the market to a great extent. It has become necessary to design and execute the best customer oriented practices and to internalize them for providing enhanced satisfaction to the customer through the employees. Customers’ service is not merely the compliance with the government’s policies or the mechanical adherence to the time frame of services. It is a philosophy and an attitude of professional commitment, which believes in the ultimate satisfaction or each customer ‘wants’.

Service marketers have really understood that competition can be well managed by differentiating through quality. Significance of service lies in customer service management. In this the completive environment, service quality has become the success mantra in all service sector. Keeping this in mind, this study has been conducted at Salem city to identify the service quality of Indane gas. The result indicates that customers are not highly satisfied with the service provided by the Indane gas. So the company took some serious action to improve the service quality.

1.1 Introduction

In this digital era, the service sector has been growing at a lighting speed across the global. Competition and advancement in technology have brought about radical change in customer service. India is no exception to the current global trend. In our country, the service sector contributes largely to the national economy. It is imperative to trigger the growth of industrial sector, particularly manufacturing sector in the medium and long term and it is also equally important to maintain a decent and constant development of agricultural sector, which still depends on the vagaries of nature in the short and even medium term, but the sure indicator for higher growth of the Indian economy is anticipated in giving further fillip to the growth of the services sector, which can be achieved with considerable ease compared to other sectors.

1.2 Historical Background

Quality came to the service literature at the beginning of the 1980s. This is quite in contrast to the manufacturing sector where in quality management has a long and rich history. In the twentieth century, especially the second half, increasing global competition has forced many manufacturing companies to develop and adopt quality management practice aimed at increasing competitiveness by eliminating waste, increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and involving every member of the organisation in doing so. However, from 1980s the interest in service quality has increased tremendously. One reason why service quality is becoming an important issue is that all the developed countries as well as number of developing countries have become service economies. In India also services sector is the largest contributor to GDP, ahead of agriculture as well as industry sector. Another reason for the rising importance of service quality is that it is proving to be a winning competitive strategy. More and more companies are emphasizing on providing excellent service quality in order to have a distinctive competitive advantage over their competitors in a world where establishing a long term technology based competitive advantage is becoming increasingly difficult.

1.3 Service Quality

The service quality has become the success mantra in all sectors ranging from health care to retailing. The need for understanding the service dimension of each sector is extremely essential as it forms the basis of evaluation of service itself. If the service provider is able to comprehend customer’s evaluation criteria and design its service strategy accordingly and executes it, then the efficiency level is enhanced, resulting in customer’s satisfaction. This is the ultimate objective of all the service providers as it is proved by earlier researchers that getting new customers is time consuming and involves higher costs then retaining the existing customer.

1.4 Definition of Quality

Quality is a word quite commonly used by all of us. We expect quality in all most everything in our life. It is nothing but a perception of what we are looking for in a product or service. At the same time it varies from person. As beauty is said to lie in the beholder’s eyes, the meaning of quality also varies from individual to individual. In the circumstances, it is difficult to define quality in such a way that it is universally accepted.

There are many definitions of quality, spelt out by very great gurus and they are found to be widely accepted.

- W.Edwards Deming defines “Quality is a predictable degree of uniformity, at low cost and suited to the market”.
- Joseph M.Juran attempts to define in simple form as “Quality is fitness for use”
- Philip B.Corsby gives a definition as “Quality is conformance to requirement”
- Genechi Taguchi defines as “Quality is the minimum loss imparted by a product is shipped”.
- “Quality is in essence, a way of managing the organisation”, By Feigenbaum.
- “Quality is correcting and preventing loss not living with loss”. This is the definition by Hoshin.
- “Quality is a company-wide issue and must be an all pervasive influence on the way every issue of business is conducted” according to Prof. Kaoru Ishikawa.

Quality can also be quantified as Q = P / E, where Q = quality; P = performance; E = expectations.

If Q is greater than 1.0, then the customer has a good feeling about the service.

1.5 Elements of Customer Service

Customer service is the set of activities an organisation uses to win and retain customer’s satisfaction. It can be provided before, during and after the sale of the product. The following are termed as elements of customer service:

1. Organisation

i) Identify each market segment
ii) Write down the requirements
iii) Communicate the requirements
iv) Organize processes
v) Organize physical spaces

2. Customer Care

i) Meet the customer’s expectations
ii) Get the customer’s point of view
iii) Deliver what is promised
iv) Make the customer feel valued
v) Respond to all complaints
vi) Over-respond to the customer
vii) Provide a clean and comfortable customer reception area

3. Communication

i) Optimize the trade-off between time and personal attention
ii) Minimize the number of contact points
iii) Provide pleasant, knowledgeable and enthusiastic employees
iv) Write document in custom-friendly language

4. Front-line People

i) Hire people who like people
ii) Challenge them to develop better methods
iii) Give them the authority to solve the problems
iv) Serve them as internal customers
v) Be sure they are adequate trained
vi) Recognize and reward performance

5. Leadership

i) Lead by example
ii) Listen to the front-line people
iii) Strive for continuous process improvement

The organisation must record and then communicate to its employees the direction for all tasks. A service quality hand book should be created with description of each service quality standards. Communication of each service quality standard for each task can be resorted to through videos, personal coaching and meetings. Website can also serve as an effective medium of communication between the organisation and its customers for asking questions and getting replies.

Customer satisfaction does occur after the sale of the product. The various characteristics and expectation of the customers are quite to read. Let us look into it.

a) Delivery
Delivered on schedule in undamaged condition.
b) Installation
Proper instruction on set up, or technicians supplied for complicated products.
c) Use
Clearly-written training manuals or instruction provided on proper use.

[...]

Excerpt out of 15 pages

Details

Title
Service quality of LPG Domestic Consumers article
Subtitle
Emprical study
Grade
None
Author
Year
2013
Pages
15
Catalog Number
V211495
ISBN (eBook)
9783656397205
ISBN (Book)
9783656397267
File size
535 KB
Language
English
Keywords
service, domestic, consumers, emprical
Quote paper
C. Sankar (Author), 2013, Service quality of LPG Domestic Consumers article, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/211495

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