What is service quality?
First, let’s define service. A service is a performance. A service occurs at the moment of consumption and then disappears. A service is intangible. The recipient of the service can’t see it, taste it, or touch it. She can’t stack it, store it, or save it for later. But just because she can’t see a service doesn’t mean she can’t evaluate its quality.
The customer can feel the experience of the service you provide. The feeling she has during and after she consumes your service either enhances or diminishes her satisfaction with your service. That moment of consumption is the only moment you have to satisfy, surprise, and delight her.
Service is the ongoing delivery of individual service performance moments. Service quality is the recipient’s perceptions and opinions of those moments. If even one of those service moments fails to live up to expectations, that affects the person’s perception of the quality of the overall service.
What is internal service quality?
The idea of customer service is nothing new; we’ve all experienced customer service, good, bad, and indifferent. But what we sometimes forget is that customer service happens inside of companies too. Services are performed by employees for other employees. We can apply the concept of service quality to the service that goes on inside of companies. We call it internal service quality. In contrast, the service quality that customers receive can be called external service quality.
How do you build a beautiful internal brand?
A beautiful internal brand means that employee behaviors result in alignment with the company’s external brand. In other words, employee actions create customer satisfaction. Sometimes there is misalignment between employee behaviors and customer service outcomes. This can undermine the external brand. What am I saying? I’m saying bad customer service can destroy an external brand.
A company’s brand lives or dies by the satisfaction of its customers. In a service business, when an employee mishandles one of those service performance moments, there’s no do-over, there’s no taking it back. The damage can be mitigated (think gift cards, freebies, lost profit) but it can’t be erased. In a service business, you could say service quality is its lifeblood. If that is the case, then internal service quality is the heart that pumps that lifeblood. Internal service quality measures the satisfaction of internal customer—employees serving other employees, and especially management serving subordinates. If there is a breakdown in internal service quality, it will manifest in external service quality, to the detriment of your brand.
So, it’s all about building an beautiful internal brand. How do you do that? Here are some typical internal branding questions:
- How do employees perceive internal service quality?
- What are employees’ expectations of internal service quality?
- How effective are your internal communication practices?
- What do employees say about management?
- How satisfied are employees?
- To what extent does employee morale have an effect on employee turnover?
- How employee-centric is the company, according to the perceptions of employees?
- How committed are employees to the organization?
- How motivated are employees?
- What are their perceptions of interdepartmental conflict, teamwork, and management support?
- What do employees think are the company’s core values?
- What are employees saying about the company?
- How do employees perceive corporate social responsibility efforts?
- What are managers’ misconceptions about recognition and reward programs?
- How effective is your training effort?
If you ask employees some of these questions and compile the results, you will gain an understanding of the problem from the employees’ points of view. With that information, you can craft programs that will influence employee and management behaviors and attitudes toward actions that will support your external brand.
Service quality can be constructed and measured in different ways. I’ll write more on that later.
How can I help you?
- Are you an Organizational Development or Human Resources Professional?
- Are you a Change Management Consultant?
- Are you a Training and Development Director?
- Are you trying to help your company (or your client’s company) adopt a service orientation, become a learning organization, or build a beautiful internal brand?
At some point in your initiative, you will need customized assessment and evaluation research. Surveys, interviews, and other forms of assessment are essential to gaining an understanding of a situation or problem. However, assessment and evaluation research take time. You may not have the time, the interest, or the expertise to conduct assessment research yourself. This is where I can help.
I will work with you to quickly develop effective surveys. I will tabulate and compile the data, and analyze, synthesize, and present the results according to your needs. I will moderate focus groups and evaluate training. I am based in Portland, Oregon, so if you are local, I can work on site with you, for a few hours or a few months. I can also deliver your surveys and reports remotely via email and Skype.
You know the critical points where assessment is essential to your mission. I support you as you work on the inside of the company to effect improvement on the outside.