Gap Analysis Model:

According to Brown and Bond (1995), “The gap model is one of the best received and
most heuristically valuable contributions to the services literature”.Gap Analysis Model is
aConceptual model of services quality was first introduced in 1985 by Parasuramanet al.They
defined services quality as the distance/gap between customers' expectations from their
services and their understandings from the qualities received. Further anextended gap model
has been developed by Parasuraman et al (1985) and Luk& Layton (2002). The author
Parasuraman and his colleagues gave five gaps between the service processes. Similarly
Luk& Layton gave a seven gaps model. The present model is also developed based on them.
The entire gaps are identified based on the back end process of service quality.
This model is the cooperation between theorganizations' activities and the link
between these activities and the satisfactory level of the quality offeredfrom the standpoint of
the customers. Among these links, the gaps are investigated, i.e. the existence of gaps and
their progress prevents reaching satisfactory level of services quality. In this model,existing
gaps between the effective dimensions of services quality (management and customer ends)
and customers' expectations are portrayed after investigating them. Gap analyses were used to
identify the causes of service quality shortfalls in each or all of the dimensions.
This model begins where the process of improving service quality begins: by gaining an
understanding of the nature and extent of the customer gap.
Building expectation:
Before customers buy a service, they have built an expectation of the service to be
received depending on four factors these are, personal needs, previous experiences, word of
mouth communications obtained from friends and acquaintances, the advertisements of the
service provider. From these sources the customer develop expectations about the service
dimensions provided at management end (Tangibles,Security,Price and service
variety,Reliability ,Accessibility ,Geographic ,Credibility) and at employees end
(Responsiveness ,Assurance,Empathy ,Competence ,Inter Personal Skills,Consulting).
After buying and consuming services, customers compare the quality expected with
what they have really received. If offering the services is in the tolerance range, they would
feel that the service is suitable, but if the real quality is lower than proper services level being
different from customers' expectations, there would be a difference/gap between the
performance of the service provider and customer's expectations. Decreasing the distance
with the customer via presenting quality services is a complicated task necessitating different
organizational jobs and various staff ‘skills.
There are seven major gaps in the service quality concept.

Gap I - The gap between Management’s Perception of Consumer Expectations and

Actual Expectations of customer:

This gap is due to lack of sufficient knowledge of the management of the organization in
relation to customers' expectations. If managers who have complete responsibility and
empowerment in policy-making and determining the trend of the organization do not have
correct customers' expectations in relation to their services, chain selection of improper
decisions results in non-optimum devote of resources and facilities of theorganization whose
logical results is poor service quality. The size of GapI is largely dependon the amount of
marketing researches performed and other aspects of customer-orientation. The second factor
is the lack of upward relationship. Front staff often obtains many things in contact with the
customers, but the management may not be in contact with these staff not knowing what they
know. The third factor is the lack ofleadership of the company in the direction of maintaining
customers and reinforcing relationships with them, insufficient relationship focus, lack of
market segmentation, Focus on transactions rather thanrelationships, Focus on new customers
rather than relationship customers. The forth factor is insufficient attention to services
improvement, i.e. Understanding why they complain, what do they expect when complaining
and how to make effective procedures for encountering with incredible break-out, inadequate
service recovery,lack of encouragement to listen to customer complaints, failure to make
amends when things go wrong,no appropriate recovery mechanisms in place for service
failures.

How to reduce Gap I -Determining What the Customers Expect:

In order to decrease Gap I ,companies should use various research methods among
different groups customers so that they are sure that companies must implement continuous
hearing systems so that services quality information are obtained, organized and distributed
in order to support decision-making. These issues are dealing examinations and studies,
professional purchases, focal group interviews, research about new customers, decreasing
customers and lost customers and also servicing investigations.
Proposition I: The gap between Management’s Perception of Consumer Expectations
and Actual Expectations of customer will have an impact on customer’s evaluation of
service quality.

Gap II: Management Perception of Consumer Expectation and Translation of

Perception into Service Qualityspecifications:

The Reasons for Gap IIare the management of the organization has a correct
understanding of customer's expectations but the managers cannot transform their
conclusions into proper performance standards,poor service design or undefined service
designs,unsystematic new service development process, failure to connect service design to
service positioning, lack of customer-driven service standards,absence of formal process for
setting service quality goals, inappropriate physical evidence and servicescape, failure to
develop tangibles in line with customer expectations Servicescape design that does not meet
customer and employee needs, Inadequate maintenance and updating of the servicescape,
service quality inevitably would not be obtained.On the other hand, many managers believe
that determining performance standards in relation to customer's expectations is almost
impossible for which many reason are offered. For example, in many cases, customers'
expectations are irrelative or illogical or various, the management find it difficult to establish
specifications to deliver services as per the expectations due to lack of trained service
personnel and wide fluctuations in demand. , but the main reason of making this gap is the
lack of commitment of the management for offering quality.
How to reduce Gap II - Establishment and Development of Customer-oriented Schemes and
Criteria: In order to reduce Gap II, service provider should confirm servicing innovations to
new services and real schemes of service process to customers' expectations. Researches
show that the conformation of the process of designing a new product can make services
presentation clearer preventing breakdowns. The initial scheme of services is a
useful/effective way in new process of services development whose key properties is insisting
on the customer. Development of quality performance is another for communicating
customers' demands/needs with internalcomponents of service schemes. The other key
procedurenecessary for reducing Gap II is making customer-oriented servicing criteria which
can be in the forms ofoperational (hard) or conceptual (soft) criteria.
Proposition 2:
The gap between Management Perception of Consumer Expectation and Translation of
Perception into Service Quality specifications will affect service quality from customer’s
view point.
Gap III: Translation of Perception into Service Quality and Service Delivery (Pre and
Post Contract):
Gap III is due to the difference between development and making customer-oriented
servicing criteria and the real performance by the staff of the company. The other reasons
behind this gap are deficiencies in human resource policies, ineffective recruitment ,role
ambiguity and role conflict , inappropriate evaluation and compensation systems, lack of
empowerment, perceived control and teamwork , poor employee-job fit and poor
technology-job fit, customers who do not fulfill roles,Customers who lack knowledge of their
roles and responsibilities,customers who negatively impact each other, problems with service
intermediaries,channel conflict over objectives and performance, difficulty in controlling
quality and consistency ,inappropriate supervisory control systems,tension between
empowerment and control ,failure to match supply and demand, failure to smooth peaks and
valleys of demand.
Losco and Mc.Dogul (1996) showed in recent studies that service presenting performance at
the core and relational dimensions is an important guidance for customer's satisfaction in
banking.
Now what will happen if staff responsible for presenting these services does not obey the
standards? One of the important challenges the managers are encountered with is the lack of
ability of the organization in satisfying the standards determined in presenting the
services.Even when guidelines exist for performing services well and treating consumers
correctly,high quality service performance may not be certainly achieved.
How to reduce Gap III:
The service provider should not only narrow the gap between standards designed and service
delivered but also exceed in customer service and product knowledge. This can be achieved
through a team of competent and highly motivated service provider with positive attitude. A
service provider should be “enabled “by the service firm in skill and knowledge about service
offers, interpersonal skills and communication, as also in attitude and behavior to excel in
customer service. This can be done through different types of training in information
technology, behavioral, and product knowledge. Employee should be empowered to take
many decisions regarding customers on their own. This would increase their self-esteem and
motivation, and also considerably reduce delivery time as well as improving customer
service. In addition service firms should pay attention to incentives and remuneration of their
service providers. Disgruntled employees, especially those who have an issue with their
compensation, will translate their negative attitude on their customer and service.
Proposition 3:
The gap between service quality specifications and actual service delivery will affect
service quality from the consumer’s standpoint.

Gap IV: Service Delivery (Pre and Post Contract) and External Communication gap:

Non-agreement of Performance and Commitments and Promises: The presented service to

the customers is weaker than commitments made by the company via advertisements in the
minds of the customers? Result in Gap IV. Promises presented by servicing companies' via
media advertisements, selling staff and other communications may increase customers'
expectations being evaluated as a criterion based on which the customers examine quality
services. Not only advertisements can lead to improvement/success of the organization, but
also can make non-satisfaction among customers and finally the organization's breakdown.
The difference between real services and the promised ones has a reversed effect on distance
from the customer. The fundamental reason of this problem is non- conformity among the
people who are busy advertising and describing the service to the customers with the ones
who are responsible for presenting the services. When the first group does not have exact
knowledge of the presented service, exaggerated commitments and unreal advertisements
would be the result which finally leads to a gap between customer's expectations and the
services presented. So , Lack of integrated services marketing communications, tendency to
view each external communication as independent, absence of strong internal marketing
program, ineffective management of customer expectations , absence of customer expectation
management through all forms of communication, lack of adequate education for customers ,
overpromising in advertising , overpromising in personal selling, overpromising through
physical evidence cues, insufficient communication between sales and operations
.insufficient communication between advertising and operations, differences in policies and
procedures across branches or units leads to Gap IV.
Customers were unaware of the banks behind the counter, on-line websites, ATM terminals,
Mobile banking portals which would “translate into visible effect on customer service”,
making consumers perceive about service quality standards. So external communications –in
the form of exaggerated promises and/or the absence of information about service delivery
aspects intended to serve consumer well- can affect consumer perceptions of service quality.
Proposition 4:
The gap between actual service delivery and external communications about the service
will affect a consumer’s stand point.

Gap V: Expected Service and Perceived Service Gap:

The four above-mentioned gaps lead to poor service quality or the fifth gap. The fifth gap is
indeed the result of the existence of gaps No. 1-4 such that the fifth gap decreases or is
eliminated with decreasing or eliminating each of the four gaps. Therefore the management
of the organization can decrease the fifth gap by trying to decrease or eliminate each of the
gaps 1-4 improving the quality of the products of the organization. An active management
knows that eliminating gap V is not possible; since customers' needs change repeatedly and
on the other hand, the quality services presented by the competitors become better and better
day by day. Therefore first the management should identify the reasons of the poor quality of
its service to customers trying to conform customers' needs to quality specifications of the
products presented. In addition, this process must be performed repeatedly by the manager
whose result is continuous improvement which is undoubtedly one of the important reasons
in the success of leading organizations throughout the world.

This gap is a key to ensure good service quality is meeting or exceeding what consumers
expect from the service and that judgment of high and low service quality depends on how
consumers perceive the actual performance in the context of what they expected. In the
present study the researcher has segmented this particular gap in to two; they are

Gap 5 A- Service at Management End Gap

Regardless of the type of service, consumers used basically similar criteria in evaluating service quality.
These criteria seem to fall into 7 key categories which are labeled "service quality dimensions from
management End. This gap has seven major dimensions like tangibles, security, price and
service variety, reliability, accessibility, geographic and credibility. These dimensions are the
guidelines, which are to be framed by the management in providing quality service to the
customers. This gap would give a clear idea to management in their development of service.

Gap 5 B - Service at Employee End Gap

 Regardless of the type of service, consumers used basically similar criteria in evaluating service
quality. These criteria seem to fall into 6 key categories which are labeled "service quality dimensions from
employees End. The gap has six major dimensions like responsiveness, assurance, empathy,
competence, inter personal skills and consulting. These dimensions are to be possessed by
each employee in serving the customer. If the issues in this gap are known by the employee,
then the rectification service delivery would give a best in providing quality service to the
customers.

Proposition 5: The quality that a consumer perceives in a service is a function of the

magnitude and direction of the gap between expected service and perceived service.
Proposition 6: Gap V = (Gap 5A+ Gap 5 B) = f (Gap I, Gap II, Gap III, Gap IV).

The position of a consumer's perception of service quality on the continuum depends on

the nature of the discrepancy between the expected service (ES) and perceived service
(PS):

Proposition 7: (a) When ES > PS, perceived quality is less than satisfactory and
4

will tend toward totally unacceptable quality, with increased discrepancy between
ES and PS; (b) when ES = PS, perceived quality is satisfactory; (c) when ES < PS,
I-

perceived quality is more than satisfactory and will tend toward ideal
in
quality, with increased discrepancy between ES and PS

Gap6: The discrepancy between customer expectations and employees’ perceptions: as a

result of the differences in the understanding of customer expectations by front-line service
providers.
Gap7: The discrepancy between employee’s perceptions and management perceptions: as a
result of the differences in the understanding of customer expectations between managers and
service providers.