PROJECT ON - SERVICE

QUALITY GAP MODEL

AND QUALITY
DIMENSIONS
OF REAL ESTATE
SECTOR
Submitted By –
Avishek Soor (12)
Siddharth Singh Tomar (65)
Debashish Mohanty (19)
Suraj Pattnaik (74)
Bishal Mondal (14)
Apoorv Gupta (101)
OBJECTIVES OF THE SURVEY –
To understand the perception of the people regarding service
quality of a Commercial Property.

OBJECTIVES OF SERVICE QUALITY –

The subject of the service quality has come up considerably
among different business people. In today’s generation
buyers are well informed about what they are looking for in
the market and whether their quality standards are met or
not. Conceptualizing the quality standards for the services
has been more complex than for the goods. It is due to
absence of tangible manifestations that while measuring the
service quality can be difficult but there are different
approaches. Generally understanding the dimensions of
quality which are very important to customers is not always
easy in their evaluation process. It is not sufficient for the
companies to set the quality standards in accordance with
the assumptions of the customer’s expectations. The further
most important problem while defining the service quality
lies in the importance with the customers often attach to the
quality if the service provider is distinct from its service
offers. The two cannot be separated as readily as in case of
the goods. Finally issues regarding to the setting of the
quality standards and quality management should be
studied.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

SUMMARY – 1 (Semantic Scholar)

The first article consisted of the data analysis and the
diagrammatic representation of data with physical evidence.
It has been stated clearly that the determinants of the
Service Quality have been identified and ranked, in areas
which substantially need improvement, due to the causes of
poor service delivery and the different strategies which will
be required in order to improve the service quality.

SUMMARY – 2 (The Real Estate Relativity)

This summary interprets the Gaps in between a customer’s
expectation , and their perceptions and the reality of what
they experience. With the inclusion of the technological
advancements it has been seen that it has profoundly
affected the relationships in between the customers and the
companies as a whole. For example in the past people used
to take photographs and then print it in order to show them
to their relatives, friends. But now the things are totally
different people take digital photos , download them to their
computers or upload them to a platform. So in this case it can
be seen that technology fundamentally affects the
customer’s expectations and perceived value of the service
provided offers a way to ensure that the firms technological
advancement is essential to meet the customer’s
expectations.
SUMMARY – 3 (Academia)
In the following paper we came across the inclusion of the
“Assimilation” theory this concept was relatively very
important because it assists the customer to make a sort of
an cognitive comparison between the expectations regarding
the product or the service and their perceived performance.
If there is a discrepancy in between the expectations and the
perceived performance then the cognitive dissonance will
not fail to appear. This point of view was introduced in this
study to discuss the satisfaction under the form of theory of
assimilation .

SUMMARY – 4 (Emerald Insight)

This paper generally includes different theories including
interdisciplinary research and the resulting model i.e.
“Parasuraman” model has the potential in order to facilitate
the development of customer profiles so that the Company
can improve their management techniques and use the
service quality as a means of seeking a competitive
advantage in the market place.

Summary 5 (world wide journals)

The following article provides us the ways to close the gaps.
To close the listening gap we have to improve interactions
between front line staffs and the customers and we need to
understand what services the customer expects from the
company. To close the design and standard gap we have to
make that all goals are clearly stated to the customer and the
goals must be realistic. If the company wants to improve the
work methods they must ensure that consistency and
reliability. To close the performance gap we have to
distribute the work properly to eliminate the role conflict
among the employees. To retain the employees we should
provide good rewards. To close the communication gap we
should involve the operations staff along with sales staff and
the customers. According to the service quality gaps model,
service quality can be defined as the difference between
customer expectations of service and perceived service (as a
basis for SERVQUAL). If expectations are greater than
performance, then perceived quality is less than satisfactory
and hence customer dissatisfaction occurs.

Summary 6 (slideshare)
The following article explains the problems and solutions of
service quality gap model. While talking to the people and
collecting the responses by doing proper marketing research,
there should be adequate upward communication and the
levels between the contact personnel and management can
be eliminated, by doing the above solutions the listening gap
can be closed. The design and standard gap can be closed by
removing the resource constraints, minimizing the
management indifference and better service design. The
performance gap can be closed by standardizing the
employee performance and making the customer perception
uniform. The last gap, communication gap can be closed by
making consistent the marketing message with the actual
service offering and promising to deliver more than the
actual delivery.

Summary 7 (community verint)

Gap 1 is the distance between what customers expect and
what managers think they expect - Clearly survey research is
a key way to narrow this gap.

Gap 2 is between management perception and the actual

specification of the customer experience - Managers need to
make sure the organization is defining the level of service
they believe is needed.

Gap 3 is from the experience specification to the delivery of

the experience - Managers need to audit the customer
experience that their organization currently delivers in order
to make sure it lives up to the spec.

Gap 4 is the gap between the delivery of the customer

experience and what is communicated to customers - All too
often organizations exaggerate what will be provided to
customers, or discuss the best case rather than the likely
case, raising customer expectations and harming customer
perceptions.

Summary 8 (slideshare )
The following article explains the problems that occurs in
service quality. The listening gap occurs when there is
inadequate market research orientation, lack of upward
communication, insufficient relationship focus and
inadequate service recovery. The design and standard gap
occurs due to poor service design, absence of customer
driven standards and inappropriate physical evidence and
services cape. The performance gap occurs due to
deficiencies in human resources policies, customers who
don’t fulfil roles, problems with service intermediaries and
failure to match supply and demand. The communication gap
occurs due to lack of integrated services marketing
communications, ineffective management of customer
expectations, overpromising and inadequate horizontal
communications.

Summary 9 ( research gate)

The following article explain the causes of the gaps. The
causes of listening gap are lack of marketing orientation to
quality, research not focused on demand quality and too
many layers between frontline staff and top level
management. The causes of design and standard gap are lack
of perception of feasibility, the absence of goal setting and
insufficient planning of procedures. The causes of
performance gap are failure to match demand and supply,
too much or too little control and lack of teamwork within
the organisation. The causes of communication gap are over
promising, failure to manage customer expectations and
failure to perform according to specifications given to
customers.

Summary 10 (ideas)
By applying the process utilized in the development of a
generic service quality measurement instrument
(SERVQUAL), an instrument to measure perceived levels of
satisfaction with real estate brokerage service quality
(RESERV) is developed. The RESERV instrument contains
thirty-one items in seven dimensions and exhibits both high
internal consistency and convergent validity. The findings,
based upon a survey of home sellers, supports the notion
that the real estate brokerage industry is not unique and, as a
result, can benefit from the extensive body of knowledge
available in other service industries.

INTRODUCTION TO SERVICE QUALITY –

The quality improvement and adherence towards the
accepted norms of quality are in line to the modern concept
of marketing of services. The quality of service delivered is
the result of the customer satisfaction and retention as it
reinforces the perception that the value of the services
received is greater than the price paid for it. We have gone
through some of the important concepts such as –
  Modern Quality Concepts result in better profitability,
which is the main goal of the business.
 Quality control has much to do with the psychology of
the service provider and particularly the front end and
back end of the employees who are actually providing
the service.
 Development of feedback systems are very important
and essential part in case of the quality improvements.
 Goal setting and adherence towards goal setting are
essential to ensure the continuous process.

CUSTOMER RETENTION THROUGH

QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS
In the modern days the focus of the modern marketers has
shifted away from a one-time sale to making repeated sales
to the same customer. Increasing attention is being paid to
medium and long term perspectives or options, rather than
just the short term perspectives. This has currently been a
major revolution in thinking in the field of marketing.
In general terms lifetime value of a customer refers to the
fact that if the customer remains loyal to the company,
naturally, the repeated purchases represents a cumulative
value which is quite substantial compared to any single
transaction. The reduced costs helps to acquire a new
customer than to retain an old customer. Therefore, the
focus of marketing has shifted away from the goal of mere
customer acquisition to customers retention in order to
substantially reduce the marketing costs.
Benefits from wider opportunities to market more products
and services to customers who are already loyal to you .
According to our survey the key difference between
customer retention and satisfaction is that, customer
satisfaction results when the customer feels that the value of
a service received by them is substantially higher than the
price paid by them for acquiring the service. The customer
satisfaction can be largely attributed to the quality of the
service or products. Thus, delivery of high quality service is
crucial in terms of high service value perception. So the
ultimate prerogative of the company is towards customer
retention because getting new customers is really difficult
task for a marketer.

WHAT IS SERVICE QUALITY ?

The approach towards the service quality has changed quite
drastically, during the past few decades. Quality is further
defined as the ability of the service provider to satisfy the
customer needs, perception, service quality and profitability.
Quality in general terms is extremely difficult to be
understood in a few words as it is a large elaborative topic. At
the most basic level it is actually defined as conforming to the
specific requirements. It directly implies to the fact that an
organization should directly establish the requirements and
specifications once and when established. It has been found
that the ‘technical’ and ‘functional quality are two of the
most important principles of quality. Technical quality refers
to the relatively quantifiable aspects of a service which the
consumers receive in interactions with the service of a firm
only because it can be easily measured by both customer and
supplier. Whereas in the case of functional quality it is
actually influenced by factors such as the environment in
which queing takes place and consumer’s perceptions of the
manner in which the ques are handled by the real estate. We
can see an important role for a service firm’s corporate
image in defining the customer’s perception on quality, with
corporate image being based on both technical and
functional quality.
Service quality is a highly abstract construct, in contrast to
goods where technical aspects of quality predominate. Many
conceptualization of service quality therefore begin by
addressing the abstract expectations that the customers may
hold in respect of the quality measures. Consumers generally
judge service quality as the extent to which perceived service
delivery matches upto these initial expectations.
Introduction Of DLF Firm
The DLF Limited (Delhi Land &
Finance) is Gurgaon based commercial real estate developer.
It was founded by Mr. Chaudhary Raghvendra Singh in 1946
and is based in New Delhi, India. DLF developed residential
colonies in Delhi such as Shivaji Park (their first
development), Model Town, Rajouri Garden, Krishna
Nagar, South Extension, Greater Kailash, Kailash Colony,
and Hauz Khas. DLF builds residential, office, and retail
properties.
With the inclusion of Delhi Development Act in 1957, the
local government assumed control of real estate
development in Delhi and banned private real estate
developers. As a result, DLF began acquiring land at relatively
low cost outside the area controlled by the Delhi
Development Authority, in the district of Gurgaon, in the
adjacent state of Haryana. In the mid-1970s, the company
started developing their DLF City project at Gurgaon. Its plans
include hotels, infrastructure and special economic zones-
related development projects.

The company’s first residential project was Krishna Nagar in

East Delhi, which was completed in 1949. Subsequently, the
company developed 21 colonies in Delhi, including Model
Town, Rajouri Garden, Punjabi Bagh, South
Extension, Greater Kailash, Kailash Colony and Hauz Khas.
The passage of Delhi Development Act in 1957 was the first
serious challenge to company’s growth . The Act meant that
the government would assume control of all real estate
development activities in the city. After that DLF decided to
move beyond Delhi and focused on the suburban areas
of Gurgaon in Haryana which had the potential for
development of residential and commercial properties. As
DLF started to acquire land under the leadership of
Chairman K.P. Singh, Gurgaon embarked on a period of rapid
growth.
This land purchase program adopted a humane approach so
that the sellers do not feel short-changed. To this effect, DLF
partnered with farmers so that they also got a share in
profits. DLF acquired and created a land bank and then sold
plots to buyers after demarcation. The profits from the sales
were subsequently shared with farmers, which encouraged
more farmers to come forward and partner with DLF.

Service quality dimensions

Tangibility
Since services are tangible, customers derive their perception of
service quality by comparing the tangible associated with these
services provided. It is the appearance of the physical facilities,
equipment, personnel and communication materials. In this survey,
on the questionnaire designed, the customers respond to the
questions about the physical layout and the facilities that FFR offers
to its customers.

Reliability
It is the ability to perform the promised service dependably
and accurately. Reliability means that the company delivers
on its promises-promises about delivery,sevice provision,
problem resolutions and pricing. Customers want to do
business with companies that keep their promises,
particularly their promises about the service outcomes and
core service attributes. All companies need to be aware of
customer expectation of reliability. Firms that do not provide
the core service that customers think they are buying fail
their customers in the most direct way.

Responsiveness
It is the willingness to help customers and provide prompt
service. This dimension emphasizes attentiveness and
promptness in dealing with customer’s requests, questions,
complaints and problems. Responsiveness is communicated
to customers by length of time they have to wait for
assistance, answers to questions or attention to problems.
Responsiveness also captures the notion of flexibility and
ability to customize the service to customer needs.

Assurance
It means to inspire trust and confidence. Assurance is defined
as employees’ knowledge of courtesy and the ability of the
firm and its employees to inspire trust and confidence. This
dimension is likely to be particularly important for the
services that the customers perceives as involving high rising
and/or about which they feel uncertain about the ability to
evaluate. Trust and confidence may be embodied in the
person who links the customer to the company, for example,
 the marketing department. Thus, employees are aware of the
importance to create trust and confidence from the
customers to gain competitive advantage and for customers’
loyalty.

Empathy
It means to provide caring individualized attention the firm
provide its customers. In some countries, it is essential to
provide individual attention to show to the customer that the
company does best to satisfy his needs. Empathy is an
additional plus that the trust and confidence of the
customers and at the same time increase the loyalty. In this
competitive world, the customer’s requirements are rising
day after day and it is the companies’ duties to their
maximum to meet the demands of customers, else
customers who do not receive individual attention will search
elsewhere.

MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY

1) SERVQUAL
The most simple and direct way to get feedback from your
customer is simply to ask for it, and one of the easiest way to do
this is with a survey , a survey is the list of question about the
customer experience . Survey with multiple-choice question are
very useful for business and thus it is easy to express conclusions
from the data in the form if graphs , scatter plots etc.
PROBLEMS WITH SERVQUAL
FIRST – So the first problem is technology. The survey on mobile devices take
longer time to complete as compare to the same survey taken on laptop or
desktop.
SECOND- Giving less attention to later question than earlier question this is
also defined as satisficing which states that doing the job just well enough so
not to get kicked out of study.
THIRD – Survey deals with the gap theory methodology used for measuring
the level of the service quality.
2) Post – Service Rating
The post service rating is the practice of asking the customers to rate the
service when it is being delivered. This is where customer make their rating
or perhaps they share some explanatory feedback and close the chat. It is
also done in phone support where you can rate the reply raising from great
to not good. The different scales can also be used for post service rating.
Many of them make the use of number rating raising from 1 to 10. For
EX- :You can convert the chat window to change into a service rating view
once it closes like help scout where you can rate the service response from
your email inbox.
3) Follow-Up Survey

Another common way that the businesses get the feedback form their
customers is by contacting them after the service has been completed.
This is generally done by using the contact information provided by the
customer as a part of receiving their services. EX -: If a family receives a
follow up survey during their nightly dinner then their views may effect
negatively to the business.
4)Documentation Analysis
Documentation analysis is the qualitative approach where you read
or listen to your respective written or recorded service records.
People or the customer will definitely want to go through the
documentation of the low-rated service deliveries, but it will also be
interesting if you read through the documentation of service agents
that always rank high.
The difficulties are not in the method of analysis but are in the
process of documentation. For the live chat and email support it is
very easy, but for phone support it requires an voice at the start of
the call: “This call could be recorded for quality measurement.”

Data Analysis
Q2. The factors taken into consideration while buying commercial property on the degree of
its importance

12

10

Q3. Are the following features of the commercial property up to your expectations?
 12

10

Q4. Any specific requirements before buying a commercial property?

No
Property tour
Price
Its brand is very important and most important are their features and its worth price and
the quality
Location is my first priority people are always attracted to the place which are famous.
Commercial property at a famous place will be best.
Areawise should be good
No litigation should be there
It should be in a well laid off location with basic amenities which are necessary for a buyer
as a whole
It should be nearby a lush green environment
Area of property should be around 20x20 metres
A 10x10 metres space for warehousing
Vastu compliance
The commercial property should have a posh location
Property should be near a high traffic area
Property required for cold storage purposes
It should provide value for money
NA
Should be up to the customers expectations
AC, safety measurements
Should be located within the vicinity of a city
The area should be accessible to different transportation modes
It should have good infrastructure
Cost of maintenance should be less
It should have well ventilated rooms
Parking should be compulsory
This place should be well connected
The carpet area should be calculated and pre quotation should be provided
Physical condition of the property
Property and its allowable purposes: every kind of business would put the property to a
different purpose. For example, CA firm would need a office space whereas a factory owner
or a manufacturer would put property to industrial uses. Thus, it becomes critical to know
the lawful use that the property can be put to before finalizing
Availability of support services: other services like parking, lift, security, etc. must also be
carefully studied while finalizing the commercial real estate
Opportunity to be able to expand or lease out in the future
It should contain basic safety features
It should be present in the heart of the city
It should have conducive environment
The quality standards of the building materials, safety components, hardware should be
taken into consideration
It should have food courts and entertainment spaces
Quality of work
It should be located in a business centre
Brand should be good
It should have reliable infrastructure
Just a little bit away from the main city
Security
Property should be up to my expectation
Should be in a better locality
Transport routes
Best infrastructure
It should have proper safety equipment
It should have proper infrastructure
It should be pre painted
Electrical requirements like drizzler, smoke detector
It should be well connected
Better ventilation services
Transportation facilities should be there
Its transportation availability

Q5. What is your preferred medium of purchase for commercial property?

8
6
4
2
0

48

Q6. What place would you prefer before buying a commercial property?
 I want to purchase a
property that I can resell at
market rates after 15 years
of ownership
I am willing to work on a
property before transfer
of ownership
Q7. Which one would you prefer while buying?
I do not want any limits on
my ability to resell my
property
I am willing to sell the
property back to a
broker/agency that helped
to purchase the property
I want to purchase a
property that I can resell at
market rates after 15 years
of ownership
I do not want any limits on
my ability to resell my
property
I am willing to work on a
property before transfer
of ownership
Q8. If buying, what is the price that you are looking for?

I want to purchase a
property that I can resell at
market rates after 15 years
of ownership
I do not want any limits on
my ability to resell my
property
I am willing to work on a
property before transfer
of ownership
I am willing to sell the
property back to a
broker/agency that helped
to purchase the property

Q9. What is the preferred mode of payment, you will choose while purchasing a commercial
property?

I want to purchase a
property that I can resell at
market rates after 15 years
of ownership
I do not want any limits on
my ability to resell my
property
I am willing to work on a
property before transfer
of ownership
I am willing to sell the
property back to a
broker/agency that helped
to purchase the property

Q10. What type of property do you need?

 I want to purchase a
property that I can resell at
market rates after 15 years
of ownership
I do not want any limits on
my ability to resell my
property
I am willing to work on a
property before transfer
of ownership
I am willing to sell the
property back to a
broker/agency that helped
to purchase the property

Q11. What attributes are important for you while buying a commercial property?
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Q12. Please check the following that applies while buying and selling of property?
 I want to purchase a property
that I can resell at market rates
after 15 years of ownership
I do not want any limits on my
ability to resell my property
I am willing to work on a
property before transfer of
ownership
I am willing to sell the property
back to a broker/agency that
helped to purchase the
property

DATA ANALYSIS
Listening Gap
To close listening gap the most important thing is customer
research and focus on building customer relationship. The
services provided by company like parking space, electrical
requirements, air conditioning are up to the customer
expectations but there was one flaw i.e. ventilation. Most of
the customers are highly dissatisfied with the ventilation
provided by the company. Nowadays many companies are
providing air conditioned commercial properties to the
customer. Good ventilation services should be provided by
the company so that a good and better environment is
created for the customers to use the commercial property
except this, the rest of the needs and expectations of the
customers are being fulfilled by the company.

Design and Standard Gap

To close design and standard gap the most important thing is
conducting a 365 degree service mapping and measuring
operations against customer defined rather than company
defined standards. While collecting responses we came
across that people are very much satisfied with location,
infrastructure and building materials, safety equipment but
there is lack of better transportation facilities from their
home to offices. DLF comprises of offices spaces. As we talk
to the people we found that people working in DLF are
coming places like Cuttack as well as interior parts of
Bhubaneswar by availing transportation facilities like Ola,
Uber , Rapido etc. Cost of travelling from Cuttack and parts of
Bhubaneswar to Patia is bit expensive for the people
working at DLF. Offices at DLF can provide bus facilities or
carpooling facilities to the people working there for
travelling and can charge them monthly for availing bus
services or carpooling services. Generally the cost of
travelling charges will get lower by availing such services if
provided by the company.
Performance gap
It is the gap between service quality specifications and
service delivery. The performance gap can be closed by
building a good relationship between the customer and the
service provider, giving on time payment to the service
provider and what quality of service they are expecting from
the company. Some other ways for closing the performance
gap are being polite with the customers and gently
approaching to them, giving the best to solve any type of
customers query or problem, assist customers in any type of
situation.

Communication gap
In this case we had asked a question on what needs were the
customer taken care of, out of prioritizing the different
attribute points by the customers. It was seen that the least
utilized spot was inclusion of parks and open spaces which is
actually necessary for the regular office goers as most of the
time they sit back and work in front of the computers for 10-
12 hours a day when a employee is given a job the first
priority is to earn money then to prioritize their basic and
luxury needs after that it is very important to understand
regarding the lifestyle needs i.e. the fitness goals of the
workers/customers. So it is very important to have an open
space for relaxation of the employees so that their
expectations are taken care of when their needs change with
the chamge in priority.
CONCLUSION –

The SERVQUAL techniques can ensure that fail points in

customer encounters are reduced, leading to a positive
experience and better customer referrals.
Additionally the managers should make key performers
aware of their roles and provide them with the adequate
training in order to offer a consistently high standard of
service delivery. It is also very important to note that the
customer service quality needs to be framed on a regular
basis, and regular service policies needs to be framed in
order to tackle to Customer’s Questions & Answers.
Managerial Implications –
The results which were taken into consideration from the
survey have several managerial implications, which indicates
that the customer service employees, managers, salesman
plays a major role in affecting the customer perception of a
service quality. In the general terms it is very important for
the managers to identify the relevant intrinsic & extrinsic
cues used by consumers in order to communicate the
relevant quality signals to the customers.
 SUGGESTIONS –
Improving the service quality is not at all an easy, simple and
an straight forward approach . The service quality can be
enhanced by keeping the certain following parameters into
consideration.
 Managing the Customer Expectations
 Managing the evidence of data
 Identifying primary quality determinants
 Informing customers about the services provided
 Developing a quality culture
 Automation of the quality
 Following up with the service quality
 Following up with the service quality systems
 Keeping all tracks of internal and external costs
whenever possible.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
pdfs.semanticscholar.org
www.emeraldinsight.com
www.jstor.org
www.academia.edu
seaopenresearch.eu
www.therealestaterelativity.com
www.scielo.org.co
www.businessperspectives.org
www.qualtrics.com
www.toolshero.com