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Improving online service quality

Delivering service quality in e-commerce can be assessed through reviewing existing frame-

works for determining levels of service quality. Those most frequently used are based on the 

concept of a ‘ service-  quality gap’ that exists between the customers’ expected level of service 

(from previous experience and word-of-mouth communication) and their perception of 

the actual level of service delivery.

Parasuraman et al. (1985) suggested that these dimensions of service quality on which 

consumers judge expected and delivered  service-  quality levels are:

● 

tangibles – the physical appearance and visual appeal of facilities;

● 

reliability – the ability to perform the service consistently and accurately;

● 

responsiveness – a willingness to help customers and provide prompt service;

● 

assurance – the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and 

confidence;

● 

empathy – providing caring, individualised attention.

Note that there has been heated dispute about the validity of this SERVQUAL instrument 

framework (Parasuraman et al., 1985) in determining service quality, see for example Cronin 

and Taylor (1992). Despite this it is still instructive to apply these dimensions of service qual-

ity to customer service on the web. We will now review each dimension of SERVQUAL.

Tangibles

It can be suggested that the tangibles dimension is influenced by ease of use and visual appeal 

based on the structural and graphic design of the site. The importance of these factors to 

consumers is indicated by a 1999 study by Forrester Research of 8,600 US consumers that 

found that the main reason for returning to a site were  high-  quality content (75%), ease of 

use (66%), speed to download (58%) and frequency of update (54%); these were the most 

important aspects of website quality mentioned.

Reliability

The reliability dimension is dependent on the availability of the website, or in other words, 

how easy it is to connect to the website as a user.

Reliability of email response is also a key issue; Chaffey and Edgar (2000) report on a survey 

of 361 UK websites across different sectors. Of those in the sample, 331 (or 92%) were access-

ible at the time of the survey and, of these, 299 provided an email contact point. Email enquir-

ies were sent to all of these 299 websites; of these, 9 undeliverable mail messages were received. 

It can be seen that at the time of the survey, service availability is certainly not universal.

Responsiveness

The same survey showed that responsiveness was poor overall: of the 290 successfully deliv-

ered emails, a 62% response rate occurred within a 28-day period. For over a third of compa-

nies there was zero response!