Customer Expectations in Service Based Organizations

Customer Expectations in Service Based Organization

Introduction

Customer expectation has been defined as the beliefs of the customer about the delivery of service that he gets and uses it as are measurement standard or point of reference against which an overall performance of organization services is judged (Zeithaml, 2000, pp. 54). Rogers suggest that around 98 percent of the customers who are dissatisfied with organization switch to the competitor without complaining or reporting about it. One the other hand satisfied customers are six times more likely to buy the organization product again than those customers who are just satisfied. It has also been reported that a mere 5 percent decrease in defects in company's products can result in increase in profit between the ranges of 30 percent to 85 percent Rogers (Adebanjo, 2001, pp. 36). Since customers uses these reference points as measure of overall service performance and set an opinion about the reputation of the organization, it is extremely important for the service marketers and organization to have through and complete information of customer's perceptions and preferences with regards to their services. Gaining important knowledge of what customer thinks and expects is the most difficult and crucial step towards improving and providing customers with good quality service. Incorrect and insufficient knowledge about customer's perception and expectation may lead towards providing services that are inefficient and ineffective which may even result in losing valuable customer and loss of possibility of having long term relationship with the customer through gaining customer loyalty. With increasing globalization and competition in the service sector, losing a good customer means losing on business and profitability in the long run. Inefficient service may also indirectly suggests that organization was spending its efforts, money, time and other important resources on things and issues that do not account for good quality service and those factors are not important near customer (Zeithaml, 2000, pp. 55). For a service base organization not meeting customer's expectations may also mean that the firm is unable to survive in a highly competitive industry and this may lead to loss of market share to other competitors (Athanassopoulos, 2000, pp. 691).

Discussion

It has been reported that about 80 percent of US GDP is represented by the service industry. Additionally it also represents the growing percentage of the GDP of majority of the countries all over the world proving the fact that the growth and development of every country is dependent upon the growth of its service sector. Institutions of Government, multinational organization and universities have realized the importance of service sectors and the fact that it is going to dominated the global economic growth of every region (Bitner et.al, 2008, pp. 66).

Service industry plays an important role in the growth and development of economy. A service can be defined as any facility or benefit that one party offers to another. Another important quality of service is that it is intangible and cannot be touched or seen but only felt and thus does not result ...