This book is used by our university as a textbook for the subject of ¡§Service Quality Management". I found that this book can give us much useful information of service quality. Since service quality is very important in service industry nowadays; there is a need to understand more about how to manage service quality in order to deliver good-quality service and gain customer loyalty. The contents of this book are divided into four part: Part one is about ¡§Understanding quality concepts¡¨; part two is about ¡§Designing and assuring quality¡¨; part three is about ¡§Implementing quality¡¨; and part four is about ¡§Forever improving the quality system¡¨.
For part one, the author has described about the difference between product quality and service quality as well as the product and service quality dimensions. The main service quality dimensions are tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. These five service quality dimensions are popularly used nowadays to measure service quality.
Moreover, the author also explained some popular service theories in the world. For example, W. Edwards Deming¡¦s ¡§14 points for management¡¨, ¡§The Juran Trilogy¡¨ advocated by Joseph M. Juran and ¡§The basic seven tools of quality¡¨ advocated by Kaoru Ishikawa, etc. All these theories can be as guidelines for improving service quality.
For part two, this book teaches us how to design and assure service quality. The service design is mainly from the voice of customers and from market. Since the service is mainly used by customers, customers¡¦ voice can help to design better service the match customers¡¦ needs. Moreover, the author has explained how to draw a quality function deployment (QFD) step by step in order to develop or improve service to match customers¡¦ needs and competitors¡¦paces.
In addition, this book introduced SERVQUAL instrument and gaps model that help to understand the gap between customer¡¦s perceived service and expected service, Moreover, SERVQUAL instrument and gaps model can help company to understand more about customers¡¦ requirements and needs, so that company can improve the service that match customers requirements and needs.
For part three, the author has introduced Ishikawa¡¦s basic tools of quality and the seven new tools for improvement. These set of tools can help manager to manage projects and improve service quality. In addition, different control charts such as X chart, R chart, p chart, np chart are introduced. All these charts can help to check whether the variation appeared in the production process is random variation or nonrandom variation, so that improvement can be made in order to correct the poor performance in nonrandom variation.
For part four, it is focus on managing learning for quality improvement as well as implementing and validating the quality system. It emphasizes that improvement should be continuous and should have regular review so that improvement are made on correct direction.
Actually, this book is very useful that give us useful information about service quality. I believe that continuously improving service quality is a must in this competitive market. Therefore, this book can help the reader to grasp how to measure, manage and improve service quality. I hope that all the readers can also enjoy reading this book and learning how to manage service quality for their business in order to meet customers¡¦ needs and gain customers loyalty.
