Microsoft Word Volume 2 Service and Service Quality Final docx

Traditional Service Quality Models 
Since the early 1980s’, there has been much research into understanding a key driver of service 
satisfaction—namely, service quality. The earliest attempts focused on measuring service quality 
without a broader conceptual framework, and are highly specific to the domains under study. Grönroos 
(1984, p. 36) in his publication, ‘A Service Quality Model and its Marketing Implications’, 
acknowledged the need for a singular definition of service quality, and outlined his proposed model 
termed the Nordic model (for its region of origin). The Nordic Model suggests that service quality as 
perceived by customers, consists of two dimensions, namely (1) functional quality (also called 
interaction quality) and (2) technical quality (outcome quality). Functional quality refers to the quality 
of the service delivery process, while technical quality measures the outcomes of the service
 
(Gronroos, 1982, 1990).

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Business Service Management White Paper - Volume 2 
Page 22 of 46 
At around the same time, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) too published a paper which 
criticised the literature of the time for not providing a generalisable conceptual framework. This 
perceived lack was the motivation for their subsequent investigations and their SERVQUAL model 
(which was later classified as the North American model in contrast with the Nordic model). The 
current SERVQUAL model (the original model has undergone several modifications since its advent) 
measures the experience of customers of services on five dimensions of service encounter, namely, (1) 
tangibles, (2) reliability, (3) responsiveness, (4) assurance and (5) empathy (Parasuraman, Berry, & 
Zeithaml, 1988). Tangibles measures aspects such as physical facilities, equipment and appearance of 
employees involved in providing the service; reliability measures the employee’s ability to perform 
the promised service dependably and accurately; responsiveness measures the employee’s willingness 
to help customers and promptness of service; assurance measures the knowledge and courtesy of 
employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence; and finally empathy measures the extent to 
which caring, individualised attention is provided to the consumer.
Both of the above models have received widespread support, although from two different groups of 
researchers (hence the term Nordic and North American schools of thought on Service Quality). Both 
too have been criticized; a main criticism being their use of the gap between expectation and 
experience as the basis for measuring service quality (there is little empirical support for the notion 
that customers judge service quality in terms of the gap between expectation and experience). The 
Nordic model too has been criticised for its lack of consideration for physical setting and environment 
(which SERVQUAL does); SERVQUAL for its lack of attention to outcome (which the Nordic model 
does).
A later three-component model by Rust and Oliver (1994) extended the Nordic model by including the 
third component - the service environment. While it has received some support, it has not been 
extensively cited in the literature. 
More recently, Brady and Cronin (2001), employing a grounded instrument development approach, 
developed an integrated hierarchical model that incorporates the dimensions of both the Rust and 
Oliver (1994) model and the North American school model (at different levels in the hierarchy) (see 
Figure 9).