AN EMPIRICAL-ASSESSMENT OF THE SERVQUAL SCALE

The definition and measurement of service quality as a 5-dimensional construct, as in SERVQUAL, appears to suffer from a number of methodological shortcomings. A review of the potential problems and the findings from an empirical study are presented in this article. The findings suggest that the dimensionality of service quality may depend on the type of services under study. The use of mixed-item wording and the current operationalization of service quality on the basis of gap scores appear to be 2 major problems in the measurement of the construct. For researchers in the process of using SERVQUAL, the results of this study suggest to exercise caution. Suggestions are provided with implications for theory development and measurement in the services marketing area.