Transforming the Service Experience – 5 Dimensions of Service Quality

If you want to transform the service experience you create for your customers to one that is valued and enables you to stand out from your competitors, then this will be of interest to you.  In this blog we are going to look at the 5 dimensions of service quality and examine how you can use them to define exactly the service experience you want to deliver.

In 1990, professors from Texas A&M University identified the dimensions of exceptional customer service in their book Delivering Quality Service[1]. They found that there were critical dimensions that defined service quality and from their work emerged a customer service model called RATER, which focused on five. Their research indicated that a service firm that can deliver on all five dimensions contained in the model can create an exceptional service experience.

The name RATER is an acronym with each letter representing the first letter of one of the five dimensions.  They are:

R eliability: Our ability to provide what is promised, dependably and accurately

A ssurance: Our knowledge and courtesy, and our ability to convey trust and confidence

T angibles:  Our physical facilities and equipment, and our appearance

E mpathy:    The degree of caring and individual attention we provide to customers

R esponsiveness:     Our willingness to help customers and provide prompt service

This simple, yet practical model is extremely powerful because it provides service companies with the framework needed to define the service experience that they would like to create and to translate that definition into specific actions to be taken by every employee to deliver on it. The challenge is to ensure that each customer contact communicates each dimension in the manner intended and does so consistently and correctly through the everyday interactions of their employees.

Over the next five blogs we are going to look more closely at each of the service dimensions of the RATER model and the individual actions employees can take to deliver upon it.  We will discuss how, as service companies, we can work with these to define and deliver a sustainable, differentiated and valued service experience.

In the meantime, I’d love your feedback! Please leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site.

Until next time,

Jim

“You don’t earn loyalty in a day.  You earn loyalty day-by-day.”

-Jeffrey Gitomer