Customers and frontline employees views of service quality: a study applied to a railway line

Transcription

1 Customers and frontline employees views of service quality: a study applied to a railway line Patrícia MOURA E SÁ, University of Coimbra pmourasa@fe.uc.pt José LEMOS, CP, Comboios de Portugal E.P.E. josemflemos@gmail.com Abstract Service quality has been widely researched topic. Yet, empirical studies on the field of public transportation are scarce. Moreover, most literature underestimates the role of frontline employees perceptions regarding the quality of the service provided. It is our belief that customer-contact service employees views should be taken into consideration when assessing service quality and, in particular, when designing and implementing improvement plans. In this research, service quality is measured in a dual perspective, looking at the perceptions of users and frontline employees of an urban line operated by the major Portuguese railway company. To capture the views of the employees, a questionnaire was developed according to the SERVPERF instrument. Results were then confronted with the customers opinion, as expressed in the customer surveys adopted by the firm. Findings reveal that frontline employees evaluate quite positively most service quality dimensions. Yet, it is possible to identify some areas of improvement, such as the adjustment of timetables to better fit customer needs and the physical conditions of train stations. Results also show that, in most parameters, customers assess the quality of the service higher than frontline employees. Yet, there is a convergence in terms of the strengths and weaknesses indentified. Comparing and integrating customers and frontline employees views becomes essential to assure that the organisation s strategy is implemented and that efforts are directed towards the areas that need to be improved. Introduction Increasing the use of public transportation is essential to achieve environmental and sustainability goals. Yet, if this is to happen, apart from competitive prices, the quality of the service provided has to be regarded as adequate. Therefore, a particular attention should be given to the measurement of service quality in this sector. Traditionally, this measurement takes the views of customers on a set of quality dimensions. The most popular of such models use the so-called disconfirmation paradigm (Oliver, 1980), which argues that quality exists when the actual service provided meets the demands and expectations that customers might have (i.e. when perceptions equal or even exceed expectations).

2 Many organisations use instruments based on the quality dimensions identified in the literature to assess customer perceptions and expectations. That is also the case of the Portuguese railway company (CP Comboios de Portugal) where this research takes place. Yet, very few organisations systematically capture the views of the frontline employees regarding the service provided. It is our belief that such feedback is essential to have a more comprehensive view of what is being provided and, above all, to set improvement priorities and implement improvement plans. In fact, frontline employees tend to have an inside-perspective of how the organisation is serving its customers that is being undervalued. The role of frontline employees is crucial at the customers eyes since they are closely associated with the moments of truth, which correspond to the circumstances when customers come into direct contact with the organisation. It is in such moments that customers form an image of the organisation and the service provided (Groonroos, 2003). At the same time, because frontline employees interact with customers, they are can communicate valuable information to internal decision makers. Moreover, by having a certain degree of knowledge regarding the organisation resources and competencies, they can also contribute with potential ideas and suggestions for improvement. In fact, although customer service research includes in some cases employees as critical stakeholders (Hartline and Ferrell, 1996; Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 1998), few studies compare the perspectives of customers and employees relative to expectations of service quality or perceptions of the level of service quality. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to combine the perspectives of customers and frontline employees in the assessment of the quality of the service provided by CP in a particular urban line that connects the towns of Coimbra and Figueira da Foz. With this purpose in mind, data was collected from the frontline employees who work in the service under investigation by means of a questionnaire survey. The employees results were then confronted and complemented with the results of the customer barometer implemented by the firm to get a more clear view of the service provided, identifying major gaps between the perceptions of both groups and improvement opportunities. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. First, it briefly describes the conceptual background of the study. Next, it presents some key initiatives that the company is implementing within its quality management strategy. Then, the methodology followed to conduct the empirical study is described, with a particular emphasis to the questionnaire administered to the frontline employees. The main findings are discussed and interpreted in conjunction with the results from the customer survey applied by the company. Finally, some conclusions and key implications are drawn.

3 Brief literature review According to Gronroos (2003), service quality embraces two major dimensions: technical and functional. The first one generally corresponds to a set of technical parameters, many of them difficult to be assessed by service users. It is the second one concerning the way the service is provided that constitutes the essential focus of the current study. The investigation initiated by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Barry in the 1980s regarding the quality determinants is clearly directed towards the evaluation of the functional dimension of service quality. The most well-known contribution of their study is the SERVQUAL model, which is based on the comparison between expectations and perceptions among a set of dimensions, which were in the most recent studies combined into five, namely (Parasuraman et al., 1988): tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance. Therefore, the essence of the SERVQUAL model lies on the disconfirmation paradigm: if perceptions exceed expectations quality is high; on the contrary, if expectations are not met, quality is insufficient. Frontline employees have a very active role in interpreting the five quality dimensions proposed by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml. In fact, they have a critical role in service delivery, including such of listening to customers, understanding their needs, and performing according to the service standards that have been set (Sá and Sintra, 2008). Listening to their view is therefore essential. Moreover, customer-contact employees often face contradictory pressures, since they have to deal with the opposing priorities of the customers they serve and the organisation they belong to (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003). Thus, having an alignment between customers and frontline employees perceptions is of major importance to avoid many of the service quality gaps. The SERVQUAL instrument has been widely used to measure service quality by looking at the difference that might exist between expectations and perceptions. Expectations are formed a priori and, as Zeithaml and Binner (2003) state, can be seen as beliefs regarding service attributes, acting as standards against which performance is judged. They reflect past experiences and (negative and positive) word-of-mouth. Perceptions, on the other hand, correspond to the view that emerges once the service has been provided. Thus, the SERVQUAL is basically a questionnaire divided into two parts: one referring to the expectations and another corresponding to the perceptions. It covers the five dimensions identified before represented by a total of 22 items. Each item is usually measured using a 7-point Likert scale (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Despite its popularity, the SERVQUAL model is not without criticisms (Barabakus and Boller, 1992; Buttle, 1996; Cronin and Taylor, 1992), the most important being that of the potential confusion between outcome, process, and expectation.

4 Several other methodologies for service quality evaluation exist. In general, these alternative approaches can be grouped into what have been called perception models (Robledo, 2001). They result from examinations and assessments of Parasuraman et al. s gap theory, and sustain that service quality can be better measured based only on perceptions of performance. The CP approach to quality The Portuguese railway company (C.P.) was established in It is a public company and therefore is subject to public service obligations, with consequences on the network, timetables and tariffs, among others. Recently, the company has adopted a new structure giving more autonomy to business units and establishing a centre of common services. This restructuring aims to create a more customer-focused company. In what regards the transportation of people, C.P. has two major business units: C.P long way (C.P. longo curso) and C.P. regional. The line/service analysed in this research is part of C.P. regional. For more than a decade, quality has been a top priority to the company. C.P. has a quality management system certified according to the ISO 9001 standard since Similarly, its environmental system is also ISO certified. Besides, the company implements a variety of instruments and tools to measure the quality of the services provided and to assess the organisation s performance. Among such tools, it is worthwhile to mention mystery client audits, complaining management systems and customer surveys. The most visible symbol of the company commitment to quality is its quality barometer. The barometer measures the level of customer satisfaction. It uses data collected from the questionnaires administered face-to-face inside the trains, during the journeys. Seven quality dimensions are considered: (1) connection with other means of transport, (2) comfort, (3) supply of trains, (4) safety of people and goods, (5) cleaning and maintenance, (6) customer care, and (7) information provided. Basic features of the line/service under study The urban service that links the towns of Coimbra and Figueira da Foz serves the population of four different municipalities. C.P. is the only railway company and thus the service is provided under monopolistic conditions. The line has a length of 44 kilometres and the journey takes on average 70 minutes and costs 1,99 (full tariff). Trains are modern and equipped with air-conditioning, CCTV cameras and electronic information panels. Some technical factors must be

5 acknowledged. In fact, part of the journey is done in a single track and when a double track exists regional trains must give priority to fast trains. These factors are responsible for delays and put important constraints on shortening the time to complete the journey. In 2007, passengers used this line. 92% of the trains that circulated arrived on time to the main stations of Coimbra and Figueira. The results of the Quality Barometer for the second semester of 2007 show that the majority of the passengers buy a 30-days pass and live in the municipality of Figueira da Foz. A large number of users use their own car to go to the train station to catch the train. The company is aware of the difficulty to attract customers to this regional line. The reasons identified are associated with the duration of the journey and the people s tendency outside the urban areas of Lisbon and Porto to use the private car on a daily basis to go to work/to the University. The cost of travelling between Coimbra and Figueira by car is approximately 5 (without using the motorway). Methodological approach The main goal of this research was to assess the quality of the service provided and to identify major improvement needs based on the potential gaps between customers and employees perceptions. The study addresses in particular two basic research questions: How do the frontline employees evaluate the quality of the service provided? Are the employees perceptions aligned with those of the service users? The targeted population for this study is made of the company employees who work in direct contact with the passengers, either inside the trains or at the stations. 156 employees form this population. The questionnaire administered in June 2009 to the frontline employees was designed in line with the SERVPERF instrument covering 22 items. Although it would be possible to advance a relatively strong case for using the SERVQUAL scale, we have chosen to use the SERVPERF scale primarily because of the criticisms of SERVQUAL (Babakus and Boller, 1992; Bennington and Cummane; Buttle, 1996; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Teas 1993) and the fact that the resulting questionnaire is shorter and easier to fill, thus enhancing both response rate and clarity. Furthermore, according to Cronin and Taylor (1992), the unweighted performancebased SERVPERF scale is reliable and exhibits both convergent and discriminant validity. As an example, we present next the questions used to measure the reliability dimension:

6 Train, by rule, operate according to the schedule; Information provided by the company is clear and concise; The employees are professional and competent; When delays or other incidents occur, the company provides adequate information to the customers; The company values customer complaints and does is best to solve the problem Perceptions were measured on 5-point Likert scale. An additional group of questions intended to assess the employees knowledge regarding the results of the Quality Barometer implemented by the company. Finally, some questions collected basic data on the employees profile. 126 valid questionnaires were thus obtained, which corresponds to a response rate of 81%. Content analysis and pretesting of the instrument were used to ensure the questionnaire was suitable given the nature of the potential respondents. In particular, readability and comprehension were key concerns. The psychometric proprieties of the scales were assessed to ensure internal consistency, convergent validity and divergent validity (see Table 1). In this process, only one item was removed from the responsiveness dimension. As an indication of validity, average intra-scale items correlations are systematically superior to inter-scale items correlations (Flynn and Saladin, 2001). At the same time, Cronbach alphas are higher than 0.6, as recommended by Nunnally (1967). Dimension Number of items Cronbach alpha Intracorrelation Intercorrelation Tangibles 7 0,71 0,26 0,24 Reliability 5 0,69 0,30 0,29 Responsiveness 3 0,65 0,38 0,28 Assurance 2 0,65 0,48 0,28 Empathy 4 0,66 0,35 0,27 Table 1. Quality of the scales used. Main findings Data was collected from 126 frontline employees who work in the regional line that links Coimbra to Figueira da Foz. 99% of the respondents are male and 50% is more than 40 years old. Only 2% work for the company for less than 10 years and around one-third remain in the company for more than 20 years.

7 Overall, employees have a rather positive idea of the service provided. As shown in Table 2, the mean values for every dimension are above 3 (out of a possible 5). Assurance and empathy are regarded as the most favourable dimensions, whereas responsiveness is perceived as the least positive aspect. Dimension Value Tangibles 3,44 Reliability 3,68 Responsiveness 3,10 Assurance 4,40 Empathy 3,79 Table 2. Employees assessment of the service provided. In a more detailed analysis, it is possible to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the service provided, according to the employees perceptions. The items that rank high in importance and that simultaneously have low levels of satisfaction are natural candidates for improvement actions. The ranking of the weaknesses was done by multiplying the square of the importance by the inverse of the satisfaction score. A similar procedure was applied to identify the top five strengths. Results are depicted in Table 3. Major strengths Main weaknesses Safety in trains Existent timetables Employees ability to inspire trust Comfort in train stations Level of knowledge to perform the required Safety in train stations tasks General appearance of the employees Cleanness in train stations Professionalism of the employees Effectiveness in listening to customers Table 3. Top 5 strengths and weaknesses. The tangibles dimension is strongly penalized by the scores given to the items related to the conditions in train stations in contrast with the positive perceptions regarding the trains. Train stations along the line are indeed in many cases poorly maintained and outdated. It must be noticed that the infrastructures are not administered by C.P. (they are managed by Refer). In what reliability is concerned, based on the employees perceptions, the clarity of the information provided and the lack of punctuality are aspects that call for some improvement. On the contrary, the professionalism of frontline employees is a major strength.

8 Pushing down the responsiveness score, one can find two main issues: the perception that the company does not listen effectively to the customers and the lack of ability to adjust train schedules to customer needs. Assurance ranks high in the employees assessment. This is mainly due to the idea that employees inspire trust and have the necessary knowledge to perform their tasks. Finally, when looking at the empathy dimension, if the ability to customize the service in line with individual customer expectations is relatively weak, the opposite happens in what regards the employees willingness to be attentive to customer needs. Yet, in order to get a more a comprehensive picture of the quality of the service provided, it is necessary to compare and integrate employees and customer views. If they are in line with each other, organizational resources will be directed towards what really matters and improvement plans are more likely to be successful. It is worthwhile to notice that more than 15% of the frontline employees do not even know that the company has a Quality Barometer and around a third are unaware of customer satisfaction results. Nevertheless, the majority considers that it would be important to have a better knowledge of the Quality Barometer results to do a better job. The employees perceptions were compared with the most recent results of the Quality Barometer regarding the 66 customers that were surveyed as users of the Coimbra- Figueira line. It must be mentioned that the questionnaire applied to the customers within the organization s Quality Barometer does not follow exactly the same structure as the one we administered to the frontline employees. Yet, it was possible to group some questions according to the issues at stake to foster the results comparison (see Table 4). Employees Customers Difference perception perception Cleanness and general appearance of the 3,58 3,90-0,32 trains Comfort of the trains 3,95 4,11-0,06 Comfort of train stations 2,29 3,58-1,29 Trains safety 4,39 4,04 +0,35 Safety in train stations 2,69 3,47-0,78 Cleanness and general appearance of train 2,86 3,73-0,87 stations Punctuality 3,54 3,79-0,25 Clarity of the information provided 3,28 3,97-0,69 Adequacy of train timetables 2,34 3,35-1,01 Professionalism of frontline staff 4,26 4,01 +0,25 Overall assessment of the service provided 3,42 3,98-0,56 Table 4. Employees versus customers perceptions.

9 As shown in Table 4, customers are generally quite pleased with the quality of the service provided. As in the employees survey, trains safety and professionalism of staff are major strengths. Also in line with the employees opinion, timetables and comfort in train stations are areas that need to be improved. Overall, customers assessment exceeds the one that was made by frontline employees. The fact that employees evaluate the quality of the service provided lower than customers do might be an indication that a continuous improvement culture is being assimilated by the organization s personnel. Conclusions and implications The current study aimed at measuring service quality of a particular railway urban line based on the perceptions of the frontline employees and analyzing at what extent these results were in line with the customers views. With such purpose in mind, a questionnaire was designed and administered to the 156 employees that work in the selected line. 126 valid questionnaires were analyzed. Based on the findings it is possible to identify some improvements that need to be introduced, such as the adequacy of the train timetables and the modernization of train stations. The study has validated the SERVQUAL scales in the context of a railway service. Simultaneously, it has called attention to the need of listening to the frontline employees views. In fact, these employees are in direct contact with the customers and the organization might benefit from the sensitivity that they develop. The fact that customers and employees assessments of service quality are aligned is a good indication that the company is correctly identifying the areas that need to be improved and that the employees, who are in a great deal responsible for implementing the actions, are aware of their importance and of how to contribute to the excellence of the service. References: BABAKUS, E. e BOLLER, G. W. (1992), An empirical assessment of the SERVQUAL scale, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 24, pp BENNINGTON, L.; CUMMANE, J. (1998), "Measuring Service Quality: a hybrid methodology", Total Quality Management, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp

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