Service gap deployment: a framework to link quality gaps to service activities

This paper presents the service gap deployment (SGD), a new method to prioritise crucial to quality activities of a service that does not completely satisfy customer expectations. In the SGD, service activities (SAs) are related to gaps between customer expectations and perceptions so as to identify SAs that may need a redesign or improvement in order to satisfy customer needs. The method, which expands the gaps model of service quality by Parasuraman et al. (1985), supports the design of evolutionary and sustaining improvements of the service parts that generate customer dissatisfaction. Specifically, the SGD introduces three major contributions: 1) it creates a map relating service dimensions to SAs; 2) it highlights crucial to quality activities; 3) it allows a focused improvement of the analysed service. The description is supported by an excerpt from a real application example, concerning the prioritisation of crucial to quality SAs of an airport luggage delivery service