Two sides of the same story : measuring different quality perceptions of the dyadic service encounter with the SERVCON instrument

The measurement of perceived service quality using the well-known SERVQUAL instrument has been criticized by a number of authors recently. This criticism concerns the conceptual basis of this quality measurement tool as well as its empirical operationalization. In this paper, we present a complementary approach to measuring service quality, based on conjoint analysis. We discuss the integration of the SERVQUAL instrument and conjoint analysis in the context of service encounters in public transport in the Netherlands. Furthermore, it is examined whether there is a difference between employee and customer perceptions of service quality. On the basis of results, a difference between these two actors in the service encounter can be confirmed