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Bernd Stauss: Catholic University of Eichstatt, Ingolsstadt, Germany
Bernhard Weinlich: Servmark, Ingolstadt, Germany
Introduction
The recent discussion on techniques of measuring perceived service quality has enhanced our methodological understanding considerably. On the one hand, the instruments of the multi-attribute type of measurement in the tradition of satisfaction and attitude research have been refined and, furthermore, the critical incident technique (CIT) approach has been developed which allows the recording of service situations perceived by customers as extraordinarily positive or negative. On the other hand, intensive scientific discussion has produced evidence about the limits of such instruments. Among these are the difficulties of interpreting and using the standardized results of multi-attribute measurements and the limitation of the CIT framework to extreme situations. Also, neither approach takes into account the process character of service consumption and service quality perception.
These insights led to the development of a new method of service quality measurement: the sequential incident technique (SIT). This technique takes up the "telling of incident" concept from the CIT approach, but in contrast to this method it also records usual incidents. Moreover, it is a process-oriented method, collecting incidents perceived by customers sequentially during the service delivery and consumption process.
This article first presents the current state of the methodological discussion. Second, the concept and basic assumptions of the sequential incident technique (SIT) are outlined. This is followed by a description of an empirical SIT study applied to measure the quality of perception of guests in a club resort. The results of this study demonstrate the sequential incident technique as a valuable complement to the traditional mix of quality measurement methods. In the concluding sections limitations of the proposed method are discussed and managerial implications set out.
Conventional service quality measurement methods and their limits
The intensive scientific and practical discussion on service quality has produced substantial results. There is a broad consensus that service quality must be defined from the customer's perspective. Thus, a great majority of scientific work focuses on the question of how quality is perceived by customers and how perceived quality can be measured. Service quality measurement methods can be broadly characterized as either attribute-based or incident-based. Whereas attribute-based methods have a long tradition and exist in a wide range of variants, the...