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Underreporting of adverse events in healthcare systems is a global concern. This study aims to address the underreporting of adverse events (AE) by implementing a TRIZ-based model to identify and overcome barriers to reporting, thus filling gaps in current reporting practices and improving incident recognition. A TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) approach was adopted, integrating with SERVQUAL methodologies to design interventions. Preintervention and postintervention surveys were conducted to evaluate changes in the recognition of adverse events and barriers to reporting. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the effectiveness of the interventions. Recognition improved and barriers to reporting AEs significantly decreased. Monthly reported cases rose from 33.7 to 50.3 (p = 0.000), demonstrating the effectiveness of the TRIZ-based interventions. Implementing a TRIZ-based model significantly improved adverse event reporting by enhancing the recognition of reportable events and overcoming identified barriers. Future research should explore the long-term sustainability of these interventions and their broader applicability in diverse healthcare settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of intimacy between humans and service robots on service quality has garnered significant attention. Applying the Mehrabian–Russell environmental psychology model, this study collected 591 valid responses from users of robots with different levels of intimacy and then used the TOPSIS technique to rank the importance of service quality. The results show, first, that high-intimacy service robots have better service quality performance. Second, for both high and low-intimacy service robots, tangibility and responsiveness are the two most important service quality dimensions. Third, the different levels of robot intimacy affect customers' ranking of the other three service quality dimensions (empathy, reliability, and assurance). This research enables scholars and professionals to comprehend the influence of robot intimacy on robot service quality, thereby facilitating successful robot service implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the knowledge of airline service quality in Turkey. The aim is to investigate the relationship between service quality and intention to recommend in the context of competitive strategies. For this purpose, a survey study under fuzzy environment is performed in Istanbul, Turkey. After comparing service quality and intention to recommend in full-service and low-cost airlines, a binary logistic regression model is constructed to reveal the factors that are important for intention to recommend. The results show that low-cost airlines in Turkey have substantially lower service quality scores and intention to recommend. Furthermore, the model points out empathy, tangibles, and responsiveness as the significant quality dimensions for intention to recommend. However, reliability and assurance dimensions have been found insignificant along with all control variables of age, gender, travel type, travel frequency, travel purpose, airline company, income level, and education level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of a contracting-out project for military base management in response to recent defense reforms in the Republic of Korea that require military forces to concentrate on operations and combat missions. In this study, the service quality perspective via SERVQUAL was applied to the ROK defense sector for the first time, with the soldiers viewed as customers receiving a service. In addition, to improve the effectiveness of the contracted services, the importance-performance analysis framework was employed to identify the tasks that required urgent attention. We conducted a large-scale survey of 2,112 uniformed members within pilot project units. To avoid problems such as insincere responses or low response rates, we held interviews with the officers managing the units on the subject of the importance and purpose of the questionnaire. As a result, it was found that the outsourcing of cleaning services was the most successful initiative, while mowing/landscaping had the most urgent tasks for improvement, with some respondents believing that reliability and assurance should be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet of things has changed the way we interact with information system. With the pervasive information system facing various complexities of end clients, the development mode based on semantic association and context-awareness made it possible to provide personalized service for each client. In this paper, the context-awareness-based ambient intelligence predicts users' intention to use depending on the contexts they provide. By applying the prediction to logistics services, it can provide customized service to keep clients satisfied. A key issue in user-centered services is how to detect each user specific situation and choose a certain service that meets users' requirements the best, and then to provide support for real-time decision making. We believe that the complishment of ambient intelligence cannot be separated from technology support when it comes to intelligent behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To study the effect of a supportive communication techniques program on the quality gap among women who gave birth in outposts. Subjects and methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted in two phases, between September 23, 2017 and December 22, 2017, in two unique local childbirth outposts in Zahedan, Iran. In the first phase, a supportive communication techniques training program was held for midwives who work in one of the safe delivery posts (SDPs, n = 7). In the second phase, SERVQUAL (service and quality) questionnaires were completed for 300 women who gave birth at the SDPs (150 in each SDP) and participated in the study. Outcome measures were the women's expectations and perceptions of childbirth care along the five dimensions (tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) of service quality and quality gap. Results: There was a positive gap in all five dimensions of the quality of childbirth services for both groups. Additionally, there were significant differences between all SERVQUAL dimensions of the quality gap score in childbirth services between the two groups. A wider positive gap was observed for the intervention group. In the intervention group, the lowest and highest positive quality gap means were in the responsiveness (+ 1.48) and empathy (+ 2.34) dimensions, respectively. Conclusions: A training program on supportive communication techniques for midwives can improve women's experiences of childbirth care services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While AI applications are popular in many domains, they should work harmoniously with domain exerts and end users. Furthermore, to develop such harmonious AI applications, we need agile AI platforms for not only developers, but also domain experts. Currently, we have developed PRactical INTElligent aPplicationS (PRINTEPS), which is a user-centric platform to develop integrated intelligent applications. This paper reports on a multi-robot cafe as a practical application of PRINTEPS and evaluates its service quality at a university festival. It is not clear if robotic services are perceived as attractive and/or valuable, and how the concept of robotic services could lead to customer satisfaction. Therefore, the evaluation of the quality of such services is necessary to identify the key factors that could contribute to improving customer satisfaction. The purpose of this research is to identify key factors in improving customer satisfaction in robotic services by evaluating the service quality of the multi-robot cafe. We designed questionnaire items based on SERVQUAL which is one of the service quality evaluation measurement methods and conducted a questionnaire survey at a multi-robot cafe held at a university festival. From the collected data, we modeled and evaluated the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction to identify key factors in robotic services using a Bayesian network. In addition, the experiment confirms the usefulness of PRINTEPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the survey and six hypothesis, we conduct an empirical study to analyze how the six dimensions (including accessibility, reliability, ease-of-use/usefulness, interactivity, responsibility/efficiency, safety/privacy) influence the perceived online customer service quality. The questionnaire is divided into four parts: basic personal information, introduction of background knowledge, perceived online customer service quality, factors which influence perceived online customer service quality. Our methodology combines factor analysis and regression analysis to a novel dada set which comes from a real buyer of Dangdang.com. We find that the above six factors have significant positive influence to the perceived online customer service quality. We also find that the perceived online customer service quality will benefit from real-time online customer service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Servqual model (Parasuraman et al. in J Mark 49(4):41–50, 1985; J Retail 64:12–40, 1988) involves a set of five dimensions ranked as the most important for service quality: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The researchers developed then a survey instrument to measure the gaps between customers' expectations and perceptions of service. A re-examination and extension of this model, named Servperf, investigates instead only the perceptions of the service (Cronin and Taylor in J Mark 56(3):55–68, 1992; J Mark 58:125–31, 1994). Common components and specific weights analysis (Qannari et al. in Food Qual Prefer 11: 151–154, 2000) is here proposed to analyze customer perceptions. The rationale behind this method is the existence of a common structure to the data tables. Therefore, it determines a common space of representation for all data. Each table, which represents a Servqual dimension, is allowed having a specific weight associated with each dimension of the common space. We investigate then the customer satisfaction with respect to a common reference system where all the dimensions contribute to forming it. The analysis is performed transforming preliminarily the values of the categorical variables according to two different coding systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizing scientific conferences requires the execution of a series of activities which aim to ensure quality in terms of published papers, completed reviews, information forwarded to participants on time, to putting together an exceptional event as a whole. Essentially, this is far from an easy task and requires the participation of a large number of people who will carry out organizational obligations daily, and often all day long. The quality, or rather satisfaction of the conference participants can be viewed through five aspects: Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy, and Tangibility–dimensions that comprise the SERVQUAL model. In this paper, a new hybrid model that uses the advantages of rough set theory, multi-criteria decision making, and quality assessment models has been developed. The proposed model uses the Rough BWM (Best–Worst Method) in order to determine the significance of five aspects, while the modified SERVQUAL model, based on 28 items, is used to determine expectations and observations. The model was applied for the evaluation of quality of the New Horizons Conference held on November 17–18, 2017, in Doboj. The conference was attended by authors from all six continents, representing a total of 58 different institutions. Therefore, it was necessary to fulfill the wishes and demands of numerous authors, which naturally differ due to the different geographical areas from which they hail. The total sample, on the basis of which the quality of the scientific conference was assessed, includes 104 authors who completed the questionnaire. A total of six hypotheses were set up, which were then tested using the Signum test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the SERVQUAL scale has met with greater success than other initiatives in the Internet context, the various adaptations and changes made to the measurement scales often make it difficult to compare results over time; a key aspect that companies must take into account when implementing their market-oriented strategies. Even when the time horizons are the same, it is often impossible to aggregate the results if different types of surveys and measurement scales are used; a practice which is, at the same time, customary. Moreover, the wide range of data collection methodologies and measurement scales used by different companies in the same market prevents comparing the results of surveys to evaluate service quality. In this paper, we present a linguistic multi-criteria decision-making model for aggregating these heterogeneous questionnaires with opinions about quality of the e-service offered by the hotels through several websites taking into account the experience on WWW of such users. The study found that all the scales have been slightly better evaluated for Travel 2.0 websites in general that for the studied hotel and established a ranking depending on the website from best to worst score on all SERVQUAL scales: hotel Tripadvisor webpage, hotel Facebook profile and official hotel blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service quality plays an important role to pursue excellence of total quality management. Measurement of service quality requires criteria that are not only subjective but also intangible. This study proposes a Fuzzy Analytic approach for the measurement of service quality while making use of the fuzzy nature of attitude measurement and taking into consideration the dependency among several criteria. An integration of fuzzy AHP and ANP is utilized to deal with various relationships among evaluation criteria. Service quality for a Taiwanese commercial bank is measured by the proposed method. Appropriate criteria for the bank's service quality are developed based on existing literature and interviews of the bank's managers. Factor analysis shows that the service quality is composed by employee skills, accessibility, and tangibility. The fuzzy approach is then implemented to calculate the weights of criteria based on the relationship among them. The overall service quality can be measured by summing up the weighted score. The proposed approach is found useful to measure service quality in accordance with real world situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are numerous information technology solutions including hardware and software. A company that provides the solution should have knowledge of the customer needs in the purpose of sailing strategy or upgrade policy. The needs are also directly connected to the user satisfaction. However, the users have respective points of view in the needs as well as they may not identify the requirements to improve the solution. SERVQUAL can be an appropriate method to define and measure the customer satisfaction for the information technology solutions. As a case study of the customer satisfaction, the modified SERVQUAL items and scoring method are applied to a cyber-infrastructure system named CyberLab in Korea. The measurement results of user satisfaction for CyberLab are provided to confirm that our proposed method performs as we intended. From the results, we can score the satisfaction level of users and identify their needs in the various aspects. The total user satisfaction level for CyberLab is scored by 88.3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodology of conduct, presented in this publication, allows conducting the study of clients' satisfaction of services in a complex manner and at the same time, it allows getting to know all problems appearing in the process of their provision. Gap no 5 expresses a general client's perception of services and allow defining his satisfaction. Gap 4 allows defining in what range the organization provides clients with false and distorted information in its promotion and advertising materials, which in consequence influence on their satisfaction. The result from gap no 4 can be used when planning promotion campaign. Gap no 2 and 3 allow defining if the organization is realizing the planned strategy of quality. It allows defining which employees provide services of a low quality and then by means of the application the appropriate motivation tools it allow to cut it out. Finally, gap no 1 which allow defining problems connected with marketing communication. It allows finding client's needs which organization does not know and which should be included in its strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates service quality in the Greek Inland Revenue department. We examine differences in perceptions and expectations of service quality among tax-officers and tax-payers and identify the importance that service quality dimensions have for the above groups. One hundred eighty-one tax-officers and two hundred tax-payers completed a self-reported questionnaire. The analysis demonstrates citizen's dissatisfaction of service quality. This is consistent with people's impression of the efficacy of the public service and the low level of service-quality delivered. In terms of the five dimensions of service quality, reliability was rated as the most important dimension and tangibility as the less important one. Understanding citizen's expectations of service quality will enable tax officers to identify practices in order to accomplish customer commitment and avoid future discontent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The measurement of a service Quality is a relevant issue for organizations. In this paper we describe an application of the Parasuraman, Zeithalm and Berry’s (PZB) conceptual model of service Quality in the field of the water and sewage service. The PZB model determinants have been specialized for this specific target and a multi-questionnaire has been developed. This activity has been developed basing on Quality Function Deployment methodology. The described approach is structured into two parts. The first one concerns a general evaluation of the service Quality, while the second one considers specific service aspects enabling to better understand possible reasons of dissatisfaction. A specific software application to support data collection and statistical analysis is described. The proposed monitoring tool ensures an overall evaluation of service Quality from the customer point of view. Its organization into two parts allows reducing the overall costs of data acquisition as well as maximizing the information got from customers. The multi-questionnaire can be tailored in order to meet the needs of both customers and service controller in the monitored areas. The results of the survey show the perceived Quality of the service. Future work will be focused on the comparison between the customers’ perceptions and the Quality which is actually assured by the service provider (the offered Quality). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer satisfaction is an important measure of service quality in travel agents. Customers’ perceptions about agents seem to have been largely ignored by agent management in developing countries. The assessment of service quality provides an important feedback for agents to assess and improve its service to its customers. The aim of this study is to develop a reliable and valid instrument measure customer satisfaction in travel agents. A questionnaire to measure the service quality of travel agents was used and a total of 217 customers in Turkey were interviewed. Factor analysis was utilized to determine the factor structure. The instrument of the customer satisfaction developed in this study provides insights to the researches who study the improvement of customer satisfaction with service quality of travel agents and decision markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, several companies have decided to adopt maturity models such as the CMM/CMMI to ensure quality software processes. The state year report of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) showed that more than three thousand CMMI appraisals have been conducted since 2002. Many of these were performed at software providers, i.e. companies that develop software for other companies. Although the costs of the implementation and appraisal of CMM/CMMI are high for the software providers, there is no formal study investigating whether this investment pays off or, in other words, whether their customers are measurably satisfied with the quality of the service provided. This article presents the results of a formal evaluation of customer perception of the service quality offered by the software providers appraised in CMM/CMMI. We developed an instrument based on a widely used service quality evaluation model (SERVQUAL) and applied this instrument to several customers of software providers appraised in CMM/CMMI. The results show a considerable discrepancy between customers’ expectations and their perceptions of the services provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventionally designed questionnaires frequently use the Likert Scale to gauge the feeling of respondents. The dichotomy and the same interval integer are clear-cut. Owing to the fuzziness of human thinking, this approach is inadequate and too simple to rule subject’s way and measure complex human thinking and cognition. Consequently, this investigation integrated the five dimensions of SERVQUAL and adopted a Fuzzy set theory based approach. The five criteria of SERVQUAL were tested for four department stores using Fuzzy set theory to clarify the positioning of service quality in the department store market and propose implementation priorities for different service strategies. This result permits managers to collate the service strategy of the benchmarking department store and its local competitors, and also enables department store decision-makers to consider the weights of the five dimensions when modifying the service strategy. The analytical results can be used to improve strategy development, and to devise superior and more effective management methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing scale dimensionality is an important issue in the marketing literature. In an exploratory context, principal axis factoring and principal components analysis receive emphasis, while other fields apply suitable alternatives. This article introduces a promising procedure known as Mokken scale analysis. Using an empirical data set, we demonstrate how Mokken scale analysis complements principal axis factoring and principal components analysis for gaining understanding of the dimensionality of the items in the SERVQUAL instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Likert scales are widely used in survey studies for attitude measuring. In particular, the questionnaires propagated by the SERVQUAL approach are based on Likert scales. Though the problem of attitude suggests an ordinal interpretation of Likert scales, attitude survey data are often evaluated with techniques designed for cardinal measurements. The present paper discusses the interpretation of scales for attitude measuring and gives a survey of data analysis techniques under the proper ordinal understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the newly developed IT consulting SERVQUAL measurement tool. In an attempt to measure the IS customers' perceived quality of the consulting services they received, the researchers developed a diagnostic tool of SERVQUAL based on the solid theoretical background, which can specifically be applied to the IT consulting service sector. It is composed of 6 dimensions of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, process and education, and the former four are derived from IT SERVQUAL and the latter two are added to consider the characteristics of IT consulting service. To develop IT consulting SERVQUAL, 7 consultants having over the 10 years careers, 3 customers having much experienced of consulting service, and 2 professors majoring in MIS have examined the constructs and the items of questionnaires. And this research had been applied to 86 respondents of 42 different organizations that had received IT consulting services over 2 past years to ensure the validation of this tool. The correlation and the factor analyses were conducted for validation of the measurement tool. The results indicated that six different areas in the measurement tool are significantly related with level of the customer satisfaction in spite of their few problems in its validation and its application in the field will be helpful to identify their problems and make plans for advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To confirm the sustainability of the SERVQUAL framework within an Eastern business context, a replication study was conducted in Macau, a small place which is adjacent to Hong Kong and has just been returned to the PRC from the Portuguese administration. In March, 1999, about 230 customers of a local bank were surveyed on the 22 items of the SERVQUAL. Factor analysis established the existence of six service dimensions, which is different from the original findings of Parasuraman et al. (1988). The new solution thus requires considerably different interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]