An Empirical Study on Chinese Express Industry with SERVQUAL

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An Empirical Study on Chinese Express Industry
with SERVQUAL

• Zhuo, Jun
• Shin, Geon-Cheol
• Xue, Ricky
• Miao, Sheng Tao
• Lee, Min-Jung
• Hu, Xiaoling

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Contents
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Abstract

• What about SERVQUAL?
• An instrument to measure service quality
  Introduce by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry
  (PZB)
• The Gap Theory (compare consumers perception of
  service with their expectation of service)
• Five principal quality dimensions (Tangibility,
  Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy)

Key words Express industry, Service quality,
PZB, SERVQUAL
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1. Introduction

• The Chinas logistics industry
• The Chinese logistics market grew by 24 in 2005
  to reach a value of 81.4 billion.
• The compound annual growth rate of the market in
  the period 2001-2005 was remarkable 22.6.
• Express logistics (grow even quicker)
• Objectives
• In hope to provide knowledge about how to measure
  customer perceived quality in the international
  express service in China.
• Its also hoped that the study in the target
  organization could provide a reference to China
  local express providers- they can therefore
  compare and benchmark.

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2. Literature review of service quality
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2. Literature review of service quality
Its supported that the gap model to assess the
discrepancy of customers expectation and actual
perception of service has been well established.
PZBs SERVQUAL instrument is still a reliable and
valid tool to assess a firms service quality and
to identify quality dimensions.
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3. Research methodology
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3.1 The steps to the research

• The research starts from a review of previous
  writings and publishes on service quality, the
  dimensions of service quality and its
  measurement.
• Then, the questionnaire was dispatched to
  subjects of research.
• Data analysis will follow to check its
  reliability, validity and factor structure.
• At the end of the paper limitation and
  constraints were identified.

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3.2 Research design and the survey instrument

• The research was conducted base on the
  disconfirmation model of perceived quality.
• The skeleton of PZBs SERVQUAL was adopted as
  backbone of the questionnaire.
• Besides, PZBs refinements in 1991 were also
  considered for better reliability and validity.

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3.3 Sampling and data collection method

• Sampling method
• The survey population was defined as shipper
  firms which have used FedEx service at least once
  during the recent month prior to survey date in
  Hang Zhou and surrounding sub-districts where are
  served by FedEx (China) Co. Hang Zhou branch.
• We pulled out totally 4320 customers who have
  sent at least one shipment via FedEx in recent
  month, and a Systematic Sampling method was
  applied, every 7th was selected as survey sample
  in every 10 customers, namely 7th, 17th, 27th,
  37th and so on, so totally we made 432 samples.

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3.3 Sampling and data collection method

• Data collection
• Finally, we got 81 valid feedbacks from
  respondents.
• Mean of value of expectation and perception of
  service were computed.

Item Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 Q19 Q20 Q21 Q22
Mean -0.99 -0.94 -0.91 -0.88 -0.56 -0.57 -0.51 -0.57 -0.46 -1.84 -1.83 -1.80 -1.83 -1.70 -1.72 -1.53 -1.72 -1.94 -2.02 -1.96 -2.07 -2.05
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4 Research result and analysis

• 4.1 Factor analysis
• The factor analysis was performed to examine the
  dimensionality of the SERVQUAL instrument that we
  adapted for international express service in
  China.

Tab.4.1 KMO and Bartletts test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .716
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 1239.134
Df 231
Sig. .000
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Tab.4.2 Eigenvalue
Component Initial Eigenvalues of Variance Cumulative
1 4.74 21.54 21.54
2 3.85 17.49 39.03
3 3.22 14.64 53.68
4 2.69 12.24 65.92
5 1.59 7.22 73.14
6 0.78 3.56 76.70
7 0.73 3.34 80.04
8 0.66 2.99 83.03
9 0.58 2.64 85.67
10 0.54 2.43 88.10
11 0.41 1.88 89.98
12 0.39 1.77 91.76
13 0.35 1.59 93.34
14 0.31 1.43 94.77
15 0.26 1.16 95.94
16 0.20 0.91 96.85
17 0.18 0.81 97.65
18 0.15 0.68 98.33
19 0.13 0.60 98.93
20 0.12 0.56 99.49
21 0.07 0.34 99.83
22 0.04 0.17 100.00
Extraction Method Principal Component Analysis.
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Component Component Component Component Component Component Component Component Component Component
1 2 3 4 5
Q1 .823
Q2 .812
Q3 .860
Q4 .832
Q5 .899
Q6 .711
Q7 .760
Q8 .758
Q9 .851
Q10 .783
Q11 .866
Q12 .309 .791
Q13 .339 .703
Q14 .944
Q15 .864 .267
Q16 .690 .273
Q17 .951
Q18 .857
Q19 .877
Q20 .688
Q21 .942
Q22 .858
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4.2 Reliability analysis
Reliability is the consistency of a measure.
This includes 2 elements, external reliability
and internal reliability.
Quality dimension Cronbach's Alpha
Tangibility 0.856
Reliability 0.856
Responsiveness 0.829
Assurance 0.904
Empathy 0.902

• The scale has good to excellent reliability.
• Therefore, the instrument could be regarded as
  high internal consistent.

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4.3 Validity analysis

• 4.3.1 Content validity
• The traditional five dimensions of SERVQUAL
  instrument were well established and were
  discussed with senior managers and experts to
  check the suitability of application in express
  industry and were pilot-tested in this study.
• Therefore, we are confident that the instrument
  adequately measured how customers perceived
  service quality in China international express
  industry.
• The content of the instrument content should be
  regarded to be valid.

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4.3.2 Construct validity

• The construct validity could be measured through
  Convergent validity and Discriminant Validity.

All in all, it could suggest the construct
validity of the adapted SERQUAL was adequate.
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4.3.3 Predictive validity

• Tab. 4.6 Correlations between overall score and
  OSQ Correlations

Overall score Overall Q
Overall score Pearson Correlation 1 .872()
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000
N 81 81
Overall Q Pearson Correlation .872() 1
Overall Q Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .
Overall Q N 81 81
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5 Managerial implications

• 5.1 Quality dimension and service attributes in
  express industry
• The SERVQUAL instrument to evaluate the customer
  perceived quality was conducted in present study.
  
• And the suggested five service quality dimensions
  were verified and confirmed as present to the
  international express industry.
• The five quality dimensions have provided a more
  focus and more manageable framework or yardstick
  on service quality for the marketers.

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5.2 Importance of quality dimensions
Tab.5.1 Mean of importance
Dimensions Mean STDVE
Tangible 12.8 2.5
Reliability 28.3 2.7
Responsiveness 20.5 2.4
Assurance 22.2 2.8
Empathy 16.2 3.5
First invest to improve their reliability , then
assurance and responsiveness, lastly empathy and
tangibility.
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5.3 Assess the service quality level

• All items average score were negative, which
  means there was gap between customers perceived
  quality and customers expected service when
  assess the target service firm.
• It seems that the customers assess the perceived
  reliability as most favorable while empathy as
  the most unfavorable.
• The SERQUAL was suggested by PZB should be
  conduct periodically to track how customers
  perceived the companys service quality.

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5.4 Correlation of service quality and customer
retention

• Tab.5.2 Correlation between overall score, OSQ
  and retention

Overall score Overall Q Retention
Overall score Pearson Correlation 1 .898() .705()
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 .000
N 81 81 81
Overall Q Pearson Correlation .898() 1 .774()
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . .000
N 81 82 82
Retention Pearson Correlation .705() .774() 1
Retention Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .
Retention N 81 82 82
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6. Limitation and future research
LAFR
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References
And so on
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Thank You !

• E-mailzju-zhuojun_at_163.com
• mstbj_at_163.com