The Gap Model for assessing service quality

In 1985, U.S. marketing professors Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman developed the Gap Model, a method for assessing service quality in companies that is still widely used today. The model describes an ideal service system in which all participants behave optimally: customers have a clear idea of their needs and are able to communicate them clearly and unambiguously. Company management, quality assurance, and the employees providing the actual service clearly and unambiguously identify those customer needs, derive the most appropriate behavior and optimal measures from them, then implement them reliably and consistently, and ultimately optimally meet customers’ needs.

Realistically, such a practically perfect provision of services can obviously not be achieved even with the greatest effort. Instead, in reality many different factors lead to discrepancies between this ideal model and the reality that is actually experienced. The authors developed five propositions which are relevant for final customer satisfaction, referring to the discrepancies between reality and the ideal as gaps.

An overview of the 5 gaps

Gap 1: The gap between customer expectations and provider – corporate leadership or management – perceptions of those expectations. This gap arises due to a lack of understanding or incorrect evaluation of customer expectations. It is frequently poor communication with the customer that leads to this situation.

Gap 2: The gap between management perceptions of customer expectations and the firm‘s service quality specifications. While management is aware of customer expectations, it fails to establish the right quality measures and standards. This means that the service itself is not optimally aligned to the identified customer needs. This is usually due to the absence of total management commitment to service quality.

Gap 3: The gap between service quality specifications and actual service delivery. The guidelines laid down by company management are not observed by the employees who are to provide the service. Gap 3 is usually caused by a lack of leadership quality, employees’ lack of identification with the company’s goals, a lack of employee commitment or, more generally, by poor work atmosphere.

Gap 4: The gap between actual service delivery and external communications about the service. To win customers, advertising works with attractive promises. The risk, of course, lies in the fact that customer expectations are raised which, in the worst case, are not met by the service actually provided. The reasons for this usually lie in high cost pressure. In extreme cases this can lead to raising customers’ initial expectations due to the advertising statements but lowering perceptions of quality when the promises are not fulfilled.

Gap 5: The gap between expected service and perceived service. Ultimately, gap 5 is the sum of all previous gaps and cannot be reduced directly by reducing all the other gaps. To put it simply, we are talking about a gap between ideal and reality, which in many cases, however, is a key factor as to whether a customer remains loyal to the brand and the company.

Reflect on the individual gaps in your company in order to identify them, eliminate them, and ultimately have more satisfied and loyal customers