Gap between customer’s expectation and perceived service
According to the above exploration, it can be concluded that providing high level customer service which meets customer expectations could lead to high level customer satisfaction. Knowing what customer exactly wants is becoming more important. However, some researches show there is misunderstanding of what are important aspects of customer service to the customer. As Norman (1994) concluded from the results of a survey about aspects of customer service carried out among the companies of a particular industry, although companies and their customers recognize the importance of providing a good level of customer service, they differ on the importance of the influence of each aspect on such levels. In that survey, customers and managers are required to rank the importance of elements of customer service. The results revealed that there is significant difference of importance ranking between two sub-samples. Furthermore, the data also showed that different types of customer have different perceptions of service importance. The same conclusion is drawn from an empirical examination of customer service of Australian scientific instruments and suppliers industry conducted by Gilmore et al. (1994). They found considerable differences between the service provided and the service required. Also service requirements differed significantly between customer segments. Based on these explorations, it could be concluded that organizations should provide segmented customer service according to customer expectations. It was agreed by Sharma and Lambert (1990). They suggested that organizations provide different levels of logistics-driven customer service based on: (1) customer expectations; and (2) the expected return of each customer segment.
With the development of customer service segmentation, the term ‘tailored logistics’ was proposed. Fuller, O’Conor, and Rawlinson (1993) suggested that companies can tailor their logistics systems to serve their customers better and more profitably as customers’ needs vary. Negri (1997) extended tailored logistics service to multi-site operation environment. According to Negri (1997), with the development of globalization, more companies centralize manufacture to fit economy of scale while decentralizing sales market globally to achieve higher revenue. Under such circumstances, tailored logistics services provide an essential contribution towards improving continuously the competitive advantage at company level in global market. It increases the effectiveness and efficiency of supplying and delivering networks; improves supply chain and cross business performances, etc.
Based on tailored logistics service concept, providing customers with distinct service package and pricing these packages independently of each other are replacing the traditional practice of a single set of service measurements. Zinszer (1997) introduced an extended buygrid model for segmenting logistics customer service. In Zinszer’s research, customers are classified into three buy classes which are new task purchase, modified rebuy purchase and straight rebuy based on the nature of purchasing behavior. Research results showed that there appear to be a significant difference of logistics service attributes with the three buy classes. Different buy classes have different importance weights to various attributes of logistical customer service. Companies should recognize the difference weights of each attribute to segment buy class and offer the logistics customer service level accordingly.
Although the above explorations looked into different industries or customers groups, the common point is they all emphasized providing tailored customer service and decreasing the gap between customer expectations and perceived service quality. |