Closing the Customer Experience Gap: perception and expectation

“I expect high-quality service!”    “I expect the best products!”

From high-quality service to the best products, the ever-increasing level of expectations from customers means it is vital for organisations to keep up with demands. This can prove increasingly difficult in the fast-paced and ambitious market we now live and work in.

So, how can organisations ensure they are delivering to their customers’ expectations?

The Gap Model was created by Parasuraman et al after extensive focus groups and executive interviews in relation to service quality. The research brought to light common themes, or ’gaps’ between the organisation’s perception and the customer’s expectation.

Customers compare the service they ‘experience’ with what they ‘expect’ and when it doesn’t match the expectation, a gap arises.

Alarmingly, this fact is being missed by many organisations!

The model is very useful as it explains these gaps and illustrates the major hurdles each creates for organisations attempting to deliver the quality of service that is expected by customers.

We’ve produced a paper based on the gap model to better understand what and where the gaps are between the organisation’s perception and the customer’s expectation and most importantly, how to close them.