MT221 Unit 3 Customer Expectations Report Example

Same-Day Service Available, Delivered to Nine Percent: A Unit 3 Customer Expectations Report for a Mobile Auto Glass Company

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT221: Customer Service

Unit 3 Customer Expectations Report

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Northline Auto Glass, its survey, respondents and every figure are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where the company's survey and booking records would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.

Where Expectations Come From

Zeithaml et al. (1993) grouped the influences on customer expectations of service into explicit promises, implicit promises, word of mouth, past experience and personal needs. Each appears at Northline Auto Glass.

The explicit promises come from the company itself. The website's banner says same-day service available, and the booking script promises callers a text once their installer heads out. The booking confirmation gives a four-hour window and promises a call if anything changes.

The implicit promises come from cues customers read into the company. A [$49] mobile service fee and branded vans suggest a professional operation that should arrive on time and bring the right glass. A price close to the dealer's suggests dealer-level calibration of cameras and sensors.

Word of mouth comes mostly from online reviews, where one-star reviews about the wrong glass and late arrivals sit beside five-star reviews about friendly installers.

Past experience varies. Customers who have used an insurance company's preferred glass shop before arrive expecting the same speed. Customers who have never replaced a windshield have few expectations beyond the website. Fleet managers who book several vehicles at once bring a different set of expectations again, shaped by contracts with service levels written into them.

Personal need is often urgent. A commuter whose crack is spreading across the driver's line of sight, or a parent with a long school run, wants the car fixed quickly and cannot take repeated days off.

The Survey

Northline surveyed [112] customers who had a windshield replaced in the past quarter. The survey adapted the SERVQUAL instrument of Parasuraman et al. (1988), asking customers to rate, on a seven-point scale, how important each aspect of service was to them and how well Northline performed. Statements were rewritten for the business, such as "the correct glass arrives on the first visit" for reliability and "I am told if the technician will be late" for responsiveness.

Results by Dimension

Reliability, doing the job right the first time, had the highest expectation, about [6.6], and a perception of about [5.1], a gap of about 1.5 points. Responsiveness, prompt service and timely information, had an expectation of about [6.2] and a perception of about [4.8], a gap of about 1.4. Assurance, the competence and courtesy that build confidence, had an expectation of [6.0] and a perception of [5.7], a small gap. Empathy, individual attention, was expected at [5.1] and perceived at [5.3], slightly above expectations. Tangibles, the vans, uniforms and paperwork, were expected at [4.6] and perceived at [5.4], well above.

The pattern is clear. Northline exceeds expectations where they matter least and falls short where they matter most. Its installers and vans make a good impression; its scheduling and parts processes do not deliver.

Assigning Gaps

Parasuraman et al. (1985) traced the customer's disappointment to four earlier gaps inside the firm, which add up to a fifth.

Gap one is the knowledge gap: managers misjudge what customers want. Northline's managers believed customers cared most about price and friendliness. The survey and the review coding from Unit 1 show reliability and timely information matter far more. That gap explains why training has focused on manners.

Gap two is the standards gap, between management's understanding and the service standards it sets. Northline has no standard requiring schedulers to capture the vehicle identification number or to call when a technician is running late. Without standards, nobody is responsible.

Gap three is the delivery gap, between standards and what employees actually do. Where Northline does have a rule, a text when the technician leaves for the job, it is followed about [80] percent of the time, mostly because the text depends on the technician remembering to tap a button.

Gap four is the communication gap: Northline's advertising says more than its operations can do. The website's same-day banner is the clearest example. In the last quarter, [9] percent of bookings received same-day service, mostly for common vehicles without cameras. Customers who called expecting same-day service and were given a window three days out started the relationship disappointed.

Gap five, the customer gap, is the sum of the other four, and the survey's reliability and responsiveness scores measure it.

The banner promises same-day service to everyone and delivers it to fewer than one customer in ten.

Which Gap to Close First

The gaps are not equally costly. The communication gap is the cheapest to close, since rewriting a banner costs nothing, but it does not fix the underlying service. The standards gap is where the most damage starts, because the missing vehicle identification number at booking produces the wrong glass, the second visit and many of the one-star reviews. Closing it requires a script change, a few minutes more on each call and parts desk training. The knowledge gap matters for the long run, because managers who misread what customers value will keep investing in the wrong things.

The survey also shows a group of customers worth separate attention. Respondents whose cars had cameras or rain sensors rated reliability about [0.8] points lower than those without, because they faced both the wrong-glass risk and the calibration errand. That group is growing every year as more cars come with driver assistance systems.

Recommendations

Northline should close the gaps from the outside in. It should change the website's banner to a promise it can keep, such as most installs within three business days, with same-day service when the glass is in stock. It should set two new standards, capturing the vehicle identification number at booking and calling the customer when a technician is thirty minutes behind, and give schedulers the tools to meet them. It should automate the on-the-way text so it no longer depends on memory. And it should repeat the survey each quarter, reporting the reliability and responsiveness gaps to managers alongside cost figures, so the knowledge gap does not reopen.

Limitations

The survey reached only customers whose jobs were completed, so it misses those who canceled after a bad booking experience. The seven-point scale and adapted wording follow SERVQUAL's structure but have not been tested for this business. And [112] responses are enough to see the large gaps but not to compare small ones reliably.

References

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298504900403

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: A multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of Retailing, 64(1), 12-40.

Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1993). The nature and determinants of customer expectations of service. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 21(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092070393211001