PAKISTAN BUSINESS REVIEW - Institute of Business Management

Research
Assessing the Service Quality of Some Selected Hospitals in Karachi
I. Introduction
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance
of some selected hospitals of Karachi on the basis of the
SERVQUAL model related to customer service quality. The
research objectives of the study are to:
Ascertain whether the selected hospitals that are
operating in Karachi in the public, semi public and
private sectors follow all five dimensions
(TANGIBILES, RELIABILITY, RESPONSIVENESS,
ASSURANCE, & EMPATHY) of the SERVQUAL
model.
Compare gaps among three types of hospitals.
Identify the areas of maximum and minimum gaps for
the items that are related to each dimension of the
SERVQUAL model.
Identify the determinants of patients’ satisfaction in
the selected hospitals.
The term “service quality” has been defined in several
ways. Parasuraman et al. (1985) describes the word service quality
as “a measure of the degree of discrepancy between consumers’
perceptions and expectations”.
“Consumer dissatisfaction occurs when expectations
of the consumers are greater than actual performance of service
delivering organizations and perceived service quality is less than
the satisfactory level.”
Gronsroos (1984) defines service quality as a function
of expectations, outcome and image.
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PAKISTAN BUSINESS REVIEW JULY 2011