Untitled

480 quality, environmental
area, quality practices such as unconditional
guarantees, measurement of customer satisfaction,
employee satisfaction and mystery shopping
evaluations, as well as specific standards for
complaint resolution, can be applied.
Quality is important in relation to its impact on
the bottom line and an organisation's profitability.
Reichheld and Sasser �1992) studied customer
profitability over time. With higher levels of
customer retention as a result of superior quality,
an organisation benefits from profits due to:
increased purchases and higher balances, reduced
operating costs, referrals and a price premium.
British Airways found that customers were willing
to pay 5 per cent more for superior quality �Weiser
1995). A study by Reichheld and Sasser of different
companies found that a 5 per cent reduction in
defections increased profits between 25 per cent
and 85 per cent, depending on the type of
company and industry sector.
By eliminating inferior quality, organisations
avoid the costs associated with poor production.
These costs may be internal in relation to the cost of
having to redo something, facility downtime and loss
of morale, which in turn results in high employee
turnover and lower levels of employee marketing.
External costs relate to that of compensating
customers for poor quality and the resulting loss of
their loyalty. The customer experiences monetary
losses related to the poor quality and non-monetary
costs which can be more damaging than the former
situations. Non-monetary costs relate to inconvenience,
a customer's time and possible emotional
responses.
To obtain information on poor quality, organisations
require listening posts to capture complaints
in order to avoid defections. Up to 95 per cent of
unsatisfied customers can be won back if the
complaint is resolved quickly and to their satisfaction
�Cottle 1990). If quality is determined by the
sum of numerous experiences as was found in
tourism, any dissatisfaction with a single attribute
of the product or services may have a negative
impact on the quality of the overall experience
�Pizam et al. 1978). Thus, attention to the
individual components of a tourism experience is
critical in producing quality outcomes for satisfied
tourists.
References
Cottle, D.W. �1990) Client-Centered Service:How to
Keep Them Coming Back for More, New York: John
Wiley & Sons.
Dobyns, L. and Crawford-Mason, C. �1994)
Thinking about Quality, New York: Times Books.
Pizam, A., Neumann, Y. and Reichel, A. �1978)
`Dimensions of tourist satisfaction with a destination
area', Annals of Tourism Research 5: 314±22.
Reichheld, F.F. and Sasser, Jr, W.E. �1992) `Zero
defections: quality comes to services', in C.H.
Lovelock �ed.), Managing Services, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 250±8.
Sanes, C. �1996) `Employee impact on service
delivery', Management Development Review 9�2): 15±
20.
Weiser, C.R. �1995) `Championing the customer',
Harvard Business Review November±December:
113±16.
quality, environmental
MARGARET ERSTAD, UK
EDUARDO FAYOS-SOLAÁ ,SPAIN
Environmental quality is a multifaceted concept
which relates to the condition of the natural or
biophysical resource base as much as to environmental
aesthetic aspects of structures, traffic
congestion, residential neighbourhoods, depreciative
human behaviour and human welfare. The
various dimensions of environmental quality
make agreement on a definition elusive. Apart
from the highly subjective appreciation of what
constitutes human values, the quality of an
environment, which in most aspects may be
satisfactory or better, could be made unliveable by
deficiencies in one key area �such as air quality).
There also appears to be clear evidence that
perception of environmental quality is sharpened
as standards of living rise. Similarly, awareness of
environmental deterioration is heightened with
affluence, as are efforts to attain and maintain
desirable levels of environmental excellence.
Moreover, there appears to have been a shift
from needs to wants as essential components of
environmental quality. Simply, subsistence-oriented
cultures, food and shelter were fundamental to the