Browsing by Subject "SERVQUAL"

This study examines the service quality of a Finnish forest service company. The forest services market in Finland is undergoing a radical change in market structure after the Finnish Forest Act changed in 2014. Accordingly, government-backed forest service organizations must adapt their business models towards competitive markets and they must reconsider their own competitive edge. The aim of the study is to analyse internal environment of a company in order to produce service quality. The aim is to understand what are the customers’ experiences of the service quality and from which factors the quality is formed. The target group of the study are the Finnish urban forest owners. This group of forest owners is a customer target group for the Finnish forest service organization. The theoretical framework is based on Perceived Service Quality theory. The theory examines service quality comparing customers’ expectation s to customers’ experiences. If service experience exceeds the expectations, the level of service quality is considered good. The Gap Model of the Perceived Service Quality-theory examines the performance of the internal environment of a company in order to produce service quality. The performance of the internal environment is a crucial aspect of service quality because it determines the bases whether the service quality is considered good by a customer. The data was collected from urban forest owners and the company’s staff. The customer survey was sent by email to 1287 forest owners. The staff survey was submitted to all 284 staff members of the company. The customer survey response rate was 24. Staff response rate was 27. The method used in the study was SERVQUAL and Gap Model, which are both based on Perceived Service Quality-theory. The result shows that the service quality produced by the forest service organization is considered good among customers. The service quality is composed from four different factors which are: personal service, communication and marketing, the execution of forest services and the outcome. The results indicated four different customer segments among urban forest owners. These customer groups were named “concentrated on execution”, “service oriented”, “emphasized on outcome” and “indifferent toward services”. The group “concentrated on execution” had highest expectations towards services. The group “emphasized on outcome” stressed the result of the forest service. The group of “service oriented” was largest and these clients underlined the importance of a good personal service. Failures is personal service resulted in the group of indifferent customers. There were more respondents included to this group than others that had used forest road-services or were from Lapland, North Ostrobothnia or Kainuu. The Gap Model indicated the core development areas in internal environment in order to produce service quality. The gaps were wide in relation to the optimal level of internal environment that would serve to produce quality service. In particular, management's views differed from the views of other staff. The results show that the standardization of services and internal communication are the core elements for the development of high-quality service.