Measuring Service Quality In Express Service: Design And Application

After nearly 30 years of development,Modern Express industry has become a industry with huge profit and potential. Domestic express industry is growing at the rate of 30% annually, and has formed a 10 billion yuan market. Once upon a time, China Postal was the only express company in Chinese market. But now, more and more Express companies have show up in China, including foreign–owned corporations, private-owned corporations and joint ventures. As the first industry-standard of express implemented in 2008, the competition of express market is intensified. Express industry needs a service quality evaluation system.Express is a competitive business market. The product is private-natured. It originated from the development of modern society. The development of express is the result of competition. Meeting the individual needs and providing personalized services is the tenet of express firm.For customers, the service quality of express company primarily reflected in the possibility of rapid, accurate and safe delivery of the subject matter. This is the core service of express and also the key item to improve competitiveness. Support service is the additional service based on the core service, including booking services, on-line tracking, etc. According to the SEVQUQL model which is widely proved in other areas, the paper brings forward an index system of evaluating express service quality. The system provides a reliable basis to improve quality of service of express firm.The evaluation system is direct to the service users. According to the five dimensions of SERVQUAL (tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy), we build up a 19-item scale, and all the items are Service quality, as perceived by consumers, stems from a comparison of what they feel service firms should offer (from their expectation) with their perceptions of the performance of firms providing the services. When Perception exceeded expectations, the services were considered of special quality, or services that can not satisfy the customer's quality requirements. The gap between expectation and perception is the service gap. In this paper, the service quality evaluation system based on the service gap. With Wj (j = 1,2,3,4,5) the weight of each dimension, as follows is the evaluation model.SQ: the total service qualityPji : the perception score of the i item of the j dimensionEji : the expectation score of the i item of the j dimensionWj: the weight of the j dimension n : the number of items under the j dimensionWe can get average service quality by adoption of the following formula: AVSQ: average service quality SQi : the SQ of the No.i customer N: the number of customersAnalyzing of the results, there are three categories of the result: (1) AVSQ=0This result is due to the formation of Pi = Ei. Customer perception is the same as expectation. (2) AVSQ﹥0 There are two situations of the result:①Pi﹥﹥Ei. This means that customer expectation is much higher than perception. Service quality is quite high. Higher service quality not always means higher profits. Excessive high level of service quality would cause unnecessary costs and affect corporate profits.②Pi﹥Ei. This shows that customer perception slightly higher than expectation will not only satisfy the customers, and also not to bring too much business cost pressures. Giving a first-class impression of the quality of service to the customers is the purpose of the service corporations.(3) AVSQ﹤0. This result should be avoided. Because the perception can not meet the expectation, customers would apperceive poor quality. The model can evaluate scores of the five dimensions and by further analysis we can identify the specific gaps in the quality chain as a basis for management improvements.In this paper, we invited several managers to decide the order of the five dimensions. Then we decide the weight of each dimension by product-scale law.①Send questionnaire to managers. Conclude the order of the five dimensions.②Determining the dimension of the lowest importance mark 1.Then compare each two dimensions. For instance, compare the importance of K1 and K2 to decide which one is"larger". If they are the same, Wk1:Wk2=0.5 : 0.5; If the importance of K2 is"larger", Wk2:Wk1=1.354:1=0.58:0.42; If the importance of K2 is"larger"than"larger", WK1:WK2=(1.354×1.354):1=0.65:0.35. Repeat the step, and get the final weight of each dimension.In this paper, we take the EMS (Worldwide Express Mail Service) of Jilin Postal Service for instance, measuring service quality by the evaluation system. We sent questionnaires in three postal offices, collected a total of 124 valid questionnaires. The final AVSQ is -1.23, showing the total service quality of EMS cannot meet the customer expectation. In addition, each of the items is negative score, especially the assurance, responsiveness, and empathy. Jilin Postal Service must focus on these areas to improve service quality.By testing the reliability and validity of the scale, we find that the scale has good reliability and validity. The results of the research are reliable. But the service quality evaluation system still needs more applications in the express companies and further research to make sure it is industry-wide adaptability.