Currently, quality has been defined as a strategic tool for the survival of organizations that provide services, but most of these organizations lack practical procedures to effectively implement quality management. To a greater or lesser degree, organizations limit themselves to applying statistical quality controls according to branch regulations, without listening to the voice of their true sense of being: the customer. The research proposes a procedure to evaluate the quality of the service, based on the opinion of representative clients, which allows an initial evaluation of its quality, considering the dimensions of SERVQUAL, and a comparative analysis based on Benchmarking. These results are integrated in the development of the Deployment of the Quality Function, for the establishment of priorities of the technical and customer requirements, which are used to decide where to concentrate efforts. In the final evaluation of the service, multicriteria techniques are used, in the weighting of the quality characteristics, which when compared with the initial value, the achievement or not of the improvement is determined. The case study is developed in the computer equipment repair shop of the COPEXTEL.SA corporation, serving business and private sectors.
INTRODUCTION
The introduction of subjective instruments for measuring quality, based on customer perceptions, is presented in models such as SERVQUAL, one of the most applied in the field of economics, and SERVPERF (Parasumaran et al., 1990 and Carman, 1990).
procedure-for-evaluation-the-quality-in-services-case-study-technical-servicesAccording to Bou Llusar & Camisón Zornoza (2002), many authors have identified two generic ways in which quality influences business results, such as (Gavin, 1984; Juan & Gryna, 1988; Reed, Lemank & Montgomery, 1996; Hardie, 1998). One is called internal effects, which are related to the influence of quality in reducing costs and increasing productivity (eg Deming with chain reaction). In the second are the external or market effects, which are related to the influence of quality on the ability of the business to increase sales and is based on the influence of quality on the customer's behavior (Anderson & Fornell, 1994). Given its nature,These types of effects must be evaluated through measurements based on information from external agents, such as clients (Bolton & Drew, 1994).
The exploration of the possibilities of a multidimensional approach to perceived quality in an organization, is presented by Bou Llusar & Camisón Zornoza (2002), through an instrument that evaluates the perceived quality of the product (attributes of the products of the industry), perceived quality of the service (characteristics of the service provided by the product supplier) and the orientation towards quality, in a ceramic distribution company; These authors integrate the three perspectives, however in the orientation towards quality, only the external orientation is considered: price, image and reputation and does not include the internal orientation (organization for quality, orientation of the employee towards quality), of the organization studied,as well as the priority relationships that in this sense may present with the internal processes are not presented. In this direction, the present work proposes the evaluation of the quality of an organization, integrating to the possibilities offered by SERVQUAL, the Quality Function Deployment tools (in English QFD:Quality Function Deployment) and multicriteria techniques, for assigning priorities to customer opinions, which, although Yacuzzi E. & Martín F. (2006) state that more complicated applications are found in services, there are design developments of retail business services, swimming school, and bookstore (Ohfuji et al., 1988), as well as for tourism products in Cuba (Santos, CR & Alfonso, AB, 2007). A comparative approach between peer organizations based on Benchmarking is also included in this proposal .
DEVELOPING
At present there is a certain unanimity, between theoreticians and practitioners, in that the attribute that contributes, fundamentally, to determining the position of the company in the long term is the opinion of the clients. Many companies today focus on the different activities of the company taking into account their customers, this approach is called the Customer Approach and is considered one of the eight fundamental principles of Modern Quality Management. For customers to form a positive opinion, the company must meet their needs and expectations. In this regard, in ISO 9000: 2000, Quality is defined as “degree to which a set of inherent characteristics meet the requirements.
To evaluate the quality of services and products, it must necessarily involve methods and mechanisms to LISTEN to the voice of the customer. Figure 1 shows the general procedure to evaluate the quality of the service that is proposed, and where the client is the main protagonist of the process. The procedure begins with the characterization of the service process, followed by a Module A: Customer analysis, where representative customers are selected, and an initial evaluation of the quality of the service is obtained, with the quantification of the results of the interviews, designed from the dimensions established in the SERVQUAL. For Module B: Entity Performance, a comparative approach is carried out between national and international counterpart companies based on theBenchmarking. Both modules contribute to the development of the QFD in the Service, the procedure concludes with Module C: Quality of the service, where the final evaluation of it is obtained, based on multi-criteria techniques, which when compared with the initial value determines the achievement or not of improvement.
Case study
The case study is developed in the management of COPEXTEL in Sancti Spiritus, specifically in technical services. This entity is dedicated to the wholesale commercialization with a wide guarantee of electrical, electronic and computer equipment, as well as installation, assembly, maintenance and technical advisory services.
Characterization of the Service Process
From the analysis carried out through a process flow diagram, it was possible to identify the following limitations:
- Slowness in the processing system to request and obtain a part from the warehouse. Insufficiency of statistics to prepare estimates of service time in each line of work and to be able to model the process mathematically. The process and statistics have an accounting approach, NOT the client. Insufficient information management to clients of the status of their equipment. Little Space and few conditions in the reception area prevent adequate treatment of the customer, a fundamental point of contact between the workshop and the outside world. The information about spare parts on the website is not up-to-date. Some jobs do not have the necessary ergonomic characteristics to carry out the work. The working microclimate conditions (temperature, noise, humidity, lighting) are good.The organizational conditions are conducive to the creative work required in the work of technicians.There are many items with little circulation in the parts warehouse By indirect analysis of the input and output (reception) data, it was determined that the overall dwell time of a team in the workshop is 6 days on average.
Module A: Customer Analysis
Selection of representative clients
Initial information processing using SPSS software. The starting data were taken from the services provided in the year, implemented in the Services section of the EXPERTISE Software. The value of the contrast statistic (Z = –8.287) and its critical level (bilateral asymptotic significance = 0.000), implies that the independence hypothesis is rejected and it can be concluded that the sequence of observations is not random, a situation expected because the data They respond to an economic phenomenon, authenticating the data.
Stratification of the data. To reduce the volume of the data, a frequency histogram was used, which allowed obtaining 7 classes, named in alphabetical order A - G. For the formation of each class, the criteria shown in Table 1 were used.
Table 1 Class selection criteria
| Selection criteria for sales | Class |
| Sales up to $ 500 | G |
| 500 to 1000 dollars | F |
| 1000 to 1500 dollars | AND |
| 1500 to 2000 dollars | D |
| 2000 to 2500 dollars | C |
| 2,500 to 3,000 dollars | B |
| More than $ 3,000 | TO |
Figure 1. Procedure to evaluate the quality of the Services.
The Pareto analysis allowed identifying that the clients of Classes A, B, contributed more than 50% of the sales of the COPEXTEL Corporation in the year under evaluation (see figure 2).
Initial interviews, calculation and result of the expected value of the quality of the service
The quantification of the results of the client interviews are tabulated and measured on the scale proposed by Díaz Mutis (2006) for the evaluation of performance in the service sphere, this is a discrete Likert-type scale from -3 to 3, where the negative numbers express 3 levels of insufficiency, 0 an average level and the 3 positive numbers, 3 levels of excellence or acceptance.
Figure 2. Pareto diagram for the selection of representative customers.
Table 2 presents in its columns the 5 dimensions, with the theoretical relative importance (Parasuraman, 1998) and in its rows the opinion of the clients according to the aforementioned scale. Subsequently, an average of the values for each dimension is made, the theoretical results on the relative importance are used (ImportRelative Row). With these data, the expected value of this empirical discrete probabilistic function is calculated, for which expression 1 is used.
The interviews carried out with the clients represented by the designated specialists allowed obtaining the results shown in table 2. Negative opinions fall on the dimensions Responsiveness and Reliability with averages of 0.19 and 0.22 respectively and positive opinions fall on the dimensions Empathy and Security with averages of 2.83 and 2.66 respectively; Therefore, there is a favorable opinion of the latter and an unfavorable one with respect to the former, with Response Capacity being the most criticized.
Table 2. Calculation of the expected value of the quality of the service from the dimensions of the service according to the SERVQUAL
| Elements
Tangible |
Reliability | Capacity Response | Security | Empathy | |
| Tourist Entity (ET) I | 3 | two | -two | 3 | 3 |
| Educational Entity (EE) I | 0 | -one | -two | two | 3 |
| Economic entity (EC) I | 3 | -one | -two | 3 | 3 |
| Tourist Entity (ET) II | 3 | -one | -two | 3 | 3 |
| Educational Entity (EE) II | 3 | -one | -two | two | 3 |
| Entity of the economy (EC II | 3 | one | 3 | 3 | two |
| Average | 2.5 | -0.16 | -1.16 | 2.66 | 2.83 |
| Relative Import | 0.11 | 0.32 | 0.22 | 0.19 | 0.16 |
| Subtotals | 0.275 | -0.0533 | -0.256 | 0.538 | 0.453 |
| Expected value | 0.956 |
The expected value obtained of 0.956, is close to the first of the positive values (1), of the scale proposed for performance in the sphere of services, so it is concluded that it is susceptible to improvement under current conditions.
Module B: Performance of the entity
Results of the Benchmarking process.
Although the Benchmarking analysis is carried out according to the methodology proposed by Boxwell (1994), the quantification of the results is adjusted to the scale (1: worst performance to 5: best performance) proposed in QFD applications (Besterfield , 1999). From the interviews to the national and international Benchmark, a combination of quantitative criteria and qualitative evaluations resulted.
In the territory of Spiritus, COPEXTEL is a leader in computer services, there are other entities that provide these services from the CIMEX Corporation, the Ministry of Agriculture and the MINAZ. As a reference or Benchmark, the entity of the CIMEX Corporation was selected, since the other cases are internal services and only in some moments are they performed to third parties.
ASUS is an international computer equipment repair brand that has branches in many countries, for this reason this firm was selected, which has a close commercial relationship with COPEXTEL; supplies computer accessories and components, also exchanges information and offers training courses to COPEXTEL technicians.
The interviews carried out with the clients revealed the aspects where the technical service provided by COPEXTEL has deficiencies or does not exceed the expectations of the clients, so the study of the international Benchmark allowed finding norms, patterns, as well as other elements necessary to compare it with the service provided by COPEXTEL. The competitive evaluations that appear in figures 3 and 4, show this unfavorable position of COPEXTEL, only prices (customer requirements) have a good score (figure 3), although this situation is in correspondence with a country's policy.
Construction of the first Quality Function Deployment (QFD) matrix
As an imperative to carry out the development of the QFD, a multidisciplinary team was created, capable of interacting and reaching consensus. The objective of using the QFD Matrix in this research is to improve the design of COPEXTEL's technical services, listening to the expectations and needs of the client and objectively assessing the possibilities of the Corporation to meet these expectations and needs. The results of the development of the prioritized technical and customer requirements are collected in the Final Matrix of figure 5.
From the results obtained in the development of the technical requirements, it is obtained: for physical infrastructure, the highest relative weight value (390), which corresponds to logistics and insurance , and for human infrastructure, the highest relative weight (354), for the organizational and administrative structure. The foregoing indicates that improvement efforts should focus on these two requirements, which significantly affect the service.
Figure 3 Benchmarking results. Competitive evaluation for customer requirements.
Figure 4. Benchmarking results. Competitive evaluation for technical requirements.
Module C: Quality of service
From the instruments that are defined in SERVQUAL to obtain customer perceptions, the ten characteristics that are defined in this method are adapted for technical services, later the characteristics are weighted with the AHP multicriteria method (for its acronym in English, Analityc Hierarchical Process) (Abreu Ledón, 2004), which is a good alternative in this research, due to its internal consistency and logical validity; simplicity and not requiring large resources to obtain results.
Quantification of the results of the surveys.
After analyzing the aspects highlighted by the clients in the initial interview, the characteristics that define quality in the provision of technical service were defined, which were weighted by the AHP method. After elaborating several matrices for which Saaty's criteria showed high inconsistency, the final vector of weights was finally obtained (see table 3). With this weight vector and with the data collected in the final survey, the quality of the service is calculated, according to the proposal of Díaz Mutis (2006), (see Table 4).
Through this procedure, the initial discrete scale from -3 to 3 is converted into a scale of continuous values between -3 and 3, this scale is according to the first truly quantitative scale and all the common statistics are applied (means, median, mode, variance, standard deviation). (Cristo Hernández, 2001).
In table 4, each value in the last row corresponds to the evaluation that the client gives to the quality of COPEXTEL's technical service for the ten characteristics analyzed. The highest quality of service is evaluated by Educational Entity II and the lowest evaluation is granted by Tourist Entity I.
Improvement analysis for quality evaluation
To give an overall response to the quality of COPEXTEL's technical service, the mean (1,985885) and the median (2,03984) are calculated, these values are very close to the value 2 of excellence for the proposed scale (Díaz Mutis, 2006), which also differ from the expected value obtained in the initial interviews (0.95), a result that was achieved by incorporating the social dimension, preferential prices, which are established for COPEXTEL.
Table 3. Characteristics that define the quality of technical services and weight vector
| Not. | Quality features | Vector weights |
| one | Service technicians appear neat and professional. | 0.0166 |
| two | The material elements (work tools, premises, furniture, etc. with good appearance). | 0.0121 |
| 3 | When the customer has a problem, the technicians show a sincere interest in fixing it. | 0.0531 |
| 4 | Technicians perform the service right the first time. | 0.1323 |
| 5 | The technicians provide the service quickly, without affecting the quality of the same | 0.1224 |
| 6 | Technicians are never too busy to answer customer questions, and they are trained to do so. | 0.0877 |
| 7 | The behavior of the technicians transmits confidence and security to the clients. | 0.1379 |
| 8 | Technicians are always courteous, ethical, and respectful of customers. | 0.0427 |
| 9 | The corporation has employees, who offer personalized and individualized attention to clients. | 0.0850 |
| 10 | The prices of the services are reasonable and are adjusted to the payment possibilities of the clients (Type of currency, terms, credits, etc.) | 0.3029 |
Table 4. Results of the matrix processing of the transposed weight vector and the final surveys.
| characteristics | (ET) I | (EE) I | (EC) I | (ET) II | (EE) II | (EC) II |
| one | one | two | two | two | 3 | 3 |
| two | one | one | one | one | two | one |
| 3 | two | one | one | one | two | one |
| 4 | two | two | two | two | 3 | two |
| 5 | one | two | two | 3 | 3 | two |
| 6 | one | 3 | one | 3 | 3 | one |
| 7 | one | 3 | one | 3 | 3 | two |
| 8 | one | two | two | two | 3 | two |
| 9 | two | 3 | two | two | 3 | two |
| 10 | one | two | one | two | 3 | two |
| Transposed Weight Vector to multiply. | 1.26303 | 2,230666 | 1.39169 | 2,26811 | 2.9128 | 1.84901 |
The previous result implies, according to figure 1, that improvement efforts should focus on Module B: Performance of the entity, specifically on logistics and assurance and on the organizational and administrative structure, in order to meet the needs and expectations of clients, based on the results obtained with the development of the QFD.
CONCLUSIONS
- The bibliographic analysis showed how the tools and methods to evaluate quality have been enriched and evolved, which has allowed the business world to improve its processes to respond to the demands that its customers demand of the products they offer, in the same way It is conducive for companies to provide procedures that implement new, viable applications for evaluating the quality of the services they provide.The proposed procedure, developed from three modules, integrates tools that allow the incorporation of customer criteria and comparative elements of the competition, it is an alternative that broadens the perspectives of evaluating the quality of services. The usefulness of the procedure for evaluating the quality of technical services of COPEXTEL was demonstrated,since it allowed us to identify where efforts for improvement should be focused, and as in the current conditions of the Cuban economy, the mere fact of incorporating a social dimension in the quality evaluation raises the positive perception of the service..
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