CUSTOMER PERCEPTION OF SERVICE BASED ON SERVQUAL ...

Parikalpana - KIIT Journal of Management166

CUSTOMER PERCEPTION OF SERVICE BASED ONSERVQUAL DIMENSIONS: A STUDY OF INDIAN LIFE

INSURANCE COMPANIES

Sekhar Chandra SahooResearch Scholar, School of Management

KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, [email protected]

Satya Narayan MisraDean, School of Management


K.K. RayAssociate Professor, School of Management


DoI: 10.23862/kiit-parikalpana/2019/v15/i1-2/190181

AbstractThe research paper studies the difference between public sector LIC and four banksled listed private life insurance companies i.e. HDFC Standard Life, SBI Life, ICICIPru Life and Max Life Insurance based on the quality dimensions as provided byIndian customers. It also compares private life insurance companies on the givenparameters. The sample consist current customer of various Life Insurancecompanies (both public sector and 4 banks led listed private sector) named LIC,HDFC Standard Life, SBI Life, ICICI PRU Life and Max Life insurance from differentparts of Mumbai and New Delhi (the capital of India). The researchers consideredrespondents who have relation with more than one of the Life insurance companiesfor the present study. This helped to understand how a customer perceives theservice quality of one of the studied life insurance companies vis-a-vis another lifeinsurance company. The results suggest that the public sector LIC is perceived toprovide better service quality as compared to the private life insurance companies,In addition, even within private sector life insurance companies, customerperception on overall service quality varied to some extent. LIC showed signif icantlyhigher scores on three of the f ive dimensions of SERQUAL (Reliability, Tangibilityand Assurance), an important research tool to measure quality. The empiricalresults brought forth the fact that HDFC Standard Life signif icantly differed onthe perceived service quality dimensions from SBI Life. It is a pioneering work onservice quality connecting perceived service quality and brand equity among variousleading life insurance companies.

Keywords: LIC, SERVQUAL, HDFC, Max Life, Standard Life

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INTRODUCTION

The liberalization, privatization andglobalization of Indian economyresulted in an era of competitivemarketing leading to the radical changesin the entire spectrum of products andservices. “The service sector limited innature and scope, changed into anaggressive mode appropriating the frontstage touching almost every sphere ofhuman activity viz. banking, Insurance,information technology, welfare etc.andaccounted for approximately two thirdsof worldwide GNP right from thebeginning of the twenty f irst century”(Kara etal 2005). Delivering qualityservice is considered an essentialstrategy for success and survival intoday’s competitive environment.

“Customer service is an integral part oflife insurance organization. It isnecessary to identify the key successfactor in life insurance industry, in termsof customer satisfaction so as to servein the immense competition andincrease the market share.”(Upadhyayaand Badlani, 2011).

“Service quality, customer satisfactionand customer value have become themain concern of both manufacturingand service organizations in theincreasingly intensif ied competition forcustomers in today’s customer-canteredera” (Wang et al., 2004). The year 2011brought in the beginning of seconddecade for Indian Life Insuranceindustry. “The preceding years weresignif icant for the life insuranceindustry in India after the opening of thesector by the Government. During theperiod 2000-2008, combined with

India’s rapid rate of economic growth theIndian Life Insurance Industry gainedits foothold in the country. Private sectorinsurers ventured into the country andthe industry got a taste of market-drivencompetition, compared to the timewhen insurance business was dominatedby only public sector insurers. Thebeginning of this new era in thedevelopment of insurance industry sawproliferation of new products anddistribution channels which promotedrapid growth of the industry.” (Sud, 2011)

Service quality is the important aspectwhich can give a company equaledcompetitive advantage. Service qualityresults from the comparison ofexpectations with performance.Successful companies add benefits totheir offering by way of surprises anddelighting them. Perceptions of servicequality result from a comparison ofconsumer expectations with actualservice performance. SERVQUALanalysis is an assessment of how well theservice level delivered matches customerexpectations on a consistent basis.

The present research studies thecustomers’ perception of service qualityamong different life insurancecompanies in India. This study isexpected to enable the managers ofleading Indian life insurance companiesto ascertain whether they havesuccessfully managed to positionthemselves differently from theircompetitors on the basis of quality ofservice they provide. The study shouldalso be able to throw light on thedimensions of services that can act ascritical differentiating factors.

Customer perception of service based on Servqual Dimensions: A Study of ...


According to Parasuraman et al, “the fivedimensions of service quality arereliability, responsiveness, assurance,empathy, and tangibility” referred to asSERVQUAL. The SERVQUALinstrument has been the predominantmethod used to measure consumersperceptions of service quality. It has f ivegeneric dimensions or factors and isconsidered for the Expectation-Perception gap analysis. It measures theactual service quality delivered vis a visexpected service quality.

Factor-1 Reliability.

Reliability is def ined as “the ability toperform the promised service in adependable and accurate manner”. Theservice is performed correctly on thef irst occasion with zero defects,

Factor-2 Tangibility

Tangibles are expressed as physicalevidence of the service, for example, “theappearance of the physical facilities,tools and equipments used to providethe service, the appearance of thepersonnel and communicationmaterials and the presence of othercustomers in the service facility”.

Factor 3 – Assurance

Assurance is the knowledge andpoliteness of employees and their abilityto inspire trust and conf idence toperform the service.

Factor 4- Responsiveness

Responsiveness is the readiness andwillingness of employees to helpcustomers in providing prompt, timelyservices with courtesy.

Factor 5- Empathy

The caring, individualized attention tocustomers such as personal attention bystaff, understanding the customer’sspecif ic needs, staff courtesy, andinterest in solving the customerproblems,

Review of Literature

A) Dimensions of Service Quality :

The def initions of service quality implythe identif ication and satisfaction ofcustomer needs and requirements. “Theservice quality can be def ined as thedifference between predicted orexpected service and perceived service.In the services marketing literature,service quality has been reported as asecond order construct, being composedof several f irst-order variables”(Parasuraman, 1985).Parasuraman et al.(1985) identif ied ten dimensions ofservice quality “e.g. credibility, security,accessibility, communication,understanding the consumer, tangibles,reliability, responsiveness, competenceand courtesy”. In subsequent research,however, Parasuraman et al. (1988)found f ive dimensions of service quality,namely, “tangibles, reliability,responsiveness, assurance, andempathy”, and used these as the basis fortheir service quality measurementinstrument, SERVQUAL .TheSERVQUAL instrument is based on thegap model. “The central idea in thismodel is that service quality is a functionof the difference scores or gaps betweenexpectations and perceptions“(Zeitharnl et al., 1990).

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Booms and Bittner (1982) came out withthe seven Ps of service marketing mix.In addition to the existing four Ps ofmarketing mix, the three additional Psare: People, who are involved in theproduction and consumption ofservices, Physical evidence, as tangiblecue for the quality of the service; andProcess, which renders the quality andeff iciency in the service. These sevenPs work together to enhance the imageof the brand.

Garvin (1988) developed nine qualitydimensions which include:”performance, features, conformance,reliability, durability, service, response,aesthetics, and reputation”. According toHedvall and Paltschik (1989), “servicequality has two dimensions- willingnessand ability to serve, and physical andpsychological access”. According toCarman (1990), “the items used tomeasure service quality should reflectthe specif ic service setting underinvestigation, and that it is necessary inthis regard to modify some of the itemsand add or delete items as required”.Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1991) againincluded three components-”interactive, physical, and corporatequalities”.

The SERVQUAL, as proposed byParasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml(1991), is the scale that measures theactual service quality delivered withrespect to the expected service quality.The five dimensions measure the qualityof the service as predicted by thecustomers and relate to the threeadditional Ps of service marketing mix.

Reeves and Bednar (1994) in their studyconcluded that “excellence, value,conformance to specif ications andmeeting and/or exceeding expectationsis the four dimensions of service quality”.

Asubontenget al. (1996) def ined theservice quality as “the differencebetween customer’s expectations forservice performance earlier to the serviceencounter and their perceptions of theservice received”. SERVQUAL is as acorrect measurement for service quality.SERVQUAL has been applied in numberof ways to measure service quality in theLife insurance industry.

Augustyn and Ho (1998) concluded theSERVQUAL model was the most usefultool for def ining customer satisfaction.

Zeithmalet al., (2000) revealed that, dueto the heavy competition, service qualityhas become an important tool tomeasure the service quality andrecognized as a key factor to popular areaof academic investigation and has beenin maintaining sustainable competitiveadvantage and satisfying relationshipswith customers.

Kristensenet al. (2001) calculated therelationship between customersatisfaction and customer loyalty in theDanish retailing business using theEuropean Customer Satisfaction Index.The model links customer satisfactionto its drivers “e.g. customer expectation,perceived company’s image, perceivedquality, and perceived value” and,customer loyalty.

Gefan (2002) stated that service qualityof a firm is based on how the customers’



expectations are fulf illed. i.e. whatactually the customers get as a serviceshould be matched with the expectedservice. If the gaps between these arehigh, then quality of service isquestioned.

B) Service Quality in the lifeInsurance Sector :

Devi (2008) conducted a researchrelated to customer loyalty. Theobjectives of the study are identifyingcustomer loyalty variables and to f indhow the variables contribute to theformation of loyal customers. The factoranalysis identif ied customersatisfaction, meeting customer needs,and customer confidence as the threemain customer loyalty factors.

Senthilet al., (2009) concluded in theirarticle, “Critical success factors of agentsin Life Insurance Services” that agentsare the real success of Life Insuranceproducts. The study focused on theidentif ication of critical success factorsof the agents, the impact of factors ontheir performance, and thediscriminated success factors among theagents of public and private sectorplayers. The study concluded that theimportant critical success factors ofagents are service diversity, servicequality, trust, communication, andcustomization. All the above-mentioned factors have a significant andpositive impact on their performance.The important discriminated factorsamong the agents of public and privateplayers are the customization andservice quality. The agents of publicplayers are far better in the above factors

compared to their counterparts (i.e.agents of private sector players).

Siddiqui (2010 ) using conf irmatoryfactor analysis proposes a sixdimensional service quality instrumentsconsisting of ‘assurance’, ‘personalizedf inancial planning’, ‘competence’,‘corporate image’,’ tangibles’ and‘technology’ in life insurance. Theproposed framework attempts to satisfycustomers through quality services.

Anjor et al (2014) evaluated the impactof service quality and customersatisfaction by using model ofSERVQUAL with f ive dimensions(Parsuraman et al 1988) from the f ivecities of Uttar Pradesh and concludedthat “the expectations are higher thanperception in terms of service quality ininsurance sector”.

Need for Research

Although service quality structure isfound rich in empirical studies ondifferent service sectors, study on servicequality in life insurance services in Indiais not adequately investigated. Theliterature is characterized by no studieson the link between service quality andcustomer satisfaction amongst lifeinsurance companies. The researcherattempts to study the perception aboutthe service quality of selected lifeinsurance companies in India. Theresearcher considered respondents whohave relations with more than one lifeinsurance companies under study. Thishelped the researcher to understandhow a customer perceived the servicequality of one of the studied life

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insurance companies vis-à-vis anotherlife insurance company.

If there is a gap between customerexpectations and what is actuallydelivered refers to Service quality. Toascertain the service quality of acompany SERVQUAL model isemployed. This has been appliedextensively in many studies to assesscompanies’ capacity to deliver qualityservices.

The researcher notes few articles thattried to study the perception amongcustomers about the services providedby Indian life insurance companiesbased on SERVQUAL dimensions overthe past few years.

This is the reason why there is notenough conclusive empirical evidenceon the relation between these twovariables. Therefore, the present studyon the relation connecting perceivedquality and brand equity, applied to lifeinsurance companies emerges to beextremely pertinent.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

The researcher attempts to study theperceptions about the service quality ofselected Life Insurance companies inIndia. In this regard, it must be kept inmind that major Life InsuranceCompany in India can be broadlycategorized into public sector LIC; fourbank led listed private life insurancecompanies i.e. HDFC STANDARDLIFE,SBI LIFE,ICICI PRU LIFE and MAXLIFE INSURANCE, which represent theprivate sector LIFE INSURANCECOMPANIES.. It is observed thatcompared to the listed private sector

insurance companies, the public sectorLICis bigger in business volume and isalso more popular. Given this reality, theresearcher has developed the followinghypotheses to examine the perceptionof service quality among customers ofpublic sector LIC and the listed privatesector life insurance companies:

H1: The life insurance companies (publicsector and private sector) consideredin the research are perceived to besimilar by their consumers withrespect to overall service quality.

H2: The life insurance companies(public sector and private sector)considered in the research areperceived to be similar by theirconsumers with respect to each of theSERVQUAL dimensions of theservice quality.

The researcher also checks for thesimilarity in perception regarding theoverall service quality amongcustomers of life insurancecompanies within private sector . Thisleads to the following hypotheses:

H3: The listed private sector lifeinsurance companies are perceived tobe similar by the customers withrespect to overall service quality.

H4: The listed private sector lifeinsurance companies are perceived tobe similar by the customers withrespect to each of the SERVQUALdimensions of the service quality.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The data was collected by using astructured questionnaire. Besideseliciting information on their life



insurance policies; the period of theirrelationship; and a few demographicvariables like age, education, and annualincome, the respondents were asked todistribute 100 points among the f iveSERVQUAL dimensions (reliability,tangibility, assurance, responsiveness,and empathy) based upon theimportance they would give to each oneof them as an indicator of the overallservice quality, which they ideally expecta life insurance company to provide.Subsequently, the respondents wereasked to rate the performance of five lifeinsurance companies on the samedimensions on a 7-point scale (1- veryslight possibility, totally dissatisf ied: 7-Certain, Practically certain, totallysatisf ied).

The Life insurance companies chosen bythe researcher for the study wereconsidered to be most representativeLife insurance company in India. Thepublic sector LIC is bigger in businessvolume and is also more popular. Lifeinsurance companies chosen fromprivate sector are four bank led listed lifeinsurance companies which are the top4 companies and contributing morethan 60% share amongst private lifeInsurance Company’s total First Yearpremium income. These were HDFCStandard life Insurance, ICICIPrudential Life Insurance, Max LifeInsurance and SBI Life InsuranceCompany Limited.

The final scores that were considered forevaluation were the weighted scores:(out of 100) that was allocated to aparticular dimension as per itsimportance to the respondent and the

score (between 1 to 7) that therespondent had allocated on the samedimension of SERVQUAL for a give nLife Insurance Company with which ithad an existing relationship. Forexample respondent may allocate 20points to the SERVQUAL dimension oftangibility and may rate LIC a 7 on thegiven dimension of tangibility then thescore considered for evaluating therespondent’s response is 140 (20*7). Theoverall score on the service qualitiescomprised of summation of theweighted score on all the SERVQUALdimensions.

The sample consisted of currentcustomer of various Life Insurancecompanies (both public sector and 4banks led listed private sector) namedLIC,HDFC Standard Life,SBI Life, ICICIPRU Life and Max Life insurance fromdifferent parts of Mumbai( the f inancialcapital of India) and New Delhi (thecapital of India). The samplingmethodology followed was convenienceand judgmental. The respondents werecustomers of public sector LIC and/ orbank led listed private sector lifeinsurance companies. Total number ofrespondents segregated on the basis oflife insurance companies and sectors areshown in Table I. The researcherconsidered respondents who haverelation with more than one of the Lifeinsurance companies under study. Thisenabled the researcher to understandhow a customer perceived the servicequality of one of the studied Lifeinsurance companies vis-a-vis anotherlife insurance company that is alsoconsidered for the study.

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Table 1 : Total number of responses segregated on the basis of LifeInsurance Companies and sector.

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

The mean score on the SERVQUALdimensions suggest that public sectorLIC scoresare higher than bank led

listed private life insurance companiesin overall perception of services and alsoin all individual dimensions (refer toTable 2).

Table 2 : Mean scores of the Life Insurance Companies on the SERVQUALdimensions as well as Mean overall score based on customer perception

of service quality provided



To test for H1,the researcher ran anindividual sample ttests between theoverall score for service quality for public

sector LIC vis-à-vis the four bank ledlisted private Life insurance companies(refer to Table no 3).

Table 3 : Independent sample t –test comparing overall service QualityRating between public sector life insurance company and bank led listed

private sector life insurance companies

From Table no 3, it is evident thataccording to my sample ofrespondentsthe overall perception ofservice quality provided by the publicsector LIC was signif icantly higher thanthe service quality provided by the bankled listed private life insurancecompanies. Hence H1 is rejected.

In order to test whether the lifeinsurance companies (public sector and

bank led listed private sector)considered in the research wereperceived to be similar by theircustomers with respect to each of theSERVQUAL dimensions of the servicequality (H2), the researcher ranindependent samples t tests. The resultsof the same are given in Table 4.

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Table 4 : Independent sample t –test comparing SERVQUAL dimensionsbetween public sector life insurance company and Bank led listed private

sector life insurance companies

From the results given in Table 4, it maybe inferred that customers perceived theservice quality of public sector LIC andthe bank led listed private sector lifeinsurance companies to be different.Among the f ive SERVQUAL dimensionsstudied, the respondents perceived thatthe public sector LIC is signif icantlybetter on reliability and assurance (at á= 0.01) and responsiveness (at á = 0.1)

dimension than bank led listed privatelife insurance companies.

To test if the listed private sector lifeinsurance companies are perceived to besimilar by the customer with respect tooverall service quality (H3), multiplecomparisons was done by Turkey HSDand LSD methods which are presentedin Table 5 and Table 6.

Table 5 : Multiple comparison comparing overall service quality ratingamong bank led listed private sector life insurance companies.

POST HOC TESTS

Tukey HSD



1. HDFC STD LIFE, 2. ICICI PRUDENTIAL, 3. MAX LIFE, 4. SBI LIFE

Table 6 : Multiple comparison comparing overall service quality ratingamong bank led listed private sector life insurance companies.

POST HOC TESTS (LSD)


The researcher further ran independentsample ttest comparing overall servicequality rating among listed private

sector life insurance companies. Theresult of the same is given in Table 7.

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Table 7 : Independent sample t-test comparing overall service qualityrating among bank led listed private sector life insurance companies.

From Table 5 and 6 it is inferred thatHDFC Standard Life signif icantlydiffered on the perceived overall servicequality dimension from SBI Lifeaccording to respondents of my study.When further analysis was conductedusing independent sample t-test it wasfound that the respondents perceivedHDFC Standard life to providesignificantly lower overall service quality

than SBI Life (at á= 0.05). Hence H3 ispartially rejected.

Finally to ascertain if the listed privatesector life insurance companies areperceived to be similar by the customerswith respect to each of the SERVQUALdimensions of the service quality (H4),multiple comparison was done byTurkey HSD method on the data. Theresults of the same are given in Table 8.

Table 8 : Multiplecomparison using Tukey HSD comparing SERVQUALdimensions among bank led listed private Life Insurance Companies.




Interestingly, according to therespondents, there was no signif icantdifference among the bank led listedprivate life insurance companies on anyof the f ive SERVQUAL dimensions.These results supported H4.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

Despite the efforts taken by the bank ledlisted private insurance companies ingenerating a distinct brand identity forthemselves, they have so far failed ineffectively achieving it. There might bea pertinent gap between the brandidentity promoted by the private lifeinsurance companies and the brandimage perceived by their customers.This is similar to the study conductedby O’Loughlin and Szmigin (2007) onthe banking sector in Ireland where theprivate banks are facing the difficulty increation of cohesive brandcommunication as acceptable to thecustomers of Ireland.

The perception of overall service qualityvaries between life insurance companiesin public sector and bank led listedprivate life insurance companies, withthe former category scoring betterresults on the given parameter than thelatter category. In addition, even withinprivate sector, customer perception onoverall service quality varied to someextent.

As compared to the scores of privatesector life insurance companies, thepublic sector LIC showed signif icantlyhigher scores on three of the f ivedimensions of SERVQUAL (reliability,tangibility and assurance) . Theempirical results brought forth the fact

that HDFC Standard life signif icantlydiffered on the perceived overall servicequality dimensions from SBI Life.

It was also observed from the mean scoreof service quality that in the customer -perception of brand image of the privatesector life insurers vis-à-vis public sectorLIC, the customers perceived the privatesector insurers in a similar manner or assame, whereas, the LIC as different ordistinct. The reliability and assurancefactors, where LIC scores signif icantlybetter than the rest might havecontributed to formation of suchperception on part of the customer.

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATION

In spite of great improvement amongthe bank led listed private life insurancecompanies over the last decade, they arestill perceived to provide a lower level ofservice quality as compared to the publicsector LIC. This image gap is on overallservice quality parameters i.e. three ofthe f ive dimensions of SERVQUAL(reliability, tangibility and assurance).Such image gap of private life insurancecompanies requires an urgent attentionfrom their top management.

Dynamic & continuous steps should betaken at the earliest to address theproblem at the earliest. Even after takingsuch enlightened steps, if the relativecustomer satisfaction remainssignif icantly low as compared to publicsector LIC, it is recommended thatprivate sector life insurance companiesshould try to create a valueconformance. It would enable theprivate life insurance companies togenerate direct positive effects like

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customer’s trust, commitment andloyalty toward the company, even in theabsence of customer satisfaction {Zhang&Bloemer (2008)}

Customers perceive the servicesprovided by the public sector LIC to besuperior to that of the bank led listedprivate life insurance companies.However, the Managers of the publicsector LIC should not lull themselvesinto comfort thinking that they arebetter than their competitors. LICshould try differentiating its servicesfrom the rest and more importantly, itshould ensure that the customerperceives its services different and betternot only from life insurance companiesfrom the other sector but also fromsimilar type of f inancial services. Theservice quality must be customer-centric, in line with its advertisement ofLIC “Jab LIC ka ho saath, to f iqr ki kyahai baat” (When you are with LIC, youneed not worry for anything).

The empirical results brought forth aninteresting insight for the Manager of apublic sector LIC- that it is critical forthem to focus on responsiveness andempathy dimension of service quality.Itis important to be understood thatservice quality is the sum total of all thedimensions and thus emphasis must beput wherein LIC lags, as per data analysisprovided in the survey. In layman’s term,the behaviour and response of the LICstaff should instil confidence and trustamong the customers. This, in turn,would positively affect the perception ofservice quality of LIC and would resultin positive image for the public sectorLIC. The SERVQUAL dimensions have

to be integrated and managed in totalityto maintain and increase the positiveimage of LIC.

As consumer’s purchase intension isrelated to perceived value of product, itis important for managers to worktowards the creation of perceived valuefor their product in market. Managerscan create perceived value for theirproducts in different way. They canhighlight the quality of their product onhigher level over the competitors. Thishelps consumers to differentiate productand leads to creation of superior value.Managers need to work on focus onpromoting the quality of their product,which would create superior perceptionabout the products quality and it willleads to superior perceived value.

Regarding the brand positioning andbrand image, we f ind that there is a gapbetween the corporate strategy & theactual consumer’s perception. Onstudying the brand communication ofthe private life insurance companiesunder study, focus on life insurance ismissing.

For example, HDFC Standard Life’sslogan/tagline is “Sar uthake jiyo” (Livewith pride), similarly ICIC Pru’s slogan/tagline is “Financial prosperity & peaceof mind”. Even Max Life says “Karo jyadaka Irada”(You intent for much). SBILife’s slogan/tagline reads “With us, youare sure”.

All these taglines don’t convey anymessage of life insurance or need forinsurance. There is a mismatch inTagline and actual services provided tothe customers.



THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONAND LIMITATIONS

The present research suggested thatcustomer perception of service forpublic sector LIC is better than fourbank led listed private life insurancecompanies. Factors like, quality andperceived value relationship is widelystudied in previous research. It will beinteresting further to understandrelationship between perceived qualityand perceived value. Behavioral priceand monetary price are key indicatorto create value in consumer mind andestablish value for money.

The limitations of this study may be itssize (568 respondents), which coverssamples from the metropolitan cities ofMumbai and New Delhi. In order togeneralise this study, more elaboratetesting on a broader base is required.Secondly, the researcher chose most ofthe respondents who were inrelationship with more than one lifeinsurance company. In the case wherethe respondents had a relationship withonly one life insurance company underthe study, the perception ratings couldhave been different, as the respondentwould not have a competitive frame ofreference.

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