Purpose and Scope of the Study

Discuss about the Research on Service Quality Level of Yamaha Music School Servqual Model.

Background and Overview

Music has the power to form characters, gives wings to mind and soul to mind. As an academic subject, music not enriches social benefits but also gives life to everything. Music technology is developing at a fast rate, and the music schools are also increasing at a significant rate (Harris, 2013). These music schools provide the opportunities to become world class composer, music teachers or performers.  However, from the research, it is discovered that the major weaknesses lies in the service quality of music schools which must be improved to gain competitive advantages and to retain higher customer satisfaction.

Service quality is the cornerstone of any organization to increase its market share, to achieve maximum economic growth and to sustain high customer satisfaction. This proposal will present the case study of Yamaha School, JAPAN (One of the leading music organizations of the world) to evaluate the factors which can improve the service quality of the organization. This organization serves 6,000,000 students at present date and almost people from 40 countries learn music from this school. Ho et al. (2013) stated that service quality connects customer perceptions with customer expectations. From the past few decades, the music schools make large improvements in their learning processes and strategies to provide bets quality music experience to the customers. Chao (2015) showed that there is a positive correlation between employees’ and customers’ attitude and their perceptions of service quality. However, Panni and Sarker (2013) opined that effectiveness of the company has direct and significant impacts on service quality. But analyzing the recent trend, SERVQUAL model is become very popular which is very crucial to measure service quality in terms of reliability, assurance and responsiveness. 

Purpose: The major purpose of this proposal is to enhance the service quality of Yamaha School, so that people can take this passion as career and can achieve greater success in this field. Enhanced service quality will help to create potential opportunities for the learners to play the musical instruments properly and can also be able to learn singing to a next level. As because Yamaha Music School is a service provider organization, customers’ needs and demands should be prioritized at first (Rahmana et al., 2014). Therefore, it is very necessary to lay emphasis on the service areas of this music organization, so that customers’ loyalty can be ensured and more customers can be attracted towards the organization. In addition, SERVQUAL model will be also tested in this research work to use its applicability to measure the relation between customer satisfaction and service quality. 

Problem Statement

Scope: The scope of this research study is to analyze the existing business model of Yamaha School and how they provide services to their students or people come to learn music in this organization.

According to Mokhtar and Husain (2015), in Japan, music institutions always try to teach people to play music instruments and signing in best possible way. Yamaha Music School is one of the top music organizations of Japan, from where people won national as well as international awards and these are counted as one of the best music professionals of the world. However, the problem lies in the fact that poor teaching of music and other service delivery problems create significant negative impacts on customers’ satisfaction as well as organizational reputation. Vaz and Mansori (2013) opined that service failure happens when customers’ demands are not fulfilled as per their perceptions. This leads to destroy the relationship between the organization and its potential customers. Music can be learnt in its best way when the relationship between teachers and students is positive.

Therefore, it becomes very necessary that the whole organization should follow standardized practices and processes so that customers will be served by giving best music experience to them. In order to achieve that, communication of the organization must be improved close the gaps and enhance the quality of service. In this aspect, SERVQUAL model will be proposed by the researcher. It is a conceptual model which analyzes the existing loopholes in the present services of the industry and then based on those analysis, solutions can be taken to mitigate the problems from grass root level.

The researcher mainly tries to highlight the issues related to service quality of the music organization and its impacts on the customer satisfaction. In respect to that, the researcher sets up the following questions which are as follows

• What are the major factors influencing service quality of Yamaha Music School?
• What will be the benefits of using SERVQUAL model in Yamaha Music School?
• What is the alternative solution to improve the service level of Yamaha Music School?

This research study helps to determine the dimensions which bring customer satisfaction and the service quality received by the consumers. The researcher mainly tries to highlight the best possible ways to close the service quality gaps of Yamaha Music School, so that area of improvements can be identified properly. By considering these aspects the researcher has set the following objectives

• To identify the factors influencing service quality of Yamaha Music School
• To evaluate the level of service quality at Yamaha Music School with SERVQUAL model
• To improve the level of service quality at Yamaha Music School

Hypothesis 1:

H₀: There is no relation between perceived quality of music program and prior expectations of the students

H₁: There is relation between perceived quality of music program and prior expectations of the students

Research Questions

Hypothesis 2:

H₀: There is no association between students’ satisfaction with music program and prior expectations

H₂: There is association between students’ satisfaction with music program and prior expectations

The proposal understands the needs of improved service quality to achieve higher customer satisfaction and significant economic profit for the organizational well fare. The main agenda of this proposal is to measure the usefulness of SERVQUAL model in enhancing service level of Yamaha Music School. 

Service Quality

Enayati et al. (2013) opined that service quality is a major aspect which helps to differentiate one organization from its competitors. The purpose of service quality is emphasized strongly in this section as it can help the organizations to strive for service excellence and to achieve higher customer satisfaction. Service quality can be defined as the difference between the perception of received service and customers’ expectations. Customers’ expectations are the foundation to evaluate service quality because when performance exceeds the expectations quality is high and when the performance does not meet all the requirements quality is low (Akbari & Darabi, 2015). While, perceived service is the result of customers’ expectations which can be functional or technical in nature.

According to Hudson et al. (2015), wider opportunities program (WO) should be developed in music institutions because it has high level impacts on the social, cultural, personal and educational areas of the organizational learning space. The positive impacts on the perceptions and expectations through WO program is illustrated as follows

Table 1: Impacts of WO Program on Service Quality of Music Institutions

(Source: Shirkavand, Hossein & Mokhtarihesar, 2015, pp-445)

As stated by Amiri Aghdaie and Faghani (2012), educators and students are engaged in value exchange relationship where needs of these actors depend on each other and it reflect organizational capabilities to make a respectable place for itself. In any institution weather it is a music organization, educational college or sports club, pupils come to enhance their knowledge with greater excellence and experience. According to Rezaei et al. (2015), music institutions are the place where people not only come to play musical instruments but also try to develop their personal life in a different way. In addition, large number of pupils or customers represents place of the organization in this competitive market world. Therefore, the organizations should take the initiatives to closely monitor the service gaps present in the organization, so that best possible solutions can be found out to mitigate them for organizational growth and reputation. In this aspect, students’ satisfaction largely depends on some crucial factors such as learning environment, interactions between pupils and teachers, learning process and others. The teaching environment of the organization should be properly designed with well-planned tasks and schedules that can accumulatively and progressively extend the music skills of the pupils (Sulieman, 2013). The music sessions should be provided equally to all the students so that everyone gets fair opportunities to play musical instruments and to learn singing. Guitar and cello session improves play a significant role in this aspect to improve the sound quality as well as overall performance of the students.

Research Objectives

According to Ebrahimi ande Imani (2014), with the improvements in music provision, quality of teaching can be enhanced. Music teachers should focus o simple methods so that the students can learn in an easy way and can achieve higher excellence in the field of music. The organization should take proper steps to develop the aural skills amongst the students through constant talking and modeling activities. Whenever the students will be able to hear and repeat the sounds properly, music teachers can use notations to learn singing and to play instruments with proper efficiencies. Ebrahimi and Farhadi (2014) mentioned that, all the activities should be properly planned which can help the students not only to consolidate but also to enhance their music learning with quality. Ayoubian et al. (2015) highlighted a major point that, advanced technologies play significant role in the extension and enhancement of music teaching and also helps to inspire and motivate pupils with greater collaboration and communication.

Some of the advanced technologies which can be employed in music learning are foot controllable looping hardware, portable hub rehearsal devices and many others. Foot controllable looping hardware allows the students to develop structure and modify the ideas to record without creating any interference to entire music making process (Islam, 2012). On the other hand, portable hub rehearsal device enables the students to create and rehearse compositions without disturbing others. These devices help to facilitate composition and expression and can also capture the sound layers before importing it to the software for further processing. Some easy and simple technical devices such as digital media players and recording devices help to record music and also help to explore alternative solutions for better composition and evaluation as well. There are some advanced software tools which can allow the pupils to compose and record tracks (Tabarraei & Mohebi, 2014). In addition, integration of software application in music environment also enables the students to manipulate the pitch and to experiment with different tempos, durations and dynamics. Online learning platform is another best strategy which can be adopted by music institutions which contribute a lot to provide remote teaching facilities to pupils who live in isolated communities.

Harris (2013) acknowledged that, in order to measure customers’ satisfaction regarding various aspects of service quality, researchers have developed SERVQUAL model. By the use of this model, students can measure the service quality of the organization. According to Chao (2015), SERVQUAL model is a measurement tool which can be applied across the industry and reliable assessment of this tool helps to identify the gaps between customers’ perception of actual performance and customers’ expectations from the service.

Research Hypothesis

Figure 1: Dimensions of SERVQUAL Model

(Source: Panni & Sarker, 2013, pp-15)

According to Mokhtar and Husain (2015), there are all total 97 attributes which have greater impacts on service quality of the industry. These attributes are very useful to assess customers’ perceptions as well as expectations on the delivered service of the industry. In the first development stage, these 97 attributes have been decomposed into twelve factors related to service quality which is tangibles, reliability, communication, credibility, responsiveness, competence, security, courtesy, knowing, understanding, access and customers (Vaz & Mansori, 2013). In the second stage, these twelve components are subdivided into five dimensions and integrated into the SERVQUAL model.

Tangibility: This helps to monitor the effectiveness of tangible resources, equipment, physical facilities and attitude of personnel on the service filed industry.

Reliability: This ensures the fact weather the organization or system has the capability to deliver promised services accurately or not.

Responsiveness: It represents the will of the organizations to help the customers with prompt services (Enayati et al., 2013). 

Assurance: It defines the courtesy and knowledge of employees in addition to that their abilities to inspire confidence and trust.

Empathy: By this organization can provide attention to their individual customers, so that need of every customer can be fulfilled with greater satisfaction.

Figure 2: Conceptual Framework of SERVQUAL Model

(Source: Akbari & Darabi, 2015, pp-105)

From the above-presented diagram, five major gaps of service industries are identified which are assessed through SERVQUAL model.

Table 2: Gaps Identified through SERVQUAL Model

(Source: Achhnani & Garg, 2014, pp-5)

Gap 1 is defined as Management Perception Gap. Large differences between customers’ expectations and managements’ perceptions lead to customer dissatisfaction which has significant negative impacts on the organizational brand image. Ineffective communication between the customer and business supportive leads to unhealthy business relationships (Islam et al., 2013).  Gap 2 is known as Quality Specification Gap which occurs due to misperceptions of management while dealing with customers’ needs and requirements. Gap 3 is Service Delivery Gap which occurs when the organization is unable to deliver prompt services as they promised to the customers. Shirkavand, Hossein and Mokhtarihesar (2015) mentioned this as a difference between service delivery of the providers and customer drove service design and standards. According to Amiri Aghdaie and Faghani (2012), it is the sole responsibility of the management of the organization who should audit the entire business process to ensure the fact that customers’ needs are fulfilled as per their expectation level. Gap 4 is the reflection of Market Communication Gap which signifies discrepancy between promised service and the actual one.  In order to draw customers’ attention, the organizations promised to deliver high quality products or services which may not be possible to deliver. This kind of differences creates high conflict situations inside the organization. The last identified gap is known as Perceived Service Quality Gap which is the mismatch between perceived service and expected service. Rezaei et al. (2015) mentioned that, in this case, organizational needs or individual authorities’’ needs are prioritized first rather than customers’ requirements.

Summary

After analyzing the facts of SERVQUAL model, it has been observed that in Yamaha Music School there are some loopholes present in the existing service model. Various causes of these gaps and its best possible solutions are described in the following table

Table 3: Service Gaps and Solutions for Yamaha Music School

(Source: Islam, 2012, pp-50)

 However, several critiques highlighted the loopholes of SERVQUAL model such that it only focuses on the service delivery process but do not bother about the final output.  But as opined by Tabarraei and Mohebi (2014), SERVQUAL model has greater advantages which are beneficial from organizational perspectives. It can properly track customers’ perception and expectation over time to enhance the service quality with greater efficiency.

Research Design

According to Alvesson and Sandberg (2013), research design is the overall strategy which integrates different components of the research study in a logical and coherent way. Research design is a sequential approaches of research methodology helps to obtain accurate results which will give a support to the validity of the research work (Novikov &  Novikov, 2013). Useful applications of research methodology helps to gain detail and better analysis to understand the fact that enhanced service quality is a mirror reflection of organizational reputation and image.

Method Outline

Method outline helps the researcher to adopt suitable design types (Exploratory, Descriptive or Explanatory), research approach (Inductive or Deductive) and sampling technique (Probability or non-probability sampling) which can be used in the research proposal to gain accurate results (Brown & Stowers, 2013). The method outline also helps to select data analysis technique to evaluate the responses of the selected sample size. Systematic structure of method outline contributes to analyze the research topic in a clear and precise manner. 

Thomas (2013) acknowledged that, appropriate research approach is very crucial to conduct the research study properly so that theoretical approaches can be aligned with practical applications in a perfect way. Two types of research approaches can be used; one is inductive and other is deductive approach. By analyzing the utilization of research approaches, deductive approach will be selected for this research work. Inductive approach helps to establish new theories related to the selected topic. Inductive approach includes inductive reasoning which generally starts with theories and observations and ends with results of the observations. Deductive approach helps to build theories related to selected topic more specifically, so that further analysis can be done by the researcher in a proper way. It basically helps to develop hypothesis based on theories and research strategies (Popping, 2012). At the end of the research work, this helps to draw accurate conclusion from the selected research topic.

Literature Review

This is used to explain the research framework which can be explanatory, descriptive or exploratory (Mitchell & Jolley, 2013). The researcher uses descriptive design to conduct this research proposal towards right direction. Descriptive design aims to obtain proper details about each event with proper and detail descriptions.

People who are directly or indirectly engaged in the research work are known as population. Small representation of this population is known as sample size. For this research proposal, students of different years from Yamaha Music School would be chosen as intended population. Total 100 students will be selected from Yamaha Music School which quantifies the opinions of larger sample population. Close ended questionnaire will be distributed amongst these students to get their feedback.

In order to analyze the opinions of the selected students from Yamaha Music School, non-probability sampling technique will go perfect. According to Al (2013), non-probability sampling technique is useful to analyze the topic in details and can help to understand the complex phenomenon of the research work. The entire research work will be based on primary research and the collected data from the students will be evaluated through quantitative analysis technique.

Models are used to analyze the collected data, to interpret results from those procedures and to draw accurate result at the end of the work (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). Basically two types of analysis techniques can be used in academic research proposal one is qualitative and another is quantitative. As per the nature of the research study, mixed approach of these two techniques can also be used. For this research work, the researcher suggests quantitative analysis technique which helps to record the opinions of large number of sample sizes. It helps to understand the facts in a scientific way with the help of mathematical models and statistical calculations (Brown & Stowers, 2013). Furthermore, responses that will be collected from the students of Yamaha Music School will be evaluated through MS Excel sheet and multiple regression models. Analysis of data through these advanced models help to channelize raw data into the research topic and convert it into useful knowledge.

After completion of this research work, the researcher tries to find out the issues lie in the service model of Yamaha Music School which affects students’ expectations negatively. This will also help to analyze the effectiveness of SERVQUAL model to identify the service gaps of music sector and to solve them with best possible solutions.

The researcher tries to maintain all the ethical rules and norms to conduct this research study in a proper way. The participants who are engaged in this research work are not pressurized mentally, so that all the collected information is valid and reliable. Collected data will be used for academic purposes only and commercialization of those data is avoided throughout the research work. All the participants of this are treated with respect and provided fair and equal opportunities so that their welfare is protected. Moreover, their personal or any other information is not revealed without their concern.

The researcher subdivides large number of activities in smaller ones with the application of Gantt chart. It is very useful technique to display the research or project activities against time. In addition, it also displays additional information about each task which is designed to complete the research proposal. According to Mitchell and Jolley (2013), the research project puts on Gantt chart helps to manage the resources properly and set the estimates according to that. With this project scheduling, Gantt chart also helps to assess the progress of the research which is a crucial thing.

Table 1: Gantt chart

(Source: Created by Author)

Conclusion

Conclusively, it can be stated that utilization of SERVQUAL model not only helps to identify the gaps but also contributes a lot to take appropriate solutions to militate against the problems. In Yamaha Music School problems arise from various business ends which should be assessed properly to analyze its impacts on customer satisfaction. Based on those analyses, proper solutions can be adopted to maintain sustainable position in the competitive world. The solutions proposed in the literature review section will help to enhance the music experience of Yamaha Music School with the best quality experience.

References

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