The main achievement of Jyske Bank was their ability to improve quality service and to deliver a service matching perfectly customers’ expectations.
The gap model of service quality, developed by V.A Zeithmal, A. Parasuraman and L.L Berry, in Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations, will help us to understand how Jyske Bank managed to close the gap between customers’ expectations and perceptions (the customer gap).
Briefly, the gap model states that an organization will improve its quality service and its services marketing (closing the customer gap) by closing the four provider gaps, which are:
1) Not knowing what customer expect
2) Not selecting the right service quality designs and standards
3) Not delivering to service designs and standards
4) Not matching performance to promise
Jyske Bank managed to close the first gap thanks to a good marketing research orientation. They conducted surveys to detect customers’ expectations. Thus they highlighted that customers’ expectations had changed: factors like price, product or location had become “basics” for customers, who focused more on differentiating factors like bankers’ behavior and interest toward customers.
Jyske Bank also implemented a good upward communication. Thanks to their re-organization of the structure (dissolution of headquarters), which leaded to less layers between top management and front-line employees, and thanks to a good intern communication between managers and contact employees, customers’ expectations were transmitted easily and quickly trough the firm.
Finally, the firm developed an effective relationship focus. They first decided to specialized only on two customer segments, Danish Families and Small-to-medium-sized companies, and to focus only on people sharing the Jyske Bank values. This strategy made it easier to understand customers’