A finished MKT-650 Topic 2 service quality gap diagnosis example, measuring a property manager's expectation and perception gap and tracing it to listening, design, delivery and communication. Searches like "mkt 650 topic 2 assignment example", "mkt650 topic 2 sample" and "mkt-650 topic 2 example" land here.
What a finished MKT-650 Topic 2 service quality gap diagnosis looks like
Tenant survey results open the finished diagnosis, every figure labeled illustrative. On a SERVQUAL-style instrument pairing expectation and perception items, the widest shortfall is in responsiveness: tenants expect a non-urgent repair within two days and perceive an average closer to five. The diagnosis then works backward. Managers ranked amenities as tenants' top concern, while tenants ranked repair speed first, which is the listening gap. No written standard for response time exists, only a policy saying repairs happen promptly, which is the design gap. Once dispatched, technicians finish most jobs on the first visit, so the delivery gap is modest. The leasing brochure advertises 24-hour maintenance, which tenants read as a promise about ordinary repairs, and the diagnosis names that communication gap as the largest single cause.
How an MKT-650 Topic 2 example is structured
The customer gap is measured first, and the provider gaps are examined in the order the model presents them. An initial section records the director's explanation and states why it is treated as a hypothesis. The measurement section describes the survey, its paired expectation and perception items across the five dimensions associated with SERVQUAL, and the response rate. Results follow as a table of expectation, perception and the difference for each dimension. The diagnosis then takes each provider gap in turn, listening, design and standards, delivery and communication, stating the evidence for it and its estimated share of the shortfall. A section returns to the director's hypothesis and shows why the technicians account for the smallest part. The closing section assigns each gap a fix owned by a different function, from leasing copy to dispatch standards.
The director's explanation held as a hypothesis
Blaming technicians is recorded as one possible cause and tested alongside the others, so the diagnosis does not begin by accepting the answer it was handed.
Responsiveness as the widest shortfall
Paired survey items show tenants expecting routine repairs within two days and perceiving nearly five, the largest difference among the five dimensions measured.
Managers ranking the wrong concern
Leadership placed amenities first while tenants placed repair speed first, which the diagnosis identifies as a listening gap between customer expectation and management belief.
Promptly, a standard nobody can meet
Without a stated response time, dispatchers had no target to schedule against, so the design gap sits in the policy wording rather than in the field.
A brochure promise read literally
Advertised 24-hour maintenance meant emergency coverage to the company and a quick routine repair to tenants, and that communication gap drives much of the disappointment.
Each gap assigned a different owner
Leasing rewrites its copy, operations sets a response standard and dispatch changes its scheduling, so no single department is handed a problem it cannot fix alone.
Where marks go in MKT-650 Topic 2
Diagnoses that stop at the customer gap, reporting that tenants are dissatisfied, give away the most, since the model exists to explain why the gap opened. A frequent error at graduate level is attributing the whole shortfall to delivery, which accepts the director's framing and ignores whether expectations were set by the company's own advertising. Survey results reported as perception scores alone, with no expectation measure beside them, cannot show a gap at all. Papers that name all four provider gaps and weight them equally miss that the evidence rarely does. SERVQUAL is sometimes presented as the model itself rather than as the instrument associated with measuring one part of it, and markers notice the confusion. Fixes assigned to a single department, usually retraining for technicians, leave the listening and communication gaps untouched.
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MKT-650 Topic 2 questions, answered
What is the gaps model of service quality?
A framework developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry that treats service quality as the difference between what customers expect and what they perceive, called the customer gap, and traces it to four gaps inside the provider: not knowing what customers expect, not designing standards to match, not delivering to those standards, and promising more than delivery achieves. The example uses the model to locate the cause before proposing any fix.
What is SERVQUAL?
A survey instrument associated with the gaps model that measures customer expectations and perceptions on paired items across five dimensions: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. Subtracting one score from the other estimates the customer gap for each dimension. It has been debated in the literature, including over whether expectations should be measured separately at all, and the example uses a version of it only to measure the gap the model then explains.
Can a company's own marketing lower perceived quality?
Yes, by raising expectations above what delivery provides. A tenant who reads that maintenance is available around the clock may reasonably expect a leaking tap fixed the same day, and a two-day repair that would otherwise satisfy then disappoints. The communication gap is often the cheapest to close, since it requires changing what is promised, and the example's largest recommended fix is a rewrite of the leasing brochure.