Perceived Service Quality Model
In 1982, Christian Gronroos, of the Swedish School of Economic, Helsinki, Finland, introduced The Perceived Service Quality Model . According to Gronroos, service quality studies and subsequent model development has from the beginning beenbased on what customers perceive as quality. In other words, service quality is an outgrowth of the marketing concept; focus on the customer. What is important is what is perceived as quality by the customer and not what designers or operations people feel is good or bad quality.
According to the Perceived Service Quality model , the quality of a service, as perceived by the customer, is the result of a comparison between the expectations of the customer and his or her real-life experiences. If the “experienced quality” exceeds “expected quality,” the “total perceived quality” is positive. If expectations are not met by performance or the actual experience, the perceived quality is low. There are multiple customers in an internship program: students, internship suppliers, and sponsoring entities, for example. Final success is dependent on initial expectations compared to actual performance.
