Assessing the quality of service provided by market research agencies

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of surveys of UK market research agencies and their clients using instruments adapted from those developed in the SERVQUAL approach (Zeithaml et al., 1990). This approach provides an insight into the important service features about which clients have expectations, as well as their perceptions of these features in the service they actually receive. In addition, an assessment is obtained of the understanding which market research agencies have of these client expectations. This particular study is unique in two ways: first, it is the first time that the SERVQUAL approach has been applied in this sector; second, unlike previous applications of the SERVQUAL approach, it considers the industry's understanding of clients' expectations rather than those of an individual service provider. As a result, industry benchmarks of clients' expectations reported in the study can be used by individual agencies to assess their own performance.