Quality service in a large metropolitan healthcare facility's cafeteria: A Comparison of customer perceptions and management perceptions as measured by SERVQUAL

100% Customer Satisfaction is one of the most critical challengesmanagement in large, metropolitan health-care facilities will face as theymove into the next century. To achieve this goal, managers and administrators need to measure the quality of service they provide in theirfacilities, analyze the data collected to identify areas where improvements are necessary, and finally, develop appropriate actions toimplement the necessary improvements.This study focused on determining what implications does acomparison of customer and management/employee perceptionshave on a large, metropolitan health-care facility's cafeteria's qualityservice level? The project sought to answer this question by investigating potential differences (gaps) between customer and managementperceptions of quality service at a health-care facility in Upstate NewYork. The researcher used the perception questionnaires offered by themeasurement tool, SERVQUAL, which was developed by Zeithaml,Parasuraman, and Berry. The customers were clientele who frequent thisfacility and included doctors, nurses, support service staff, administrators,technical personnel, patients' families, and visitors. The managementgroup included the administrative, managerial, supervisory staff of theFood & Nutrition Services Department at this facility as well as thecafeteria's hourly employees.