The Impact of an Organizational Development Intervention on Service Quality in a Travel Agency to Reduce the Gap between Employees Perceptions and Customers Experience of Services Performed

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the impact of an organization Development  Intervention on Service Quality of a Travel Agency (XTT) in Surabaya, Indonesia. The research was designed based on five dimensions of service quality developed by Parasuraman (1990); namely, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy as a strategy to differentiate among travel agencies. The OD interventions on service qualities were conducted in several activities; such as: coaching, training, dialoguing, and providing feedback. They were carried out to  improve the service quality performed by employees in order to provide high quality customer service. It also disclosed action research and questionnaire feedback approach in three stages of Pre-ODI, ODI, and Post-ODI. The result of the measurement showed the gaps and differences between employees perception about the service quality and customers experience of service performed. Therefore, the researcher chose to explore Gap 4 out of 5 gaps from Parasuraman, since it explained most directly on service delivery and communication with customer; hence, it focuses on the service quality discrepancy when promises do not match delivery. It has the purpose of improving the internal service quality within the employees  in order to perform excellent service to customers.  In support of the need for behavior change on the part of employees, the researcher introduced the Whole Brain Literacy (Tayko 2014, 2017) approach to help shift the employees’ mindset into four thinking abilities namely: open-ended thinking, precision thinking, aim thinking, and feeling power thinking. The results of the t-Test after the interventions indicated that coaching, training, dialoguing, and providing feedback on service quality had a significant impact in developing the employees perception on the services perceived. Through OD interventions on service quality, employees at XTT were able to improve their service performance which could bring more positive rating from what customers experienced.