Service sector is under pressure to deliver continuing performance and quality improvement while being customer-focused. In recent terms, there exists web based or electronic service quality (e-sq) concept. With the birth of electronic commerce, it has become important to be able to monitor and enhance e-sq. Therefore, this study will examine the e-sq concept and determine the key components of e-sq. The e-sq framework is employed by the aid of service quality (SERVQUAL) methodology as the theoretical instrument. Finally, proposed e-sq framework is illustrated with a web service performance example of healthcare sector in Turkey by using a combined multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methodology containing fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). The work presented in this paper shows the applicability of the e-sq framework in explaining the complexity of aspects observed in the implementation of healthcare services via internet.
From now on, firms must compete not only with internal firms, but also with external firms in today’s global conditions. It is very important to get the whip hand of competition by providing the congruity of the services to the expectations of consumers. It is also important to achieve a desirable, qualified service because quality is achieved when the needs and expectations of the customer are met. By the meaning, the qualities of the services should be measured.
Also in recent terms there exists web based or e-service quality (e-sq) concept. With the birth of electronic commerce (e-commerce), it has become important to be able to monitor and enhance e-sq. So in this study, e-sq concept and the accompanying e-sq of healthcare sector are researched and analyzed. There are many affords to measure e-sq, but service quality (SERVQUAL) methodology (Brown et al., 1993, Cronin and Taylor, 1992 and Parasuraman et al., 1985) is chosen because it is the most used and preferred methodology. Our aim is to adapt the SERVQUAL instrument to assess healthcare e-sq. While a significant body of academic literature exists on service quality in healthcare industry (Babakus and Mangold, 1992, Bakar et al., 2008, Bowers and Kiefe, 2002, Chae et al., 2003, Chang et al., 2011, Isaac et al., 2010, Lee et al., 2000 and Li, 1997), little is known about e-sq (Bilsel et al., 2006, Bose, 2003, Chang, 2007, Chou and Chou, 2002, Gruca and Wakefield, 2004, Hadwich et al., 2010 and Provost et al., 2006).
To effectively evaluate e-sq, both qualitative and quantitative factors must be considered. Thus, e-sq performance measurement is a kind of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. This study includes a combined fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) (Saaty, 1980) and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) (Hwang & Yoon, 1981) methods to measure e-sq performance. Fuzzy set theory aids (Zadeh, 1965) in measuring the ambiguity of concepts that are associated with human being’s subjective judgment. Since the performance evaluations are done with decision makers’ preferences, its evaluation must therefore be conducted in an uncertain, fuzzy environment. Also by applying AHP in obtaining criteria weight and TOPSIS in ranking, the comprehensiveness and reasonableness of the e-sq measurement process is strengthened.
The paper is organized as follows: In the second section, the background of e-sq is examined by literature survey. Then in the third section, e-sq concept is discussed in healthcare industry. After expressing the methodology of the study in section four, section five presents the case study. Finally, the sixth section concludes the paper.
The objective of the research was, to use a hybrid multi criteria technique which combines fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS to evaluate a set of hospital web site alternatives in order to reach to best qualified alternative that satisfies the needs and the expectations of customers. After a comprehensive literature survey, e-sq framework was proposed for the quality assessment of the hospital web sites by aiding SERVQUAL tool. The e-sq instrument developed in this study can be used to monitor and improve the quality of service delivered to customers via internet. According to the case study, results showed that hospitals should focus more on specialization, interactivity and the accuracy of service (sub-criteria); reliability and responsiveness (main criteria) to perform satisfying and qualified web service.
Humans are often uncertain in assigning the evaluation scores. There for AHP and TOPSIS methods are performed in fuzzy environment to capture this difficulty. There are many other multi-attribute evaluation methods to use in evaluation of web based healthcare service quality (i.e. Analytic network process (Saaty, 1996)). Further research may be the application of a hybrid method that combines ANP and TOPSIS methods to the service quality performance problem and the comparison of the results. The model also could be applied to several studies to investigate how customers’ perceptions and evaluations of web based service quality change over time.
