Evaluating the Service Quality of Police + 10 Offices Using SERVQUAL

The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of services delivered in “Police+10 offices” through the application of the SERVQUAL approach, which is an instrument for measuring service quality and identifying and analyzing the existing gaps between the expectations and perceptions of those who receive these services. In this paper, we examine the extent of existing gaps between the expectations and the services perceived by the customers of “Police +10 offices” in each of the five service quality dimensions, and then ranking these service quality dimensions on the basis of their relative importance from the customers’ viewpoints. The present research method is applied in its goals and objectives, and is descriptive with regard to the type and nature of the issue, goals, and research questions. We used a surveying method to gather information. All customers of the “Police +10” offices in Tehran form the statistical population of this investigation. Of this population, a statistical sample of 283 people was selected; they were given a standard questionnaire, which is referable in international studies, and the data collected by statistical methods were used for testing the research assumptions. The results of this investigation showed that there are gaps in the customers’ expectations of services and services delivered to them by the “police +10 offices” in all five service quality dimensions. As to the relative importance of each of these dimensions, assurance was the most important dimension, followed in order by reliability, responsibility, and empathy. Tangibles were the least important dimension. Moreover, the largest gap between expectations and perceptions was in tangible dimension, and the smallest gap between these areas was associated to the reliability dimension.