PROPERTYQUAL: assessing property management service quality of office buildings in Malaysia / Zarita Ahmad @ Baharum

This study focuses on service quality in the property management services. Service quality is a very complex phenomenon due to the 'nature' of services. Although the results of the service and the tools/instruments it involves may be concrete, the service itself is abstract and difficult to define, in contrast to goods, which are concrete things. The characteristics of service have been summarised in terms of four basic features; i) service is intangible, ii) service is a process, iii) service is partly consumed or experienced at the time it is produced, and iv) the customer participates in the process of service production. Providing quality service is the criteria upon which the clients, customers, and users of property product and services differentiate one organisation from another. Property management companies are striving to deliver to their tenants not only their products and services, but also 'quality' and 'satisfaction' that may lead to increase economic returns on investment. This industry wide effort to deliver exceptional product/service quality and total tenant satisfaction continues to intensify in the marketplace as it is directly connected to the survival of the company. However, the study of service quality is very limited in the property management services and particularly in Malaysia The objectives of this study are to develop PROPERTYQUAL, a service quality instrument for property management services and to measure the expectations and perceptions of service quality between tenants and property managers of purpose built office buildings in Malaysia. The original contribution of the research work is the development of PROPERTYQUAL as an instrument to measure service quality in the property management services in Malaysia. Secondly, is the expansion of the theory of service quality and tenants satisfaction to the property management services. The identification of strategies to improve the existing service quality delivery in the property management services in Malaysia.