Perceived service quality and its improvement with QFD for state social enterprises (SSEs).

Purpose: In health services, the perceived service quality plays a preponderant role in its continuous improvement. This study sought to integrate the perceived service quality as the customer's voice in the quality function deployment (QFD) for the improvement of healthcare services in the city of Tunja, Colombia.

Design/methodology/approach: A study was carried out with the adaptation of the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF scales applied to a sample of 378 users of a State Social Company (SSE). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was developed to find the factors that influence the quality of the health service under study and integrate them into a QFD matrix, whose output is the criteria for service improvement.

Findings: The QFD analysis allowed the formulation of twelve improvement actions for the quality of the service provided by the SSE. Consequently, the improvement in health services can be achieved through the voice of the customer and the identification of priority technical conditions to intervene in the service.

Originality/value: In the case of the context under study and for outpatient ambulatory care services, it is the first study on the dimensions of perceived quality that influence the outpatient service and from these results to use QFD to generate improvement alternatives to the service.