The Gaps Model of Service Quality

There is this popular framework that is related to service quality management, it is called The Gaps Model of Service Quality (I think: Zeithaml et al. (2000)). Briefly, the framework says that there is a group of gaps that eventually influence the difference between what the customer is expecting and what he/she is perceiving, which is also linked to the level of satisfaction of the customer.

• Gap 1 is between what customer is expecting & what management 'thinks' customer is expecting

• Gap 2 is between what management 'thinks' customer is expecting & the standard they chose to satisfy this expectation

• Gap 3 is between the standard chosen by management & the product/service being delivered

• Gap 4 is between product/service being delivered & what is being communicated about this product/service to customers

However, my post today is more of a reflection upon this model. An intriguing phenomena that I witness nowadays in this world, specifically related to the ideology of the extremists.

• Gap 1: is the original source of information a flawless one or is this just an assumption? how accurate is this source? does it fit within the right context?

• Gap 2: if the piece of information is being carried through a middleman, has this person fully and correctly understood this piece of information? has this person correctly explained this piece of information to its final destination? gap 2 is of course cascaded in case there was a group of middlemen (instead of one).

• Gap 3: has the final recipient accurately comprehended this piece of information? any distortion along the way?

I am really shocked to see how people tend to underestimate the first two gaps and to totally exclude the third gap from the equation - which is related to their own understanding of things. I am also shocked to realize that the threat of extremism is not that far away. It is ok to make assumptions, as long as we keep in mind how devastating an inaccurate assumption could be. You know, there are gaps of knowledge too.

How to Immigrate to Australia (Skilled Independent Visa - subclass 189)

Disclaimer: I am not an official immigration consultant, this blog post is an attempt to collect some useful information in one source.

The skilled independent visa of Australia (subclass 189) allows you to work and live in Australia (and New Zealand) and is the first step to becoming an Australian citizen. Here is the general concept, you get points based on a group of factors (age, professional experience, marital status etc.. details here: link), getting 65 points almost guarantees that you will get the visa. The whole process takes around one year and costs about JOD 3,000.

Step #1: Professional Consultation

Visit Reach Immigration, (link, contacts: +962-65521114  and +962-795999429). No, I do not get any commission from these guys but they are really professional. You can ask them for a general consultation about your chances and accordingly proceed with them or go through the process on your own.

Step #2: The IELTS Exam

Usually you need to get a band 7 in each of the four sections of the exam. It is not so easy to do this right from the first time, here are some useful tips (link).

* important update (Nov 2015): I recently heard that you can take the PTE test instead of IELTS, which is relatively better pearsonpte.com/test-takers/test/

Step #3: Skills Assessment

Cost: JOD 300, duration: three months

Australia is looking for certain skills, this list (link) has the occupations that are in demand and the corresponding assessing authorities. So, for example ICT business Analysts are assessed through ACS (The Australian Computer Society). There is a ceiling for the occupations as well (link, occupation ceilings tab) which is reset every year in July.

It is not a matter of the job title itself, but the assessing authority has to evaluate the duties handled within the job and make sure it fits with the academic qualification of the applicant. Here is a sample of duties for what ACS considers a business analyst (link), the obtained work letter should also match the official template of the assessing authority (example: ACS template link).

The assessing authority requests certified copies of original documents, the Australian embassy in Amman is authorized to stamp such documents and they are very cooperative and professional. Book an appointment first (+96265807000, extension: 125), you would have to stamp a copy of your passport, the employment letter, and academic qualifications (degree and transcript of courses) where it costs JOD 20 to stamp each document.

Then you upload a scanned copy of the documents to the assessing authority (example: for ACS link) and the assessing authority in its turn sends back a result via email.

Step #4: Submitting an Expression of Interest (EOI)

Cost: free, duration: one month

The department of immigration introduced this step to make the process more efficient. Applicants do not have to upload any documents in this stage, but if the result of the EOI is positive, it means that there is a high certainty that the applicant will get the visa given that the details he/she provided earlier were all accurate. EOI should be submitted through SkillSelect (link). The same link has some useful details, such as the invitation rounds tab which shows a log of previous invitation rounds.

I am not 100% sure about this but as far as I know, state sponsorship can be requested within the EOI (Skilled Nominated Visa - subclass 190). Applying for this visa gets the applicants 5 extra points but also means he/she has to work in the sponsoring state for the first two years.

Step #5: Apply for the Visa

Cost: JOD 2,500, duration: three months

An EOI positive response email will have a link that automatically leads to the visa application portal (this one: link) fees are payable using a credit card. After several weeks of submitting the application a case officer is assigned, who will ask the applicant to provide any remaining documents such as:

1) Birth certificate in English: can be obtained from the Civil Status and Passport Department of Jordan (1st circle, next to the Iraqi embassy).

2) Supporting evidence in regards to the work experience.

3) Police check: a non-conviction certificate can be obtained from the court in Abdali but it would be in Arabic language. You have then to translate it from an authorized office, Al-Zahra' Translation Center (+962-799404022) is opposite to the court and can do this in one day. Then you have to ratify the document from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in rainbow street. (update, Aug'16: you can now submit your request to issue a non-conviction certificate online, and it can be issued in English, so there would be no need for a translation service, check out the details here:  www.7aleva.com/2016/08/issuing-certificate-of-non-criminal.html )

4) Evidence of Health: there is a list of clinics that are officially recognized by the Australian embassy (link). Dr Amy Khoury clinic is open on Saturdays and she is super friendly, the medical check costs JOD 130.

Last but not least, I want to thank Tareq, Rami, Feras, Taimour, Laila, Ala, Bashar and Omar, this post would not have been published without your help.

Ps. Here is a blog that has more details about immigration to Australia (link).

Qualitative & Quantitative Research

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research" - Albert Einstein.
I really admire research! Research is powerful enough to helps us reduce the risk of making a bad choice. Essentially in terms of business, research is conducted to discover customers' needs and to see if these needs are worth catering for through a product/service. Yet we also use research in our daily life (esp. Qualitative research), there are two main sorts of research:

* Qualitative Research

When you intend to buy a new car, or decide on your upcoming holiday destination you ask some friends about their recommendations. These are all examples of Qualitative research, you look for what some people are doing and try to pick an option from that list. This type of research helps us build new knowledge and expand the list of options.

Interviews and focus groups are amongst the popular tools to conduct Qualitative research, having a diverse group of participants (age, gender, background etc..) ensures richer findings. The thing about Qualitative research though is that the findings cannot be generalized, and this is where Quantitative research comes into place.

* Quantitative Research
This sort of research is used to reduce findings to the ones that are really important, in other words helps us make a scientific conclusion.

A popular tool to hold such research is a survey, but the sample should have at least 30 respondents (of course having more respondents better represents the population). Quantitative research involves sophisticated mathematical sorts of analysis using SPSS or MS Excel tools (including correlation, anova, t-test, chi-square, analysis.. the list goes on) and the what so called P-value, which if less than 0.05 means the observation is not happening due to chance or in other words is statistically significant.

One last thing, sometimes people unintentionally express thoughts that are different than what they really have in mind. So, findings are not sacred. And what does this picture have to do with research? Simply, research usually leaves you happy with the end result!

How to Get a Band 7 in the IELTS Exam

Fresh from the oven!

Finally, after three trials I got a band 7 in the General Training IELTS exam. I thought of sharing some useful tips, which are put below in the same order of the different parts of the exam (If you are taking the TOEFL, click here).

Speaking

Be calm and confident, just as if you are having a normal conversation with a friend. The second part is the toughest as the minute you spend on preparing your answer goes too fast while talking for two minutes seems to take a very long time.
If you have the option, do the Speaking test on a different day and remember that you don't get extra points for the accent. It is also useful to memorize some fillers to use them in case you run out of words (ex. that's a good question, let me think, I cannot find the word for that ..). Finally, take a deep breath when you get confused and as the examiner is asking the question.

Listening

Focus, focus and focus! As you proceed towards the last section, the speed of the conversation increases and you have more blanks to fill. If you miss one blank proceed directly to the next one, otherwise you might mess more blanks.

The narrator spends time explaining the task before the actual exam, you can utilize this idle time to read the questions and try to predict the answers, especially for the last section. Silly mistakes could happen as well, I once made a mistake in copying my answers to the answer sheet, please don't do that.

Reading

The trick about this part is to read the questions first then move to skim the passages for the answers, otherwise if you start by reading the whole passages you will run out of time. The good thing about the Reading exam is that the questions come in the same order of the passages, though the bad thing is it is a bit tougher than the Listening section (a mistake here costs half a mark, while in Listening 3 mistakes still get you 8.5).

Writing
In my opinion, this is the dullest part of the exam, I had to repeat the exam for the third time because I was short of 0.5 mark in the Speaking exam and all the extra effort I put hardly got me to 7. The two parts of this section are mentioned below, in both cases word count is important, but exceeding the word count does not mean points will be deducted.

* A Letter (150 words)

Spend 5 minutes to prepare (read, brainstorm & plan), 10 to draft and 5 to review. You have to explicitly address the objectives of the question. As for the salutation:

- a formal message, name of recipient is unknown: Yours faithfully
- a formal message, name of recipient is known: Yours sincerely
- an informal message: regards

* An Essay (250 words)

Spend 10 minutes to prepare (read, brainstorm & plan), 20 to draft and 10 to review. When brainstorming, write at least four points on each side and in terms of the structure:

- introduction, just rephrase the question

- write "on the one hand" followed by a paragraph containing the side you argue with

- write "on the other hand" followed by a paragraph having the side you support

- write "in conclusion" followed by concluding paragraph, which should clearly mention your opinion

I read somewhere that even a native English speaker could fail this exam, therefore, doing more mock exams enhances your chance of getting a very good result. This book was useful although I had higher expectations about its content (ex. it has some trivial typos: "you might makes" on page 143). Good luck!

About The Engineering Sense

I am originally an Engineer. Despite not being an A student, that did not prevent me from being proud of my Engineering mindset (non-Engineers don't need to worry, we try our best to accept you in our world). Back when I was doing my Engineering degree, many of our professors made an emphasis on the what so called 'Engineering Sense'.

Several years later, I went on writing this post and realized it is not easy to find an explicit definition for the term 'Engineering Sense', thus I thought of presenting the pillars of this term based on my own understanding in addition to impressions I got from some fellow Engineers:

• practicality, it works right
• efficiency, providing the best solution
• a structured way of thinking into building a solution
• outside the box, presenting an untypical alternative

But what does it have to do with the Eurostar? To me, the drilling project of the Channel Tunnel is an example of Engineering Sense. To construct this undersea tunnel that connects England and France, a drilling machine was used from each side simultaneously. Typically, one would expect retrieving the two machines once the project is done. However, as machines met halfway through, one actually dug downwards and got buried (for good) into the floor while the other continued into the other direction.

How to Procure Goods

 

Sit tight! This could become your 'ultimate' selection criteria for the product your are going to buy. Although my example revolves around breakfast cereal, it goes without saying that the below is still applicable across different categories of products.

The process of selecting breakfast cereal may depend on a variety of factors including flavor, quality, country of origin, packaging, and most importantly the price of the product. 

My shortlist resulted in two variants of the Alpen brand; the blue one and the red one. The blue one has 450 gram of muesli and costs JOD 4.70 while the red one has 425 gram and costs JOD 4.60. Simple math, 100 gram of the blue one is for JOD 1.04 while 100 gram of the red one is for JOD 1.08. This simple calculation allows us to have a what so called "apple to apple" comparison; in other words to compare the shortlisted products according to the same benchmark and realizing that the blue one has more value for money.

Sometimes the price has implications about the quality (low priced = low quality?). To overcome such risk (ex. when choosing a long haul flight), a wise approach is to go with the second cheapest option. On the other hand, a more creative approach is to consider a substitute from a different category that performs the same function; for example a pencil is cheaper than a pen but could fulfill the same purpose.

Lessons Learned from My First Marathon

I did my first full marathon (42.1 km)! And I thought of reflecting about the lessons I learned from this experience. But first, let me connect the dots in a chronological order:

• Quit Facebook in (2008 maybe?)
• Had to look for something else. Joined Flickr and came across the photo below, which encouraged me to cut the pile of wood we had (and enhanced my fitness level)
• Played Muay Thai for six months (thanks Abraj)
• Watched Rocky and got inspired by him jogging in the streets of Philadelphia
• October, 2009: first fun run (10 km), learned half of our potential is hidden
• April, 2012: first half marathon (21 km), learned that performance can improve in multiple dimensions
• November, 2013: first full marathon (42.1 km). Although my result was not decent, I am so glad I did it, lessons are below..

Somewhere around the 30 km point a guy seemed to be in pain, I gave him a pat as I went on. A couple of km later, my legs started to hurt so bad and I stopped to do some helpless stretching, I got a pat on my back! It was the same guy I passed by earlier.I got my push and joined him. Ricardo is an American from Panama, we kept motivating each other for the remaining distance of the marathon and we crossed the finish line together. He told me that he was just about to quit when my pat encouraged him to go on.

Lesson #1: What goes around comes around

Lesson #2: Do not underestimate what small gestures can do to others

Lesson #3: You can do an average challenge by your own, but for a tough challenge you would probably need someone besides you

Lesson #4: Running is a universal language

Lesson #5: Doing a marathon requires proper preparation, planning and some sacrifices

Lesson #6: As Emil Zatopek says "If you want to win a race, run a mile. If you want to experience life, run a marathon"

It happens that I was wearing this shirt in the race. I figured out that the millage for the races I ran wearing this shirt is 103 km, which also reminds me of the number of years Circassians fought before being expelled from their homeland (101 years).

The Essence of Marketing

I am not a big fan of Mercedes (of course this 1955 300SL is an exception) but I have to admit that to me Mercedes does represent a very good example about proper Marketing.

Long time ago, Henry Ford said "You can have any color as long as it's black" referring to the cars he produced. Later, it was obvious that many people preferred different colors for their cars and this is just one reason why we have so many different car models nowadays. Mercedes was able to analyze the needs of its customers then categorize customers into major groups (Segments) and capture those needs with different product offerings. For example: The S Class targets those who want a sense of luxury, while the A Class is a compact car, on the other hand the E Class is for the executive segment and the G Class is an all terrain vehicle.

Proper Marketing starts by identifying a common need between a group of customers who share certain traits like a specific lifestyle, gender, age group, income level, social class, or location; which in Marketing terminology is referred to as Segmentation. Secondly, a product is developed to match the identified needs of the specific segment. Sometimes a generic product serves for a huge majority of tastes and then it is referred to as a Mass product (e.g. bottled water).

What impresses me the most is when Segmentation meets Economies of Scale, here is one observation. A local restaurant in Amman (called Batata) sells french fries, customers can also pick one out of ten sorts of dips to have aside. As the plain product consists of potato, Batata would probably be buying wholesale quantities of french fries - which lowers the price per unit. However, the last stage of making the final product is differentiated from the plain product with the help of dips; thus the restaurant is able to cater to ten different segments with a simple alteration to the plain product!

About Strategy

In continuation to my other posts which make a huge impact on other people's lives (this is a joke, but could be true though) I decided to blog today about Porter's Strategies and then realized that the chewing gum example would be a very good one to help me explain about this. The picture above shows two different brands of chewing gum:

• Trident is sold for 60 piasters and has 10 pieces, so each piece is for 6 piasters
• 'Shaarawi' is sold for 1 piaster and has 2 pieces, so each piece is for half a piaster

To some extent, both brands do the same function, yet relatively speaking, there is a huge difference between the two prices and both products are still in demand, is this justifiable? This is because each of these two products has a different strategic direction. From Porter's point of view, a strategy could follow any of two main directions; either Low Cost or Differentiation, the third option would be a Hybrid approach that is somewhat between the two.

Hence, in this example, 'Shaarawi' offers a very basic product but for the lowest price among its competitors. On the other hand, Trident's offering has been differentiated by promoting additional features such as a long lasting flavor, a sugar-free product plus a more appealing package which could have implications about the quality; from a consumer's point of view this justifies the price difference. Usually, when a new player joins an existing market it utilizes a Low Cost strategy to gain market share.

Porter's Strategies are not only restricted to business. For instance, a job applicant with a Differentiation approach would try to increase the likelihood of having a better paying job through emphasizing how different he/she is; including a solid list of qualifications or a background of voluntary work and extracurricular activities. Conversely, the applicant would try to secure the opportunity and settle for a very basic salary in case of a Low Cost direction.

One last thing, have you considered how a product being sold for 1 piaster manages to cover manufacturing cost and still has a profit margin?!

* Reference: Johnson, G., Whittington, R., & Scholes, K. (2011). Exploring Strategy: Text & Cases (9th Edition ed.) Harlow: Pearson.

My Productivity Tools

 

Productivity matters to me, hence this post presents my 'top-secret' productivity instruments!

In my opinion, brainstorming needs a smooth flow of ideas. For this purpose, I usually use:

• High density blank papers. Using a metal clip, I bind some A4 papers that have been used on one side
• A dark pencil; preferably a 4B
• Easy flowing pens; such as Kores, Papermate Profile and Bic (I don't know the name of the one in the picture but it is awesome)
• Sometimes a marker is also handy

To have a neat plan I also use:

• A squared note pad; Rhodia is a good one
• Fine pens, I could not find anything better than Stabilo Point 88
• An HB Pencil
• An eraser which can also be used to hold my phone

Using flip charts and markers to do some creative brainstorming is one of the main concepts introduced by a book titled Gamestorming. On a second note, I realized that this post was probably influenced by a cool blog titled 99u (specifically, by this post and this post - Thanks Lucas).