Perceived Service Quality Gaps in Specialty Pharmaceutical Drug Delivery: A Mixed SERVQUAL–Importance-Performance Analysis Study in an Indonesian Business-to-Business Distribution Context
Keywords
B2B pharmaceutical distribution customer satisfaction importance-performance analysis LMIC health systems pharmaceutical supply chain SERVQUALAbstract
Background: Despite the critical role of pharmaceutical distribution quality in ensuring medication safety and continuity of institutional healthcare delivery, empirical evidence on service quality gaps in specialty pharmaceutical business-to-business (B2B) distribution within lower-middle income country (LMIC) health systems remains sparse. Objective: This study evaluated perceived service quality gaps in drug delivery from the perspective of institutional customers of a specialty pharmaceutical distributor in Indonesia, and identified strategic service improvement priorities. Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted among 207 active institutional customers (response rate: 66.8%) of PT. X, an Indonesian importer and distributor of US-manufactured dental pharmaceutical products. Service quality was measured using an adapted SERVQUAL instrument across five dimensions. Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) was applied to classify 20 service attributes into four strategic quadrants. Results: All 20 service attributes exhibited statistically significant negative gap scores (overall grand mean gap: −0.65; 95% CI: −0.71, −0.59). The two most critical gaps were medication physical condition on receipt (gap = −1.08) and order conformance accuracy (gap = −1.04). Ten of 20 attributes were classified as Quadrant II (high importance, low performance), representing immediate improvement priorities. Conclusion: Systemic service quality deficiencies in specialty pharmaceutical B2B distribution in Indonesia require structural interventions targeting supply chain integrity, real-time delivery tracking, administrative process redesign, and multi-channel ordering infrastructure. These findings provide a replicable quality assessment framework applicable across pharmaceutical distributors in comparable LMIC settings.
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