In the last years, the physical distribution is having a prominent role in the academic area and in the logistics service of the companies, seeking for operational improvements and efficiency in the reduction of costs for an extremely competitive market. However, to add value to the product by means of the logistics distribution, it is understood to attend the customers` expectations with lower cost and good quality of service. Therefore, it is essential for the management of the distribution logistics system to measure the performance of the service to the customer due to the complexity of the process. The motivation of this work was the identification and characterization of the existing gap between the customers` perception and the expectation regarding the quality of distribution service offered by the distributor assessed, located in Nova Iguaçu, RIO DE JANEIRO. The process of information collection and analysis was adapted from the models of GAPS and SERVQUAL, developed by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml (1985, 1988). The data analysis of the field research allowed identifying gaps in some quality areas of the assessed company. Such results confirm the potentiality of the model used in this work as a tool of distribution service quality management.