TY  - JOUR
AB  - A number of writers in the service management literature have
observed that because service quality is difficult to measure there is a
danger that service organisations will neglect to measure it, despite
the fact that service quality is often critical to their competitive
business success. The results of an empirical research project
investigating the quality measurement systems of six multi‐site UK
service organisations, all of which consider themselves to differentiate
on the basis of service quality, are described. Two of the organisations
were found to have very few quality measures and recognised that this
was a major gap in their performance measurement systems. Two had
developed a range of customer‐based measures of service quality which
were reported regularly and widely in the organisations. The other two
companies had developed a wide range of internal and external, hard and
soft quality measures. These companies used managers as well as
customers to measure both tangible and intangible aspects of service.
Internal measures were used to corroborate the perceptual measures drawn
from customers and, conversely, the external measures were used to
support service design and the setting of internal quality targets.
VL  - 1
IS  - 2
SN  - 0956-4233
DO  - 10.1108/EUM0000000002803
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000002803
AU  - Silvestro Rhian
AU  - Johnston Robert
AU  - Fitzgerald Lin
AU  - Voss Chris
PY  - 1990
Y1  - 1990/01/01
TI  - Quality Measurement in Service Industries
T2  - International Journal of Service Industry Management
PB  - MCB UP Ltd
SP  - 54
EP  - 66
Y2  - 2024/04/23
ER  -