Quality in the consulting service – evaluation and impact: a survey in Spanish firms

The paper deals with the importance of the work of external consultants in firms and of consulting as a function. The study deals with the analysis of external advice within small to medium‐sized enterprises. It tries to reflect the actual importance of external advice sought by firms in trying to reach the highest possible level of client satisfaction. The survey reported in this paper was carried out to evaluate the impact of consulting and to determine the degree of satisfaction of the clients that had used Spanish consulting services. To this end, firms that had used such services were interviewed on‐site. The purpose of the research was to analyse the effects on management processes within the firms where a plan was drawn up by an external consultant.