Assessing and improving service performancefor maximum impact: insights from a two‐decade‐long research journey

Starting in 1983, and sponsored by the Marketing Science Institute (MSI), the service research journey has consisted of multiple research phases that have covered a variety of sectors, employed both qualitative and quantitative research techniques and included interviews with managers, employees and customers of dozens of organizations. The focus of this paper has been on understanding, measuring and improving service quality. The research has produced concepts, models and tools, which are now widely used for evaluating service quality in the commercial sector.