Measures that matters: service quality in IT service management

Abstract

Purpose

IT service management (ITSM) is a discipline for management and maintenance of IT-systems and is claimed to play a critical role in supporting and satisfying business requirements. However, from a customer perspective, ITSM is considered as being costly and the outcome is not always satisfactory. Measurements used to monitor and evaluate ITSM-processes are mainly suggested from a service provider perspective. The purpose of this paper is to suggest measurements for ITSM based on a customer perspective that can be used for improving questionnaires.

Design/methodology/approach

The SERVQUAL scale has been used as a base for suggesting customer-oriented measurements for the ITSM-field. The gathered qualitative empirical data consisted of customer feedback, in questionnaires, to five IT service providers in Sweden. Based on these empirical data, the SERVQUAL scale has been modified according to ITSM-specific customer requirements. The service providers represent the sectors: car construction, forest management, IT consultants, public sector and logistics.

Findings

The paper demonstrates three types of findings: confirmation of original SERVQUAL determinants that could be reused in the ITSM-field, modification of attributes of the SERVQUAL determinants to better fit in the ITSM-field, and development of new categories and new attributes. Moreover, the analysis of SERVQUAL in relation to the empirical data revealed that the SERVQUAL's original conceptual structure needed to be improved. The authors have added a third hierarchical level that supports a conceptual understanding.

Originality/value

The knowledge contribution consists of a developed SERVQUAL, adjusted to fit the ITSM-field, and a suggested new conceptual structure of SERVQUAL consisting of three concepts: determinant, category and attribute.

Citation

Cronholm, S. and Salomonson, N. (2014), "Measures that matters: service quality in IT service management", International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 60-76. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQSS-12-2012-0022