Developing a self-diagnostic framework for assessing service excellence

Service excellence describes a structured approach for providing excellent service quality to achieve customer delight. A structured approach induces certain organisational structures and behaviours. The adequacy of these structures and behaviours must be assessed for systematic management and continual improvement. Although several instruments measure service quality at customer touchpoints, no instrument is available for assessing service excellence. Therefore, there is a need for a holistic assessment of the overall infrastructure that undergirds service excellence. The required instrument should have certain features, including a service excellence orientation, a systematic approach to assessment, the ability to go beyond measuring service quality at customer touchpoints, and the flexibility to adapt to the unique contextual contingencies. This article develops a service excellence assessment framework to address these requirements. The framework consists of self-diagnostic questions structured around the plan-do-check-act cycle to provide a systematic assessment approach.