Identifying Services from a Service Provider and Customer Perspectives

Abstract

Despite the remarkable growing of the services industry in the world economy, the services quality is still affected by gaps identified two decades ago. One of these gaps occurs when the service provider has a perception of what the customer expects that diverges from the real expected service. This difference can be caused by a poor service identification process and, more precisely, by who should be included in this process. Current solutions to identify services still have drawbacks, since they are not customer driven, are web services driven or lack specific processes. In this paper, we propose a service identification process based on the Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO). The proposal was evaluated by comparing two lists of services provided by a Human Resources department: one based on a description given by the head of the department and another based on the customers that use the department services. The differences between the two lists show the gap between the customers’ expectations and the provider perceptions of those expectations. We conclude that both client and service provider should be included in the service identification process.