Information Technology Service Quality Measurement: A Review

Abstract

This is a review of the current state of research in the area of Information Technology (IT) service quality measurement. The service quality research has many available theoretical models and corresponding measurement scales. There are ongoing debates and differing viewpoints in this area that have proliferated over more than thirty years, since the mid-1980s. This article attempts to identify the available instruments for IT service quality, and summarize the debate around them. Research on electronic services is examined additionally, since much of the academic community agrees on measuring them differently from human-mediated services. The study finds that SERVQUAL, despite its documented limitations, still provides an adequate and acceptable instrument for IT service quality measurement for researchers. The field of electronic services has a multitude of available valid scales to choose from, but not a single dominating scale or theory.