Measuring IT service quality: evaluation of IT service quality measurement framework in industry

Abstract

IT service quality is determined by the value that the IT service brings to both the IT service provider and its customers, but service value is not measured in most IT service organizations today. We describe the fourth iteration of our IT service quality measurement framework and report on the evaluation of the framework in the Australian IT service industry. The data was gathered from 63 IT service providers through an online survey. The paper focuses on the application of the proposed IT service quality measurement framework in industry as well as the importance and feasibility of measuring and interlinking various IT service quality aspects. An important finding is that although the majority of respondents recognize the importance of IT service value, very few providers actually measure the value of their IT services. The findings also support the importance of taking a systemic approach to IT service measurement. It is clear that various service areas are inter-linked: IT service stability impacts on customer satisfaction, and process performance affects IT service stability. With the exception of three indicators, all the proposed indicators and measures were applied in the surveyed IT service organizations. Further efforts to confirm these findings will be under-taken within the global IT service industry.