Quality in service organizations has become an important and interesting topic for both operations management and marketing researchers. It is particularly appropriate since quality is now so widely recognized as a strategic organizational variable. The difficulty in measuring service quality should no longer be construed as a reason or excuse for poor service quality, but rather an important challenge that sets the tone for sound strategic analysis and choices. This paper presents findings from an empirical study designed to gain insights into the service quality domain vis-à-vis the disconfirmation model that has been at the heart of much recent debate among marketers. A brief review of the service quality literature is conducted, with an emphasis on the role of disconfirmation as a means of assessing service quality, including a review of the disconfirmation model as it pertains to service quality. The paper then describes an empirical study that was conducted to understand the typical results of disconfirmation measurement and its implications. The results point to a need for quality managers and strategic service managers to be very careful in interpreting the currently available mechanisms that are used to gauge service quality.
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Rosen et al. (2003) studied this question.