Paving the Road for Excellence in Industrial Services: Initial Findings from Upper Austria

Abstract

The ideas of customer satisfaction and quality have long been prominent product and service marketing research agendas, typically examined in to consumer (B2C) markets setting. Much less attention has been paid to the multi-faceted nature of industrial (B2B) markets and its increasingly predominant service nature. The paper presents the development of 12 dimensions of service excellence, which enable companies to design industrial services with presumably high levels of resulting customer satisfaction and provide needed additional stimuli for further business development. The research is based on a literature meta-analysis and a qualitative study among 15 informants – representatives of leading industrial solutions providers in Upper Austria.