The adoption of customer service improvement practices

A study of 20 customer service improvement practices tests several hypotheses that explore the antecedents and consequences of customer service improvement practice adoption. Adoption was observed to coevolve with organization size and to be higher in firms that claim service excellence superiority and firms that face operating environments where service delivery is more uncertain. In the public service sector, where market winnowing and incentives are much lower, organizations adopted fewer service improvement practices. The diffusion penetration of service improvement practices in the health care, finance and banking, professional, and lodging and food service sectors was correlated with the extent to which service improvement practices explain service excellence in each sector. Imitation and learning is service sector specific.