Service Attribute-Process Matrix: A Tool for Designing and Managing Services

The growing importance of the service economy during the last 40 years has raised the need for new tools for designing and managing services. As a result, several authors have developed service classification systems, in order to better understand the nature of service operations and provide methods and tools to improve service efficiency and quality. This paper exploits the work resulting from service classification systems and identifies the principal attributes to be considered in service management. The tool introduced for this purpose is the service attribute-process matrix (SAPM), which uses selected results from existing service classification schemes to investigate the importance of the significant service attributes to major processes of the service life cycle