Service is the creation of value. Quality is the creation of value. Both are concerned with the customers’ emotional state. What matters is how the customers feel about an organisation. And that will be determined by the way the service is designed.

The customers’ views are made up from all of the transactions they have with an organisation. Service and quality are concerned with ‘desirability’ not ‘acceptability’. Organisations which think in terms of acceptability use service standards, a sure way to causes sub-optimisation. Desirability means focusing on improving every transaction the customer has with the organisation in terms of what matters to the customer.