EVALUATING RELATIONSHIPS - ARE SATISFACTION AND QUALITY ENOUGH

This paper examines the current literature and trends in the measureme nt of service relationships. The authors present evidence from two ind ustry studies which suggests that satisfaction and/or quality as curre ntly conceptualized are not sufficient diagnostic tools to assess the health of a relationship, certainly not sufficient when only one relat ionship partner's outcomes are assessed. Two studies which explore ser vice relationship satisfaction, are presented as illustrations to demo nstrate that firms engaged in partnering relationships need to conside r changing the way they evaluate the ability of their systems to satis fy partners as the relationship progresses. Process issues and value-e nhancing components in addition to satisfaction and quality are among the critical dimensions to evaluate in order to fully assess the healt h of a relationship.