The benefits of Information Technology (IT) implementation are available to the business market customers, consistently maintained with responsive after-sales service. In order to examine the factors affecting service quality provided by small and medium service providers and the proposed determinants of service quality (after-sales service performance, service improvements, technical preparedness and behavioral skills) and the resultant customer satisfaction, a study was conducted among the IT users in business organizations in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR). The objectives include identification of customer requirements and service attributes that signify internal processes and customer interactions. Their perceptions of satisfaction from actual experience/performance arise out of confirmation/disconfirmation gap among the service attributes. An exploratory study was done to formulate the service quality construct and its dimensions through factor analysis from these attribute items, where customer satisfaction surrogate ‘low total cost of ownership’ was used as a criterion variable. In the present study, service improvements and technical preparedness emerge as new dimensions, apart from the applicability of dual aspects of perceived service quality—technical and functional dimensions. At the managerial level, these four dimensions tell us how to plan, implement and improve the various constituent items and service attributes at internal business process and subprocess levels in the organization.

The shorter life cycles of Information Technology (IT) products and intricacies of technology have increased the demand for support service and training to the people who use them. This also calls for after-sales service. However, after-sales support service is not able to keep pace with the increasing sales and rising operational costs. In India, Dataquest IT magazine has projected that “improving customer service and after-sales service” is becoming a major concern for the IT managers in industrial and business organizations.

The study addressed three questions from an interaction approach and relationship marketing perspective: (1) How do we conceptualize the service quality construct in business markets as provided by the small and medium service providers and test it empirically? (2) How do the service providers manage their internal process and interactions with customers to achieve the external service delivery and satisfaction?; and (3) How can it be measured and improved? (Rust et al., 1995; and Svensson, 2003).

Management Research Journal, Conceptualization, Measurement of Service Quality, Dimensions, Business Markets, Case of Indian IT Industry.