ABSTRACT
The Internet has made service offers transparent not so much with regard to service quality but, most of all, with regard to the price. Measuring service performance means measuring social behaviour. The methods and methodology of empirical social research provide access to a better understanding of the complexity of quality. Leaving the well-trodden paths and trying out new avenues requires some creativity together with an understanding of social research as a model that reflects a certain perspective of potential reality instead of a method or tool that provides access to the ultimate truth. Correlations that are interpreted causally, inferential generalizations of descriptive statistics, tests that work with changing levels of significance, applying metric statistical models to qualitative data there are many warning signals that demand a closer look at research results. Quality research is done for a purpose to find weaknesses in processes, improve quality and profitability, predict developments, help to make decisions and eventually change behaviour.
