ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Consumer organizations claim to safeguard the interests of customers and want to provide related advice. Applied quality research and testing is a path to sustainable improvement and better service performance. Empirical research has an essential function as understandable and reproducible intercultural approach to a reconstruction of service reality. There is still enough room for creativity and a huge epistemological potential that just has to be exploited in the interest of customer satisfaction and for the better of the service provider. Tests of the quality of advice in pharmacies triggered comprehensive discussions and resulted in changes to the service processes in pharmacies. The book understands research as a complex decision-making process that targets the reconstruction of social reality. It describes services as people business and look at service performance as a communication process.
