SICTQUAL: A fuzzy linguistic multi-criteria model to assess the quality of service in the ICT sector from the user perspective

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play an important role in the economic development, making it necessary to assess the quality of service perceived by consumers in this sector. The most effective quality assessment from the consumer perspective is still to be researched, yet the most common approach is oriented towards quantitative indicators. This study proposes to use a two-dimensional model that combines the widely accepted segmentation of ICTs with elements from the SERVQUAL quality model. This model, useful in multi-criteria decision-making situations, has been developed using the 2-tuple linguistic representation and fuzzy logic principles. This methodology prevents data loss during processing and provides relevant information through 16 indicators related to the quality of service. Besides, an expert-based mechanism is defined for the use of historical information extracted from completed surveys. As a practical case, this mechanism is applied to the historical information of a telecommunications company for assessing the quality of the service provided to its customers. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.