ISO/TS 19387:2025

Technical
Specification
ISO/TS 19387
First edition
Service excellence — Maturity model
2025-09
Excellence du service — Modèle de maturité
Reference number
© ISO 2025
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ii
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Principles of assessing service excellence maturity and defining improvement . 2
4.1 General .2
4.2 Principles .2
4.2.1 Objective .2
4.2.2 Data management and analysis integrity .2
4.2.3 Transparency . . .2
4.2.4 Benchmarking . .2
4.2.5 Dynamic .2
4.2.6 Continual improvement.2
4.2.7 Integrated .3
5 Service excellence maturity model . 3
5.1 General .3
5.2 Service excellence maturity assessment table .3
5.3 Methodology .4
6 Developing a service excellence maturity assessment table . 5
6.1 General .5
6.2 Guidance to determine purposes .5
6.3 Guidance to select requirements .6
6.3.1 General .6
6.4 Guidance to define criteria and evidence of service excellence maturity levels .6
6.4.1 General .6
6.4.2 Description or definition of the criteria .6
6.4.3 Definition of the evidence .6
7 Performing a service excellence maturity assessment and developing improvement(s) . 7
7.1 General .7
7.2 Guidance for service excellence maturity assessment .7
7.3 Guidance for improvement .7
7.3.1 Analysis for improvement .7
7.3.2 Implementation of improvement .8
7.3.3 Continual improvement of the service excellence maturity assessment .8
Annex A (informative) Example of how to complete the service excellence maturity assessment
table . 9
Bibliography .10

iii
Foreword
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This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 312, Excellence in service.
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iv
Introduction
The principles and model for service excellence are given in ISO 23592, which can be applied to all
service organizations and names the necessary elements to successfully run service excellence within an
organization. However, it does not provide specific guidance on assessing, implementing and continuously
improving service excellence.
When a company decides to develop the organization in the direction of service excellence, it must do so
efficiently and effectively. As a precondition, the organization should be equipped with effective tools to
gauge the maturity level of service excellence. The maturity model enables continual improvement by
describing the practices and processes required at each level of service excellence. Using it allows the
opportunity for organizations to reliably and sustainably achieve the desired level of performance.
This document describes a service excellence maturity model (SEMM) and a standardized approach for
the assessment and improvement using the SEMM. A SEMM helps all stakeholders to identify and better
understand the maturity level of service excellence and its contribution to the service organization. It helps
them in setting targets for improvement that will guide investments and helps them to identify gaps in
current levels of service excellence.
[6][7]
Research has shown that up to 70 % to 75 % of all transformation programs in companies fail. Specifically,
in the context of service excellence, various hurdles (e.g. lack of mindset, poor internal coordination) stand
in the way of a successful implementation. Accordingly, a change management or transformation concept
must accompany implementation, for which ISO/TS 19390 can be used. An essential supporting component
is the valid mapping of the organization’s performance concerning the dimensions and elements of the
service excellence model. For organizations to implement service excellence efficiently and effectively, it is
helpful to have a measure to judge the current level of maturity of service excellence relative to desired
future improvements. This is where the maturity model is useful. A maturity model describes the practices
and processes needed at each level to reliably and sustainably achieve a corresponding level of desired
performance. A SEMM aims to make service excellence measurable, assign the organization’s current
situation to a specific maturity level, and help organizations not only to fulfil the service expectations, but
also to exceed them.
The SEMM conceptually consists as a series of five levels, each of which builds off the levels shown in
Figure 1. The details are described in 5.1.
When an organization is at an initial level, it has a comparatively high number of dissatisfied customers.
This proportion decreases the higher the maturity level of the organization. Additionally, the proportion of
satisfied customers increases. As the organization develops towards the highest level (Level 5), the number
of delighted customers increases.
Figure 1 — Five levels of a SEMM

v
To promote continual improvement, it is important to make decisions based on a systematic overall picture
of the requirements defined in ISO 23592 to live service excellence.
There are three purposes for which a SEMM can be used:
a) it can be used to analyse the difference between the current state and future states of service excellence
in a service organization or service unit;
b) such a gap analysis and its resulting action plan can be used to start service excellence implementation;
c) an assessment based on the SEMM can also be used to compare different service organizations or
service units.
Therefore, this document describes a SEMM. It gives guidance in assessing maturity levels to improve the
service excellence approach of a service organization. To promote continual improvements, it is important
to make decisions based on a systematic overall picture of service excellence. Therefore, this document
provides a systematic framework for assessment, the SEMM, which includes the five levels of maturity in the
four dimensions and nine elements of service excellence. In addition, the assessment of the maturity levels
can be used as a starting point for implementing service excellence.
While all four dimensions of the service excellence model should be assessed, assessment is focused on the
upper two levels of the service excellence pyramid (see Figure 2), specifically, the individual excellent service
provision (Level 3) and the surprisingly excellent service provision (Level 4) that contribute to customer
delight and, subsequently, to improved financial/non-financial results. As described in ISO 23592:2021,
Introduction, the service excellence pyramid is intended to be used to explain to managers and employees
why an organization must focus on both fulfilling the promises (Levels 1 and 2) and exceeding customer
expectations by delivering excellent services (Levels 3 and 4). Its logic is based on a categorization of the
factors required to achieve not only customer satisfaction, but also customer delight and thus service
excellence. Accordingly, the service excellence pyramid is not based on a maturity model approach.
NOTE Source: ISO 23592:2021, Figure 1.
Figure 2 — Service excellence pyramid

vi
Technical Specification ISO/TS 19387:2025(en)
Service excellence — Maturity model
1 Scope
This document establishes principles for and gives guidance on using a service excellence maturity model
(SEMM).
This document is applicable to all organizations delivering services, such as commercial organizations,
manufacturing companies, public services and not-for-profit organizations. In accordance with ISO 23592, it
can help organizations to determine their own maturity level with regard to service excellence. It also offers
guidance for future improvements and can be used for internal and external audits.
An organization can decide for itself whether the whole service excellence model with its four dimensions
and nine elements or only selected dimensions and elements are assessed and improved.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes
requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references,
the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 23592, Service excellence — Principles and model
ISO/TS 23686, Service excellence — Measuring service excellence performance
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO 23592, ISO/TS 23686 and the
following apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at https:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
maturity model
model that identifies the set of phased development or progress levels
[SOURCE: ISO 37153:2024, 3.1, modified — “derived from one or more specified assessment model(s)” and
“showing the assessment categories for community infrastructure(s)” deleted in the definition.]
3.2
maturity level
point on an ordinal scale of service excellence maturity that characterizes the maturity of service excellence
assessed in the scope of the maturity model (3.1) used
[SOURCE: ISO 37153:2024, 3.2, modified — “service excellence” replaced “community infrastructure” twice
in the definition.]
3.3
service excellence maturity model
SEMM
maturity model (3.1) applied to service excellence, which provides common maturity level definitions to
assess service excellence
[SOURCE: ISO 37153:2024, 3.5, modified — “service excellence” replaced “community infrastructure” in the
term and twice in the definition. Definition reworded.]
3.4
service excellence assessment
evaluation of an organization to determine conformance to service excellence requirements
3.5
continual improvement
recurring activity to enhance performance
[SOURCE: ISO 37101:2016, 3.8]
4 Principles of assessing service excellence maturity and defining improvement
4.1 General
Guiding principles are the ethical, legal and moral obligations related to service excellence assessment
and
...