ISO/TS 19387:2025

Service excellence - Maturity model

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.

Excellence du service — Modèle de maturité

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 04-Sep-2025
• ICS: 03.080.01 - Services in general
• Technical Committee: ISO/TC 312 - Excellence in service
• Drafting Committee: ISO/TC 312 - Excellence in service
• Current Stage: 6060 - International Standard published
• Start Date: 05-Sep-2025
• Due Date: 21-Apr-2026
• Completion Date: 05-Sep-2025

Overview

ISO/TS 19387:2025 - Service excellence - Maturity model (SEMM) provides principles and guidance for assessing and improving service excellence maturity across any service-delivering organization. The Technical Specification defines a structured SEMM with five maturity levels, aligned to the four dimensions and nine elements of service excellence (per ISO 23592), and explains how to use a service excellence maturity assessment table to measure, benchmark and plan improvements. The specification supports evidence‑based assessments, internal and external audits, and continual improvement programs.

Key topics

• SEMM structure and levels: Five ordinal maturity levels that describe phased development of service excellence from initial to advanced (including customer delight).
• Assessment methodology: Guidance to develop and use a service excellence maturity assessment table, define criteria and evidence, and select relevant dimensions and elements.
• Principles for assessment: Emphasis on being objective, ensuring data management and analysis integrity, promoting transparency, enabling benchmarking, being dynamic, supporting continual improvement, and ensuring integrated assessment.
• Performing assessments: Step‑by‑step guidance for conducting assessments, performing gap analysis, and translating results into improvement actions and implementation plans.
• Governance and validation: Use of evidence‑based evaluation suitable for internal/external audits and stakeholder communication.
• Supporting material: Examples (informative annex) and references to related measurement and change-management guidance.

Applications

• Conduct a service maturity assessment to identify current capability against desired service excellence targets.
• Perform gap analysis and prioritize investments to close capability gaps.
• Use assessments for internal and external audits, performance reporting, or benchmarking across service units and organizations.
• Design and track continual improvement initiatives that move organizations up SEMM levels and increase customer satisfaction and delight.
• Support transformation programs and change management (e.g., coordinated with relevant ISO guidance) to reduce implementation failure risk.

Who should use it

• Service managers, CX and operations leaders, quality and audit teams
• Public service organizations, commercial enterprises, manufacturers with service activities, and not‑for‑profit service providers
• Consultants, trainers, and auditors implementing or evaluating service excellence initiatives

Related standards

• ISO 23592 - Service excellence: principles and model (primary reference for dimensions/elements)
• ISO/TS 23686 - Service excellence: measuring service excellence performance
• ISO/TS 19390 - Change management / transformation (recommended companion guidance)

Keywords: ISO/TS 19387, service excellence maturity model, SEMM, service maturity assessment, ISO 23592, continual improvement, service excellence audit.

Standards Content (Sample)

Technical
Specification
ISO/TS 19387
First edition
Service excellence — Maturity model
2025-09
Excellence du service — Modèle de maturité
Reference number
© ISO 2025
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on
the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below
or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
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
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through
ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee
has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations,
governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely
with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described
in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types
of ISO document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
ISO draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a)
patent(s). ISO takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent
rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO had not received notice of (a)
patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that
this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at
www.iso.org/patents. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions
related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 312, Excellence in service.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.

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
...