Given the significance and growth of services in today's economy, a number of different disciplines have directed their attention at studying the service phenomenon. Typically, marketing studies have focused on conceptual and measurement issues pertaining to customers' perceptions of service quality. This paper builds on extant research by calling upon marketers to pay more attention to the actual delivery of service quality at retail outlets. Specifically, I suggest that researchers should attempt to link service quality backwards and broaden the focus of their investigation to encompass myriad issues affecting service delivery. To spur future research, I provide an expanded theoretical framework by critically reviewing the literature on service delivery from different disciplines. I conceptualize service delivery as an input-process-output scheme where the linkages among various stages have to be efficiently managed for the optimal delivery of quality. I discuss the managerial and research implications of this study and offer several suggestions for future research.