Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has a key influence on customers’ consumption decisions, often outperforming company efforts like personal sales or advertising for its ease of access and for being perceived as more trustworthy. The volume of information released online by customers has become overwhelming. As communication technologies evolve, the volume and reach of customer voices grow at an unpreceded pace, and making sense of all the available information becomes a challenge for both customers and providers. This study applies an importance-performance analysis for identifying salient quality attributes from eWOM, offering an efficient approach for extracting information and identifying priorities for service improvement. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.