CUSTOMERS SERVICE

How Quality be used to improve customers service



Abstract

The aim of this paper was to analyzed how Quality be used to improve customers service. As the service quality has been reconsidered in the public sector as well as private enterprises, the need for public sectors to adopt principle and practices of private sectors is concerned with customer-focused approach. However, the different business culture of public service organizations makes it difficult to improve service quality. It is required to establish a structured framework that leads employees to make efforts to improve their service delivery processes and supports continuous improvement of service delivery processes based on the data about the process performance from the customer-perceived value-oriented viewpoint.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Chapter - I5

Introduction5

Purpose of Study9

The purpose of this study was to:9

1.T o understand how Quality be used to improve customers service.10

Product versus service quality10

An output perspective11

A process perspective13

Chapter - II17

Literature Review17

Service quality measurement21

Linking employees, managers, and customers39

Varied behavior and variety-seeking45

Chapter - III49

Methodology49

A framework for linking quality practices to performance49

Research hypotheses54

Empirical study59

Models and data59

Survey instrument61

Firm sample62

Operationalization of the constructs63

The sample and the service64

The empirical model and the measurements65

Perceived service quality (SQ)66

Customer satisfaction (CS)66

Customer retention (CR)67

Variety-seeking (VS)68

Estimation of the model69

Chapter - IV73

Results and Analysis73

Testing the hypotheses76

Validating the results79

Chapter - V84

Discussion and conclusions84

Implications for managers91

Limitations of the study92

References96

Chapter - I

Introduction

In the early 1990s, quality improvement has been applied in the public sector as well as private enterprises (Carr & Littman, 1990). At the same time, there are tendencies to reclassify citizens as customers (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 1995). The development of information technology makes citizens to want faster, more convenient and efficient service at lower cost (Yang, Kim, Nam, & Lee, 2004). Leaders of public sectors urge to set standards of services with help of technology advances in private sector. The need for public sectors to adopt principles and practices of private sectors is concerned with customer-focused approach (or citizen-oriented services), which aims at improving the quality of public services (Mwita, 2000). However, the difference of business culture between public sectors and private service industries makes it difficult to improve service quality in public sectors as follows:

1. Lack of urgency for improvement: Usually there is no competitor and the goal of public service organizations is not an increase of profit. Most public service organizations are not willing to adopt changes have a tendency to “playing it safe” (Sherman, 1989; Skelcher, 1992). Organizational bureaucracy and lack of collaboration culture are some difficult problems to resolve. Employees are usually content to work to a standard with considerable commitment to rules, regulations and precedents. So, employees should be urged to improve their service delivery processes and their improvement efforts should be managed. The measurements or indicators for efforts can be a strong incentive for improvement.

2. Unstructured management of service quality: In practice, processes are mostly managed based on experts' experiences, leaders' insights, or political strategies. These ad hoc management activities often rouse employees' antipathies and make them to refuse the changes. Or non-value added processes are sometimes ...