Asian Journal of Research in Business and Management e-ISSN: 2682-8510 | Vol. 2, No. 3, 8-19, 2020 http://myjms.moe.gov.my/index.php/ajrbm

Customer’s Satisfaction and Service Quality: A Study of Simunjan District Office in Sarawak

Mohd Rashidee Alwi1, Gloria Panit2*, Noraini Sa’ait2, Ahmad Hadafi Kifli1

1 Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Samarahan Campus, Sarawak, Malaysia 2 Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Mukah Campus, Sarawak, Malaysia

*Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Accepted: 15 September 2020 | Published: 30 September 2020 ______

Abstract: This study focuses on customer service quality provided by District Office in Simunjan. Simunjan District Office is one of the areas under the administration of the Samarahan Division. Research has always been concentrated in measuring Customer Satisfaction or SERVQUAL for customer services. Apart from that, this research is also significant for the need of Simunjan District Office to improve their service to the customer. For government sector, customer service has been put as one of the government priorities in order to serve their customer or their customer more efficiently. The respondents of this study are customers who come to seek for service at the Simunjan District Office. The study focused on dimension such as quality of service, speed, facility, security, responsiveness, communication and understanding the customer. The customer of Simunjan District office is narrowed down to specifically from Simunjan area. The present study concentrates on customer perceptions of the following SERVQUAL dimensions, price and product quality. The findings showed that customer’s perception towards service quality level was consistently lower than their expectation. This implies that more effort is needed to improve the service quality level of the Simunjan District Office. Customers have higher expectations on the promptness of service, accuracy of transactions, security issues and concerns; the customer’s lowest expectations are cleanliness, ambience and others.

Keywords: SERVQUAL, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Expectation, Customer Perception ______

1. Introduction

Parasuraman et al. (1985) defined service quality as “the global evaluation or attitude of overall excellence of services”. So, service quality is the difference between customers’ expectation and perceptions of services delivered by service firms. (D. A. Nitecki & P. Hernon) Defined service quality in terms of “meeting or exceeding customer expectations, or as the difference between customer perceptions and expectations of service”. As the research is focused on examining major users of CJCU Library, the library service quality is defined as “the overall excellence of library services that satisfy users’ expectation”.

Kotler (1996) defined customer satisfaction as “the level of a person’s felt state resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance or outcome in violation to his/her own expectations”. So, customer satisfaction could be considered a comparative behaviour between inputs beforehand and post obtainments. As the study focused on investigating user satisfaction of libraries, customer satisfaction is defined as “the levels of service quality

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The level of service quality as assessed by the external customers and their experiences towards services provided by the Malaysian public organizations is still unknown. The public sector has long been subjected to criticisms for, among others, inefficiency, red tape, lack of flexibility, ineffective accountability and poor performance. Such criticisms have paved the way for administrative reforms and reorganizations seeking to address various administrative ailments and enhance the efficiency and performance of public bureaucracies (Siddiquee, 2006).

There are many government departments such as Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The public sector refers to the part of the economy concerned with providing various government services. The composition of the public sector varies by country, but in most countries the public sector includes such services as the military, police, public transit and care of public roads, public education, along with healthcare and those working for the government itself, such as elected officials. Service quality is also known as a critical success factor in an organisation’s efforts to be competitive. Researches have shown that good service quality attracts new customers as well as retains existing ones. In addition, good service quality has led to reduced costs, an enhanced corporate image, positive word-of-mouth recommendation and enhanced profitability (A.Parasuraman, 2010).

This study focuses on customer service quality provided by District Office in Simunjan. Simunjan District is one of the areas under the administration of the Samarahan Division. Simunjan District is an area of approximately 2,077 square kilometres. It is located about 176 km from Kuching City by road and 103 km by road water (river). Sebuyau and Gedong are under District Administration Simunjan. The population of the district is 37,561.00 consisting of various tribes. Overall, the main jobs of the people are farmers and fishermen. Efforts to develop the economy of Simunjan District is actively planned and executed so as not to be left behind in the current development. Basic amenities are given special attention so that all economic activities can be successfully aligned with the stimulus package. Simunjan District Office is located at Pejabat Daerah Simunjan Jalan Gunung Ngeli 94800 Simunjan. It is consisted of three departments (Finance, Development and Administration).

Problem Statement This research is to study about service quality and customer satisfaction in Simunjan District Office. Research has always been concentrated in measuring Customer Satisfaction or SERVQUAL for customer services. Apart from that, this research is also significant for the need of Simunjan District Office to improve their service to the customer. For government sector, customer service has been put as one of the government priorities in order to serve their customer or their customer more efficiently. Simunjan District Office is small compare to the main office in Kuching, still they must promote the best service to their customer.

At the moment, there are quite a high number of complaints filed by the public due to delays in taking actions and providing services to them by the Malaysian public organizations (A, Arawati, S. Baker, & J. Kandampully, 2007). Consequently, service quality is not as expected by the customers and therefore, it is quite low. This matter is a concern to the public since they are the taxpayers and therefore, they expect good services are provided to them as the return. Meeting with the needs and expectations of the customer means that we know what the customer wants, we know what the customer expects, and we can deliver them on a

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Customer satisfaction is generally assumed to be a significant determinant of repeat sales, positive word-of-mouth, and customer loyalty. Satisfied customers return and buy more, and they tell other people about their experiences, both positive and negative. The literature in marketing, retailing and service management historically has not considered customer experience as a separate construct. Instead researchers have focused on measuring customer satisfaction and service quality (Peter C. Verhoef, Katherine N. Lemon, A. Parasuraman, Anne Roggeveen, Michael Tsiros, & Leonard A. Schlesinger, 2009).

The challenges facing governments today have become more formidable than in the past. Governments are pressured to seek solutions to modern social problems and cope with demands for better services from the public who are more conscious of their rights and more critical of service standards. However, there is still no clear picture of customer views on the quality services provided by Simunjan District Office to their customer. After literature search, there is no evidence of any study of this kind in Simunjan District Office. Therefore, this study is conducted to clarify the service quality of Simunjan District Office to their customer. The findings of this study will be useful for Simunjan District Office to plan and implement strategies aimed at improving customer satisfaction.

Research Questions 1) What are the satisfaction levels of current customer in District Office in Simunjan? 2) What are the gaps between customer expectation and customer perception toward District Office in Simunjan? 3) What are the most important factors of service quality influencing customer satisfaction in Simunjan District Office?

Research Objectives 1) To measure the satisfaction level of current customers in District Office in Simunjan. 2) To identify gaps between customer expectation and customer perception toward District Office in Simunjan. 3) To find the most important factors of service quality influencing customer satisfaction in Simunjan District Office.

2. Literature Review

Customer Satisfaction The connection between customer satisfaction and government organizations is less direct than for many businesses. Dissatisfied customers in business mean decreasing sales and new competition. Dissatisfied customers in government can express themselves through elections but that is a slower and less direct process. In business, customer problems will affect the bottom line in a few months, but in government the impact of dissatisfaction can take years. Therefore, there is a need to develop more timely methods to assess satisfaction. Citizen complaints, if unknown or ignored, can result in the failure of efforts and a depletion of support and validity of all government. If citizens, for example, do not feel that the public schools teach effectively, parents will seek to place children in private schools, lessen participation in school board elections and oppose bonds and taxes necessary to support schools. Or if citizens feel that law enforcement is inadequate or not honest, cooperation will lessen, and violence and crime may increase. Creating customer satisfaction is a defensive strategy and the behavioural objective for defence is customer loyalty (Muhannad M.A

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Abdallat & Hesham El –Sayed El - Emam, 2008).

The definition of customer satisfaction has been widely debated as organizations increasingly attempt to measure it. Customer satisfaction can be experienced in a variety of situations and connected to both goods and services. It is a highly personal assessment that is greatly affected by customer expectations. Satisfaction also is based on the customer’s experience of both contact with the organization (the “moment of truth” as it is called in business literature) and personal outcomes. Some researchers define a satisfied customer within the private sector as “one who receives significant added value” to his/her bottom line a definition that may apply just as well to public services. (Hanan, 2007).

Quality and service alone cannot produce recurrent satisfaction. Satisfaction is a distinct and separate issue. It is the customer's entire experience with us that determines his or her declaration of satisfaction. This experience is not objective at all but totally subjective. It is the customer's call. A customer is satisfied only when they say they are satisfied. Satisfaction is based upon the customer's perception of the experience. This perception is his/her interpretation of the value received played back against expectations. This declaration does not require any objective evidence. It can be a declaration made with no reason. Our interactions with the customer, the promises made to the customer in these conversations, the customer's expectations generated in these conversations, and the actions we take that are consistent with those expectations combine to produce a declaration of satisfaction. Therefore it is essential we manage these aspects of our business in a pro- active manner to excel at Customer Satisfaction. (Nowacki, 2012).

Satisfaction from service quality is usually evaluated in terms of technical quality and functional quality (Gronroos 1984). Usually, customers do not have much information about the technical aspects of a service; therefore, functional quality becomes the major factor from which to form perceptions of service quality (Donabedian 1980, 1982). Service quality may be defined as customer perception of how well a service meets or exceeds their expectations (Czepiel 1990). Service quality can be measured in terms of customer perception, customer expectation, customer satisfaction, and customer attitude (Sachdev and Verma 2004) Ekinci (2003) indicates that the evaluation of service quality leads to customer satisfaction. Rust and Oliver (1994) define satisfaction as the “customer fulfilment response,” which is an evaluation as well as an emotion-based response to a service (Geetika & Shefali Nandan, 2010).

SERVQUAL The most dominant instrument in measuring service quality is SERVQUAL. It was proposed by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithmal in 1985 which comprised of 10 dimensions with 97 items and later reduced to 5 dimensions with 22 items. The dimensions are tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. In the year of 1988, Parasuraman has come up with five dimension of service quality: they are tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Tangible will look at the physical quality of the subject matter like physical appearances, dressing style for human quality and graphically organized for website quality. Responsiveness is how quick the service react toward customer’s request; reliability is how far the service can be trusted; assurance is until what extent the service provider able to ensure customer’s privacy is well protected and lastly empathy is to see how far the service provider understand the customer’s needs. The dimension developed by Parasuraman (1988) is called SERVQUAL dimensions where it is widely used to be the scales to measure service

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The first version of the SERVQUAL instrument was composed of 97 scale items designed by Parasuraman et al. (1985) to gather data that would address those 10 dimensions. In the next phase of development, SERVQUAL was administered and data were collected for the 97 items. The investigators performed a factor analysis and applied reliability testing. Using Cronbach ‘s alpha coefficient, with alpha values ranging from .72 to .83 across the 10 dimensions, the instrument was refined to 54 items (Parasuraman et al. 1988, p.19). Factor analysis of the resulting 54 items changed the factor loadings, suggesting reassignment of some items and deletion of others. Each time the factors were changed, the fact or analysis was repeated and this iterative process ultimately resulted in 22 items loading on five dimensions (MILLER, 2008).

Service Quality in Malaysian Public Service Service quality is important in public sector due to the new public management policy which needs public organizations to compete among themselves (Azmi, 2008).

From 1999 to 2006, the Public Complaints Bureau (PCB) (http://www.bpa.jpm.my/) registered a high number of complaints filed by the public regarding delays in the actions taken and services provided by the employees of public organisations. Notably, three ministries – the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Prime Minister's Department – and three states in Malaysia – Selangor, Johor and Perak – received the most complaints (PCB, 1999–2006). Newspaper headlines also highlighted complaints from the public regarding their dissatisfaction with the services provided (New Straits Times & Berita Harian, 2005–2007), suggesting that service quality is low and does not match customer expectations. This is a matter of dire concern for the public, who as taxpayers expect good services to be provided (Abdullah, 2004). Thus, it seems that Total Quality Management (TQM), client charters, and MS ISO 9000 as practiced in the public sector are not enough to ensure the provision of high-quality services to customers (Wan, 2004).

Now, there are limited studies published on service quality in Malaysian public sector that applied SERVQUAL scale. It is widely accepted that the concept of service quality should be approached from the customer’s perspective. It is the customer’s perception of service quality and it is he or she who determines the level of satisfaction. Meeting with the needs and expectations of the customer means that we know what the customer wants, we know what the customer expects, and we can deliver them on a consistent basis. The customer is the judge of the quality of service, not the service provider regardless of how well the service provider's records seem to be.

Improvement in service quality in the public sector has not been particularly easy due to unclear performance target, lack of experimentation, lack of evaluation in order to learn from experience and slow to abandon less successful programmes. Problems in service quality common to both the public and private sector are lack of vision, emphasis on short term gains and the negative effects of performance evaluations. However, service quality improvements in government establishments can contribute to economy, efficiency, effectiveness and in quality (Hashim, Rasid, & Ismail, 2011).

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Theoretical Framework

Independent Variables

Tangibility Tangibles are the physical evidence of the service, for instance, the appearance of the physical facilities, tools and equipment used to provide the service, the appearance of personnel and communication materials and the presence of other customers in the service facility.

Reliability Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service in a dependable and accurate manner. The service is performed correctly on the first occasion, the accounting is correct, records are up to date and schedules are kept.

Responsiveness Responsiveness is to the readiness and willingness of employees to help customers in providing prompt timely services, for example, mailing a transaction slip immediately or setting up appointments quickly.

Assurance Assurance that refers to the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.

Empathy Empathy that is the customer desire empathy, caring and individualised attention from the service provider.

Dependent Variables

Customer Satisfaction In this research, Simunjan District Office service quality is the main variable to be tested against the respondent’s satisfaction toward the five dimensions. It indicates that the higher the customer’s satisfaction toward the five dimensions, the better quality of the service of Simunjan District office provided.

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

SERVQUAL

Tangibility

Reliability Customer Satisfaction

Responsiveness

Assurance

Empathy

Figure 1: The Relationship between SERVQUAL Dimensions and Customer Satisfaction

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3. Research Methodology

A survey was conducted to determine the perception and expectation of the customers in order to determine whether there would be a gap for improvement to the service quality of the Simunjan District office from the perspective of the customer. The SERVQUAL questionnaire model was adopted. The questionnaires were distributed to the entire Simunjan District office customer to get the information about their view on the quality of service offered by Simunjan District Office. The respondents are among the society in Simunjan only.

Before the final form of the survey or questionnaire is constructed, it is useful to conduct a pilot study (or dress rehearsal) to determine if the items are yielding the kind of information that is needed. The term pilot study is used in two different ways in social science research. After the questions already constructed, it was distributed to ten (10) random selected persons to answer the questionnaire. The objective of conducting pilot study is to make sure each question in the questionnaires is understandable by the respondent. (Kothari & C.R, 1985)

Sampling Sampling is the process of selecting the right individual to represent the population. In this research, 200 potential respondents will be identified by distributing the questionnaires randomly in Simunjan District Office. This method of collecting data is known as simple random sampling techniques. According to (Freedman, 2003) On the other hand, a good size sample, e.g., 200-500, is needed for multiple regressions, analysis of covariance, or log- linear analysis, which might be performed for more rigorous state impact evaluations. The sample size should be appropriate for the analysis that is planned. Simple random sampling is often practical for a population of business records, even when that population is large. When it comes to people, especially when face-to-face interviews are to be conducted, simple random sampling is seldom feasible. Another consideration with sample size is the number needed for the data analysis. If descriptive statistics are to be used, e.g., mean, frequencies, then nearly any sample size will suffice.

The main instrument in this research is questionnaire. The questionnaire is divided into four sections where the first section includes the respondent’s demographic information. The demographic information asked in section A is first and foremost, are they the Simunjan District office customer? The second and the third question is just a complimentary question asking for the age and gender.

Data Collection Method In this research, most of the data were collected through primary sources. Primary data was collected from questionnaires where the data was collected directly from the customers. Besides, another important source of data is from secondary data is collected mostly from Emerald journal and Simunjan District office website. Apart from that, some data also collected from self-observation and experiences.

The first step in conducting a primary research is to gather relevant data related to the research issue. This had been done through administering the questionnaires to customers who visit Simunjan District Office. The respondents were asked to rank and rate their views pertaining to the question necessitated the questionnaire. The researcher had used a five-point Likert scale for rating the question which asks the respondent to rate their views ranging from extremely dissatisfied to extremely satisfied. The questionnaires were handed over to

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The standard deviation had been computed to verify the accuracy of the data collected. The researcher had used statistical software like SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The researcher had also calculated the mean (average value), median (which helps in determining the central value from the data) and mode (the most repetitive response from the respondents in the sample).

Operational Variables

Variable Dimension Indicator Author Section B Tangibility  Availability of kids corners, parking Sumadi Suryabrata spaces, recreational facilities, food courts.  Cleanliness, ambience, maintenance etc.  Range of products, layout, shelves, aisles, display signs, promotional islands, and assortments. Reliability  Speed of Service. Sumadi Suryabrata  Accuracy of Transactions Responsiveness  Speed of Response to complaints Sumadi Suryabrata  Concern and Desire for Assisting Assurance  Concern for Customers Sumadi Suryabrata  Staff attitude  Security for transactions, parking etc. Empathy  Ease of Communication Sumadi Suryabrata  Attention and Patience of the sales staff

5.0 Findings

Objective 1 This research found that 48.5% of the customers who came to Simunjan district Office are satisfied and 2.5% of the customers feel extremely satisfied with the service provided by Simunjan District office. 28.5% of the customer feels neither satisfied nor dissatisfied toward the service provide by Simunjan District Office. There are 11% of customers who are extremely dissatisfied and 9.5% who are dissatisfied with the service provided.

The number of High School level who are satisfied with Simunjan District Office are higher compare to University level. This is because the number of respondents that came to Simunjan District Office a lot of them are high school education level which is 137 over 200. This research found that the education level does not really affect the satisfaction level of the customers in rural area.

Based on their occupation, the highest number of respondents are from others group which is 88 and followed by Government Sector which is 81. In Simunjan area, a lot of them are working with Government Sector and Others (farmer, fisherman, etc). From this result, its

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Objective 2 Satisfaction Gap Dimension Total Perception Total Expectation Gap Tangibility 743 753 -10 Reliability 726 788 -62 Responsiveness 757 771 -14 Assurance 725 768 -43 Empathy 681 725 -44

The gaps presented in table above are calculated according the SERVQUAL score calculation from (Parasuraman et al 1988). SERVQUAL score = Perception – Expectation. The level of the service quality depends on the score. The higher the positive score the better the Service Quality level. The results from shows that all the 5 items have negative scores. This means that none of the 5 items, reaches the customers‟ expectations level. Any differences between customer expectations and the organization’s perception of customer expectations of quality are important to identify and determine the level service quality provided.

Simunjan District Office needs to improve on Reliability part because it has the highest negative score which is -62. Customers perceived a gap in this area measured at -60, the biggest gap among all items. According to customer opinion, the second largest gap existed in the Assurance and Empathy dimension, and even for employees this dimension has resulted in negative gaps. This research also found that the customer doesn’t really care about Tangibility dimension.

This gap existed because it is come from internal management itself that can’t meet the expectation of the customer who seek for Simujan District Office services. The staff of the Simunjan District Office have low communication with the customers and the service that they offer to the customer cannot satisfy the customer.

Objective 3 The most important factors of service quality Dimension Sum Mean Tangiblitiy 390 1.95 Reliability 830 4.15 Responsiveness 650 3.25 Assurance 530 2.65 Empathy 600 3.00

Dimension Rank • 1 Reliability • 2 Responsiveness • 3 Empathy • 4 Assurance • 5 Tangibility The researcher has performed a descriptive analysis to analyse the mean of the responses and to also track the minimum and maximum responses of each perspective on an average. Table

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In this research it’s found those customers who are from rural area perceive that Reliability dimension is the most important for them. It is different compare to urban area where those customers who are from urban area perceive that Empathy is the most important dimension for them. Those research from overseas found that the customer from Europe perceive that Tangibility is the most important dimension for them.

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

SERVQUAL is a concise multiple-item scale with good reliability and validity that retailers can use to better understand the service expectations and perceptions of consumers and, as a result, improve service. By this instigator, SERVQUAL has been designed as a generic measure that could be applicable across a broad spectrum of services. In order to bridge the gap between customers’ perceptions of service delivery in the public service in Simunjan District Office, they need to provide more training to the employee to enhance their customer service skills. The training should focus on employee ability to help customers resolve their queries and problems quickly. In the process of resolving such problems, they should show a caring, courteous attitude and a sincere interest in helping customers. Furthermore, their employee should improve their knowledge and skills so that they can provide a fast and reliable service to their customers. When they promise to do something for the customer within a certain time, they must fulfil that promise. More importantly, service enhancement through customer orientation will provide the public sector with an opportunity to gain confidence from the tax-paying public. Conclusions that can be done are: • The descriptive result reveals that customer’s perception towards service quality level was consistently lower than their expectation. This implies that more effort is needed to improve the service quality level of the Simunjan District Office. • Customers have higher expectations on the promptness of service, accuracy of transactions, security issues and concerns; the customer’s lowest expectations are cleanliness, ambience and others.

Using the SERVQUAL instrument, this study was able to help this public organization identify important areas for improvement in its service delivery. The findings revealed that employees and customers did not have significant differences in opinions in terms of the gaps between their perceptions and expectations of that public organization. The findings are congruent with the studies of Bitner et al. (1994) and Schneider and Bowen (1985) where both employees and customers have common perceptions regarding the level of service quality delivered in an organization. This study was therefore able to highlight how important it is for an organization, be it a public sector organization, to conduct a survey and consider the opinions of its customers and its employees in identifying areas for service quality

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Recommendations Simunjan District Office should aim to motivate the staff to show respect towards their customers and increase the level of staff offering guests an increased personal service. This, in turn, will increase the readiness of staff to be available for their customers, who can contact them at any time. Additionally, employee appraisal systems can ensure that staff can continuously improve their working ability and improve upon weaknesses identified in their work

The results show that Simunjan District Office need to give more training to employee so that they can improve the quality of the services they are required to provide to customers. This shows that employees do not understand customers’ needs and are not able to respond to those needs. All the gap scores were negative indicating shortfall in meeting customers’ expectations across all dimensions.

Furthermore, their employee should improve their knowledge and skills so that they can provide a fast and reliable service to their customers. When they promise to do something for the customer within a certain time, they must fulfill that promise. More importantly, service enhancement through customer orientation will provide the public sector with an opportunity to gain confidence from the tax-paying public.

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