Service Quality in Malaysian Public Service Delivery : A...

The 3rd AAAB International Conference 2007, Hadyai, Thailand

SERVICE QUALITY IN MALAYSIAN PUBLIC SERVICE: A PILOT STUDY

Ilhaamie binti Abdul Ghani Azmi¹

Zainal Ariffin Ahmad² Yuserrie Zainuddin²

Zuhal Hussein³

¹Department of Syariah & Management, Universiti Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 03-79676132. [email protected]

²School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.

04-6533355. [email protected] / [email protected] ³Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), 40450

Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. [email protected]

Abstract

This pilot study tries to determine whether the respondents can fully understand the items of SERVQUAL as most studies on service quality are done in the western countries and private firms. It also tries to identify the most important dimension and to examine the level of service quality, expectation and perception of the customers towards the Malaysian public services. Overall service quality is quite good. It is found that tangible is the most important dimension. It also has the highest score of perception showing that customers’ are most not satisfied with this dimension especially on up to date facilities. Furthermore, it has the biggest gap, showing that customers’ expectations were not met especially on the materials not being visually appealing. On the other hand, service quality gap is neither the lowest nor the highest. Finally, they have the highest expectation in assurance dimension and on the public servants to be courteous to them.

Key words: service quality, SERVQUAL, expectation, perception, satisfaction, public service INTRODUCTION Service quality is imperative for any organizations whether they sell products or services. This is because quality of services either they are customer services or core services are harder to determine and to be controlled due to their characteristics which are intangibility (the inability to see or touch the service), perishability (the problem of a lost opportunity), heterogeneity (the relative inconsistency in service provision); and inseparability (the simultaneous production and consumption of a service) from human elements. Furthermore, most customers tend to leave the organizations because of their dissatisfaction with the quality of the services and not because of the quality of the products (Gowan, Seymour, Ibarreche & Lackey, 2001). Hence, service quality is the answer for organizations to sustain their competitiveness in this volatile world.

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This study was carried out in Malaysian public sector as public sector provides diverse range of services to customers which could not be provided by the private sector due to its responsibilities as the regulator and the authority (Brysland & Curry, 2001). Moreover, there are quite a few of studies of service quality especially using SERVQUAL as the instrument carried out in the public sector. At the moment, there are a quite high number of complaints filed by the public due to cases of delays in taking actions and providing services to them (PCD, 1999-2005). Headlines of some main newspapers also highlighted complaints from the public regarding their dissatisfaction with the provided services (NST & Berita Harian, 2000-2007). Consequently, service quality is not as expected by the customers and therefore, it is quite low. This matter is a concern of the public since they are the taxpayers, therefore; they expect good services are provided to them as the return. It seems that Total Quality Management (TQM), client’s charter and MS ISO 9000 practiced in the public sector not to be sufficient in providing high quality of services to the customers (Wan Abdul Wahab, 2004). Therefore, this study was conducted as a pilot test in order to determine whether Malaysian respondents in the public service can fully understand the items of SERVQUAL as most studies on service quality are done in the western countries and private firms. It also tries to identify the most important dimension as it seems that responsiveness is the most important dimension as delay in taking actions and providing services to customers as highly complained are of the responsiveness dimension. Finally, it tries to examine the level of service quality, expectation and perception of the customers toward the Malaysian public services. SERVICE QUALITY Service quality is a dimension of organizational performance (Dyer & Reeves, 1995). It is a subjective performance as it is ultimately determined by external customers through customer survey. One of the most popularly and regularly used concepts of service quality is of Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry known as SERVQUAL (1985, 1988, 1991a, 1991b, 1994). They defined service quality as the degree of differences between normative expectation of the customers towards the services and their perceptions towards the service performance (Parasuraman, et al., 1991a). Therefore, if perception is higher than expectation, the level of service quality will be higher and vice versa. This concept is known as disconfirmation of expectation paradigm. The concept has been the foundation of its model which comprises of five gaps whereby the final gap is service quality which is the gap between the expectation and perception of the customers.

Gap 1 is the understanding gap which is the difference between what customers expect and what management perceives of their expectation. Such gap may be caused by inadequate research into customer needs, poor internal communications or inadequate management structures. Gap 2 is the design gap which is the discrepancy between managers’ perceptions of customers’ expectations and the actual specifications they establish for service delivery. Such gap may be caused by an inadequate commitment to service quality, inappropriate goal setting or by management who are inexperienced or inadequate in this area. Gap 3 is the service-performance or delivery gap which is the difference between service specifications and the actual service delivery. This gap may due to shortage of resources in key areas, lack of commitment and motivation, inadequate quality control procedures or inadequate staff training. Finally, gap 4 is the communication gap which is the discrepancy between what an organization promises about a service as communicated in their slogans, advertising or public relations and what it actually delivers. Gap 1 through 4 occur in the process of designing and providing a service and contribute to gap 5 and thus, the magnitude of gap 5 equals the sum of the first four gaps (Donnelly, Wisniewski, Dalrymple & Curry,1995, Sharifuddin, 1998/1999; 1999a; 1999b).

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Initally, in 1985, Parasuraman et al. introduced ten dimensions of service quality which are reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understand customers and tangibles. However, in 1988, some of the dimensions which are access, communication, credibility were combined into a new dimension known as empathy and dimensions of credibility, courtesy, security and understand customers were combined into a second new dimension known as assurance. Therefore, the recent SERVQUAL comprises of five dimensions which are popularly known as tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.

The definitions of each dimension are as follow: Tangibility : physical facilities, equipment and appearance of personnel. Reliability : ability to perform the promised service dependability and accurately. Responsiveness : willingness to help customers and provide prompt service. Assurance : knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence. Empathy : caring, individualized attention that the firm provides its customers.

SERVQUAL is a concise multiple item scale with good reliability and validity (Brysland & Curry, 2001; Orwig, Pearson & Cochran, 1997, Sharifuddin, 1998/1999, 1999a, 1999b). It was designed to be applicable across a broad spectrum of services (Parasuraman et al., 1988, Sharifuddin, 1998/1999, 1999a, 1999b, Donnelly, Wisniewski, Dalrymple & Curry,1995; Orwig, Pearson & Cochran, 1997). Furthermore, SERVQUAL has shown to be more accurately identified service shortfalls and deficiencies within an organization compared to other instruments (Parasuraman et al.; 1991b). SERVICE QUALITY IN PUBLIC SERVICE Public services are a major component of the service industry. The characteristics of public services are that they consist of labour intensity, contact, interaction, customization, service act and direct recipient. They can either be personal or professional or mass services (Rowley, 1998). According to Walsh (1991), public services are experienced goods as the characteristic of the services could not be investigated or impossible or impractical to investigate before purchase. Public sector organizations face more difficulties than the private sector in improving its service quality as customer service is one of its social obligations towards the citizens. In order to achieve this, they need to cooperate and complement each other and at the same time, they have to compete with each other (Rowley, 1988) due to the problem of budget constraints and competing demand for resources (Gowan, Seymour, Ibarreche & Lackey, 2001). Moreover, they have a variety of customer groups such as individuals, interest groups, society, and government agency for their diverse range of services whereby they may pay directly or indirectly for the services or they may not benefit the service from direct use or they may be unwilling recipients (Brysland & Curry, 2001). Gowan, Seymour, Ibarreche and Lackey (2001), categorized customers into three which are customers, clients and captives by basing on whether they have to pay or not for the services, nature of relationship and choice of services. These various customer groups may have different opinions on current levels of service provision, therefore; causing additional problems for the public sector managers in terms of deciding on the priorities in customer service improvement (Donnelly, Wisniewski, Dalrymple & Curry, 1995). However, by using SERVQUAL, public sector can identify expectations and perceptions of its various customer groups better. Thus, it will serve as a platform in providing better services for its citizens as they will be more closely match various customer groups’ expectations or needs. If it is used continuously, service quality can be monitored and ultimately improved as managerial

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judgement exercised is from knowledge that is from the numerical information and not from mere guesswork (Donnelly, Wisniewski, Dalrymple & Curry, 1995). It also allows internal benchmarking when the different parts of the same service are compared on a geographical basis. The findings will allow the authority to find the answers to the causes of the service shortfalls and deficiencies such as resources, systems, procedures or staff training (Wisniewski, 2001a; 2001b). SERVQUAL can be applied to different service providers, across different public sector services and between different customer groups in different geographical regions. Even though service quality might be satisfactory or far above the expectation, it can diagnose shortfall of services in specific dimensions by looking at the gap and expectation scores of each item and dimension and to identify the most important dimension as perceived by the customers via the weighted and unweighted scores. By knowing the customers’ expectations, the public sector might be able to prioritize which public services in which geographical region need more help in improving their services. Customers too are getting involved in the internal service process improvement and this understanding could be transformed into a service design and specification which in turn leads to the actual service delivery (Wisniewski & Donelly, 1996). In contrast, the objective of the private sector in providing and ensuring service quality is to increase its profitability, long term survival and success (Wisniewski & Donelly, 1996). Therefore, its customers are prepared to pay whatever it takes in order to obtain high quality of services. Studies of service quality that are conducted in the public sector especially in other countries are like Brysland and Curry (2001); Donnelly, Wisniewski, Dalrymple and Curry (1995); Donnelly and Shiu, (1999); Gowan, Seymour, Ibarrehe and Lackey (2001); Orwig, Pearson and Cochran (1997); Rowley (1998); Wisniewski (2001a; 2001b); Wisniewski and Donnelly (1996). Brysland and Curry (2001) used the SERVQUAL scale to measure the internal service quality as they believe that service quality should start internally before it could be extended to the external customers whereas Donnelly and Shiu (1999); Orwig, Pearson and Cochran (1997) and Wisniewski and Donnelly (1996) used the scale to measure service quality as expected and perceived by the external customers as they are the end users. Donnelly, Wisniewski, Dalrymple and Curry (1995) and Rowley (1998) also agreed and proposed on SERVQUAL as a good measurement of service quality. Gowan, Seymour, Ibarrehe and Lackey (2001) compared the expectation and perception of service quality between three groups of stakeholders in a public agency who are the employees, managers and customers. On the other hand, Wisniewski (2001a; 2001b) used SERVQUAL scale in a pilot study to measure customer satisfaction as the proxy to service quality in local authorities in Scotland. In short, SERVQUAL instrument has been used extensively to measure service quality in the public sector in the UK and Scotland (Brysland & Curry, 2001). The underlying structure of SERVQUAL appears well suited to assessing service quality in a public sector context (Wisniewski & Donnelly, 1996) SERVICE QUALITY IN MALAYSIAN PUBLIC SERVICE Malaysian public service has undergone several efforts in enhancing the quality of its services. In 1989, excellence work culture movement was launched to institutionalize quality as the way of life and to enhance awareness on the importance of providing quality products and services (Mohamed, 1996). In 1992, TQM whereby one of its popular concept known as quality work circle was introduced. This was followed by client’s charter introduced in 1993 and in 1995, ISO 9000 : 2001 was launched and other special efforts were taken up such as improving the service counters, work systems and procedures and the introduction of awards to highlight public service innovations and best practices. Public organizations that undertake these special efforts were also established such as INTAN in 1989, MAMPU in 1992, NPC in 1995 and later on, Public Bureau Complaint (Dauth, 1996: Zaiton, Carole & Wan Hajrah, 1998). Quality in Malaysian delivery

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system is important as any slack in the quality could impede efforts to attract investors as well as erode their confidence in the administration (NST, 2005). Recently, there were a quite high number of complaints filed by the public due to delays in taking actions and providing services to them (BPA, 1999-2005). Headlines of some main newspapers also highlighted complaints from the public regarding their dissatisfaction with provided services (NST & Berita Harian, 2000-2007). Consequently, service quality is not as expected by the customers and therefore, it is quite low. This matter is a concern of the public since they are the taxpayers, therefore; they expect good services are provided to them as the return. It seems that Total Quality Management (TQM), client’s charter and MS ISO 9000 practiced in the public sector not to be sufficient in providing high quality of services to the customers (Wan Abdul Wahab, 2004). Delay in providing services could be attributed to lengthy forms to be processed, complex or rigid procedures, attitudes of the public servants or bureaucratic delays (Berita Harian; NST; 2005)

So far there are limited studies published on service quality in Malaysian public sector that apply SERVQUAL scale such as Aliah Hanim and Ahmad Tarmizi (1998), Sharifuddin (1998/1999, 1999a, 1999b), Sharifah Latifah, Mokhtar and Arawati (2000). Sharifuddin (1998/1999, 1999a, 1999b) tried to measure the service quality as perceived by the service providers of road transport department and its users by using the extended service quality model introduced by Parasuraman et al. in 1994. On the other hand, Aliah Hanim and Ahmad Tarmizi (1998), added three more items to the original SERVQUAL scale to measure service quality and customer satisfaction in the income tax department. Finally, Sharifah Latifah, Mokhtar and Arawati (2000) used SERVQUAL to come up with the service improvement index of six different ministries in Kuala Lumpur which are selected by basing on Public Service Quality Award of 1996. METHODOLOGY This pilot study used the SERVQUAL scale designed by Parasuraman et al. (1991a) to measure the expectation and perception of service quality of the Malaysian public service. SERVQUAL was used in entirety (Orwig, Pearson & Cochran, 1997; Parasuraman et al.; 1991a) whereby it comprises four sections which are section one that consists of 22 items on expectation, section two also consists of 22 items on perception, section three on overall service quality and importance of the five service quality dimensions where the customers were required to indicate the importance by allocating a total of 100 points to the five dimensions and finally, section four is on demographic details. The statements for the first and section are of the same statements but they are put into different sections in order not to confuse the respondents between their expectations and perceptions. The scores for each item ranged from 1 from strongly disagree to 7 for strongly agree on a seven point Likert scale. Service quality is obtained by subtracting expectation rating from the perception rating for each item. Convenience sampling was used for sample selection as it was difficult to determine the customers of the public organizations as they do not regularly use the services (Wisniewski, 2001a; 2001b). 125 sets of questionnaires were handed to six public service agencies which are MARA, PKNS, Jabatan Perkhidmatan Haiwan, Mahkamah Syariah, Majlis Perbandaran Kota Bharu and Universiti Malaya. The respondents were requested to fill in the questionnaires and the same times were asked to write down their comments on the vagueness of the instrument, if there is any. A total of 53 questionnaires were collected. However, one questionnaire did not evaluate the public service and therefore, was discarded from the analysis (a response rate of 41.6%). RESULTS

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Profile of the Sample Of the 53 respondents, respond rates of majority were female (50.9%) aged between 26 to 35 years old (35.8%), married (50.9%), diploma holders (37.7%) and earned between RM 1,001 to RM 2,000 (30.2%). Table 1 presents the profile of the sample. TABLE 1 Characteristics of the Respondents Percent (100) Sex Male 47.2 Female 50.9 Age 25 and below 32.1 26-35 35.8 36-45 22.6 46-55 3.8 56 and above 1.9 Marital Status Single 41.5 Married 50.9 Divorced 3.8 Educational Level Diploma 37.7 Bachelor degree 26.4 Masters degree 5.7 Others 24.5 Monthly Income Below RM1,000 11.3 1,001-2,000 30.2 2,001-3,000 18.9 3,001-4,000 3.8 4,000 and above 1.9 Most of the respondents commented on the lengthiness of the instrument. Wisniewski (2001b) also agreed that there was anecdotal evidence that some customers are deterred from completing the questionnaire because of its apparent length and complexity. Expectation and Perception Scores The levels of expectation and perception among the respondents with respect of the five dimensions are examined and are shown in Table 2 and 3. The level of expectation was between 5.62 to 5.92 where it was the highest for assurance (5.92) and lowest for empathy (5.62). On the other hand, the level of perception was between 5.12 to 5.46 where it was highest for assurance (5.46) and lowest for tangible (5.12). The minimum expectation scores are between 3.5 to 4 where the lowest are tangible and reliability dimensions (3.5) and the highest are responsiveness and assurance dimensions (4). On the other hand, the minimum perception scores are between 2 to 3 where the lowest is the empathy (2) and the highest is assurance (3) dimensions. The maximum expectation scores are 7 for all dimensions meanwhile the maximum perception scores are not in all dimensions which are between 6.75 (tangible and responsiveness dimensions) to 7 (reliability, assurance and empathy dimensions). This shows that the expectations of the respondents are higher than their perceptions and therefore, their expectations are not met.

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When the items are examined, the level of expectation scores are between 5.52 (E9) to 6.07 (E16) and the level of perception scores are between 4.88 (P1) to 5.62 (P17). This shows that the expectation of the respondents are higher than their perceptions and therefore, their expectations are not met when are examined both at the item and construct levels. The first perception or coded as P1 has the lowest value of perception is on up-to-date equipment and the sixteenth expectation or coded as E16 has the highest value of expectation is on employees being courteous with customers. This shows that the Malaysian public service has not been able to provide up to date equipment and its customers are highly expecting that its employees are courteous while dealing with them. The reliability scores for the expectation and perception for all the five dimensions are all above 0.5 indicating that SERVQUAL instrument is indeed satisfactory for use in Malaysian public service (Low & Lee, 1997). TABLE 2 Expectation Scores

Dimensions Cronbach Alpha

Min Max Mean Standard Deviation

Expectation 0.96 4.0 7.0 5.75 0.80 Tangible 0.85 3.5 7.0 5.79 1.01 Reliability 0.85 3.5 7.0 5.64 0.87 Responsiveness 0.86 4.0 7.0 5.82 0.88 Assurance 0.86 4.0 7.0 5.92 0.89 Empathy 0.88 3.6 7.0 5.62 0.99 TABLE 3 Perception Scores



Perception 0.96 2.59 6.86 5.29 0.91 Tangible 0.79 2.75 6.75 5.12 0.95 Reliability 0.88 2.40 7.00 5.33 0.98 Responsiveness 0.89 3.00 6.75 5.31 1.11 Assurance 0.91 3.00 7.00 5.46 1.02 Empathy 0.94 2.00 7.00 5.25 1.13 Gap Scores Table 4 contains the gap scores values for the overall service quality and its five dimensions. These gap scores are obtained by extracting each perception scores with the expectation scores. The service quality gap scores range from –0.31 to –0.67 where the lowest gap is the reliability dimension and the highest gap is the tangible dimension. Service quality gap is –0.46 which is neither the lowest nor the highest. When the items are examined, the highest gap is the gap of the fourth items of tangible dimension (-.82) which is on visually appealing materials associated with the service and the lowest gap is the gap of the third items of reliability dimension (-.13) which is on performing the service right the first time.

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TABLE 4 Gap Scores



Service Quality 0.89 -3.67 0.90 -0.46 0.93 Tangible 0.83 -3.75 1.50 -0.67 1.30 Reliability 0.86 -4.40 1.50 -0.31 1.11 Responsiveness 0.80 -4.00 2.00 -0.51 1.09 Assurance 0.86 -4.00 2.00 -0.46 1.17 Empathy 0.79 -3.20 1.80 -0.37 0.90 Overall Service Quality Score However, the overall service quality is 5.02 which is quite good. The Most Important Dimension When the respondents who were the customers to the participating public service departments were asked to allocate 100 points across the five service quality dimensions, tangible (21.84) emerged as the most important service quality dimension followed by reliability (20.31), responsiveness (19.58), assurance (18.97) and empathy (17.35) as shown in Table 5. This finding is parallel to the findings of the lowest score of the customers’ perception on up to date equipment and the biggest gap which is on visually appealing material are also the tangible dimension. This shows that this dimension is indeed the most important to the customers. TABLE 5 The Most Important Dimension Dimension Mean Number of Points Allocated (100) Tangible 21.84 Reliability 20.31 Responsiveness 19.58 Assurance 18.97 Empathy 17.35 DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS The findings are quite parallel to Wisniewski and Donnelly (1996) and Wisniewski (2001) that tangible has the highest gap and the lowest level of perception. Tangible is also an important dimension in hospitality industry (Pei, Abdolali & Yong, 2005) and in rail services in Malaysia private sector (Low & Lee, 1997). Furthermore, none of all gap scores are also found to be positive in Low and Lee (1997) and Kassim and Bojei (2002) studies. This shows that the customers’ expectations are not met and there are shortfalls in the services provided. Therefore, the managers need to take some actions to close the gaps. The results of this study show that there is a need for the Malaysian public service to look into their tangible aspects of their service offering especially the layout of the service counter, the facilities and the waiting room. They have to ensure that the ambience is set right for the customers so that the customers can wait patiently for their turn to be served. Some facilities are old and faulty, some decorative items are not up to date and not up to their taste and the materials

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provided are not visually appealing. Furthermore, they have to ensure that their employees are trained to be courteous and they should be acknowledged or rewarded for being courteous with the employees. This is important in order to ensure that being courteous to the customers is the working ethic and culture in Malaysian public service. CONCLUSION The overall service quality of these six public agencies is quite good. It is found that tangible is the most important dimension as rated by the customers when they were asked to allocate 100 points across the five dimensions. It is also the most important dimension as they are most not satisfied with it as their perception was higher than their expectation especially with the facilities as they are not up to date. It is also found that tangible has the biggest gap especially on the materials not being visually appealing. This is certainly due to responsiveness as the highest number of complaint filed by the customers and thus, comfort in waiting is given a preference. On the other hand, service quality gap is neither the lowest nor the highest. Finally, they have the highest expectation in assurance dimension at the construct level and on the public servants to be courteous to them at the item level. Thus, the Malaysian public service should take some actions to heed into these matters. REFERENCES Aliah Hanim, M.S. & Ahmad Tarmizi, A. R. (1998). “Jurang Harapan-Tanggapan Pengguna :

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