Measuring the customer's perception of service quality using SERVQUAL in public services

摘要

The inherent complexity of the public service environment throws up a number of difficulties and potential conflicts. The identification of the customer of public services is not straightforward. Customers of the public services may be individuals, community or interest groups, elected members, legislators or society as a whole. These customers or stakeholders may or may not pay for, receive or benefit directly from the services provided, which further complicates the issue. Different customer or stakeholder groups may well have different expectations of the same service or have different service priorities. Berry et al. (1985) identified ten dimensions of service quality. These were later reduced to five. They defined service quality to be perceived as the "extent of discrepancy between customer's expectations or desires and their perceptions". This study tries to apply the SERVQUAL instrument to the services provided by selected Tehsil office from Maharashtra, India.