Service quality measurement within the public domain

Abstract

The current study investigated the use of a private sector instrument, designed to measure service quality, within the public domain. The SERVPERF instrument, a development of the SERVQUAL instrument, was designed to measure perceptions of service quality received from an organisation. The study arose from the paucity of research concerning service quality and the public domain.

The study took place in the Canterbury Central Library and involved 374 customers and employees of that organisation. Results of the study suggest that the SERVPERF instrument may offer as a reliable measure of service quality within both a public domain environment and the private sector. The findings also suggest that the dimensions comprising service quality are service sector specific rather than global dimensions as suggested. The most significant finding of the study is that interaction with employees forms a major dimension in the evaluation of service quality.

The study supports the view that perception only service quality measures offer greater validity compared to expectation minus perception scores. However, some doubts are raised concerning our current conceptions of the service quality construct. The study concludes that we may now possess the tools for comparing services supplied by different service sectors. This raises potential areas for research as managers attempt to solve public domain supply problems.