Abstract:
The quality of products and services has become imperative to the day-to-day running
of organisations. Services offered to customers need to be prompt and reliable to
increase customer’s commitments to its utilisation and adoption. The primary
objectives of the study were to determine how customers rate the quality of the service
that they expect to get at Community Information Centres (CIC) in Zimbabwe and also
to determine how customers rate the quality of the service that they are receiving. The
study was premised on Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry’s (1985) Gaps model.
Congruent to this model, the study used a quantitative research method. Five
hypotheses related to tangibility, responsiveness, reliability, empathy and assurance
of services were tested. Three Community Information Centres (CICs) were
purposively sampled where a sample of 475 (N475) respondents were subjected to a
SERVQUAL questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to
analyse the data. Descriptive statistics analysis was used to analyse the demographic
variables of respondents and to evaluate service quality expectations and perceptions
of CIC users. Inferential statistics were used to test relationships between the variables
and to find confirmation for the hypotheses. Further, Structural Equation Modelling
(SEM) was used to identify the relationships between independent (the SERVQUAL)
dimensions and the dependant variable (service quality) and to test the hypotheses.
Fit of data collected using the adapted SERVQUAL was realised and it was deemed
a good instrument to measure service quality in CICs. The reliability values were
above 0.8. Thus, it can be concluded that the measures used in the study are valid
and reliable. Factor analysis was performed to assess convergent validity. Construct
validity was determined by conducting Confirmatory Factor Analysis on all 22 items
and the associated five SERVQUAL constructs, with AMOS V22 software. Findings
from SEM confirmed significant positive relationships between the SERVQUAL quality
constructs (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) and service
quality dimension. Descriptive statistics results indicate that clients’ expectations of
CICs services in almost all SERVQUAL constructs were higher than their actual
experiences. Although the findings revealed some gaps between perception and
expectation in all the five service quality dimensions, it can be concluded that there is
a level of satisfaction among CIC users. The study will increase knowledge concerning
customer expectations, something that will allow policy makers to effectively act upon
the important and challenging task of running public service organisations such as
CICs. The study recommends that service quality needs to be consistently evaluated
to inform quality improvements.
