Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in University - Essay Example

?Topic:  Service Quality and Satisfaction in of the internet services in East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus. Introduction: The study is to evaluate the Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction of the internet services in the University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus. These libraries are located two places: one is Docland and the other in Stratford. The one located in Docland consists of all the modern facilities. Consumer Service is seen as the base for the most successful organisation that retains customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction is the one of the most important aspects that need to be considered when measuring the effectiveness of the quality of service provided by the East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus. The campus must try to perceive the expectations of the customer for the internet services, to provide the best service. East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus is one of the famous libraries on U K. Various types of services are provided by this university to people who need it. Also, this library has sophisticated, modern outlook. This library consists of almost 1250 internet hubs for the use of the learners. An individual, group or business firm that has direct or indirect share in a business for the reason that it can influence or be influenced by the business actions, aims and rules. Key stakeholders in a trade business consist of creditors, consumers, administrators, workers, government, proprietors, dealers, unions, and the society from which the industry draws its resources. “Some are in labs, others in resource centres. The uni accommodation is nearly all served by wired connections to the uni network too - be careful to see if the rest is able to have any internet connection. You'd think it should, but the comments on the unis website make you wonder... Many of the facilities are accessible 24 hours a day. Others will shut at 9pm and may not be available all day if the room is used as a classroom. Teaching rooms across campus have Concepts and Evaluation of the quality of the customer service of the internet service: Customer satisfaction of consumers of Costco Wholesale Corporation helps to assess how goods offered by the Costco wholesale corporation meet the expectations of the client. This element is required to be properly monitored and translated into a number of assessable parameters. In the modern day, customer satisfaction for business organisations has developed its significance. The customer satisfaction for the services provided by the University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus may decrease if the campus fails to meet the expectations of the customer. Good customer service helps to increase the customer loyalty towards the products. So that before offering products, the organization can identify the requirement of the consumer regarding the product. The campus of East London is one of the flourishing modern campuses, which is progressively more popular for superiority in both education and study. This university is ranked as the No 1 campus in the United Kingdom. One of the recent campus enlargement plans is the Internet service or Information technology suits. A service blueprint of the University East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus is a graphical or illustrational demonstration of the procedure engaged in offering a service. The function of the service blueprint is to offer an understanding of the various service procedures to the populace engaged in offering these services. It is also a practical instrument for assessing the efficiency of obtainable service procedures and designing such innovative or superior procedures. “Computing and multimedia facilities are available for general use, along with specialist subject-specific facilities in our academic schools. Free wi-fi internet access Over 1,500 networked computers providing free email and internet access, software including MS Office, specialist learning and teaching packages, and statistical software such as SPSS Student helpdesks with friendly, knowledgeable staff Virtual Learning Environments to enable you to study where and when you want Multimedia Production Centre .” (UEL Direct, n.d). The audit of the campus verifies the efficiency of the university's events for creating and preserving the values of its academic prizes; for evaluating and developing the excellence of the program of study directing to those prizes; and for publishing consistent information. Besides the audit, Root Cause examination is a technique that is employed to speak to non-conformance, with the intention of obtaining the “root source” of the trouble. Such analysis helps to solve the problems through various recommendations. Why evaluate Service Quality of the internet service University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus? Service quality is a business management term and explains the degree of attainment of a structured service. Quality offered by the internet service of the University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus includes an assessment of expectations with performance. Academic library is connected to the academic organizations, thus, fulfilling the research and teaching needs of staffs and students. The Academic libraries serve two balanced purposes: to maintain the school's program, and to support the study of the university students and faculty. Expectations and perceptions: • Contribute in organization growth. • Look for ways to reprogram the business. • Achieve greater output. • Integrate functions. • Customize services. Evaluation of the service quality helps the library for the following purposes. Continued existence Answerability Benchmarking Development Focus assets. Service Quality Model: Various models are used to evaluate the service quality of the internet service in the University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus. One of the widely accepted models is the gap analysis. Excellent service quality leads to more customer satisfaction. If the customers are satisfied with the qualities provided by the services industry, it will help in the process of generating and retaining the most loyal customer. Service gap theory accounts for the difference among customers’ expectations and perceptions and is the core of the Servqual model, which is designed to provide an organization with appropriate guidelines for bridging the gap between perceived and expected service. Customer satisfaction is one of the most significant aspects that require to be considered at the time of measuring the effectiveness of the quality of internet service in University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus. It is necessary to analysis the demand of the learner as well as the quality of the service provided by the campus. This will help to identify further requirements in internet service in the Docland Campus. “The Gap Model is an effective tool for identifying and rectifying service quality and service delivery gaps .Service marketing is inherently different from product or goods marketing. Services are distinctively characterized by their intangible, heterogeneous, inseparable and perishable nature. (Roy, 2010). Service Quality Theories: Evaluate the service quality of the internet service in University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus provide different types of theories. Gap is a tool that assists a company to compare its actual performance with its potential performance. The gap of service quality is a main customer-satisfaction structure. Two theories are mainly accepted, they are gap theories and theories of constrains. 1. Gap Theories: This theory identifies different sources of gaps between the service quality that a customer expects to receive from a service provider and the customer perception of the service actually received. “Gap Theory of Service Quality which measures the minimum, desired, and perceived levels of service on a nine-point scale.” (Administration: University Libraries, 2011). Gap theory identifies five categories of gaps. The first four gaps are categorized as company gap and the fifth gap is known as customer gap. These five gaps have been used to measure the internet service provide by University of East London Academic Libraries in Docland Campus. 2. Theories of constrains: The theory of constrains is the management attitude that concentrates the resources of a business on improving the presentation of the constraint that directly influences profit or loss. “Quality of service is a broad term that is used in both customer care evaluations and in technological evaluations. In both applications, the quality of service has to do with measuring the incidence of errors within a process that result in the creation of issues for an end user” (What is Quality of Service, 2011). Sampling conducted on various students and staffs in the University of East London for the usage and satisfaction of academic libraries: Various sections of the university Number of students Number of staffs Total number of students Percentage of usage rating of service in percentage Economic and administrative sections 40 28 68 20 45 Arts and science 75 35 110 30 35 Engineering and architecture 35 10 45 15 65 Department of law 32 12 44 15 78 Finance 40 15 55 15 54 Department for physical education and sports 15 2 17 5 31 Graphical representation: Make and justify recommendations for improvement internet service: Since the information technology department mainly depends on internet connections, its growth depends mainly on quality of this facility. In the case of libraries the quality of providers should be the main consideration. “In the early stage of internet markets, internet-based financial institutions competed with traditional financial institutions by providing services at lower prices. However, today, more and more companies are participating in internet markets, nullifying the initial price advantage and resulting in low prices becoming a minimum qualification to compete in the market” (Sohn & Tadisina, 2011). Internet services should be updated on a day to day basis. Provision for getting customer feedback, so that service can be improved in a good manner Conducting customer surveys, which can help in the process of decision making Setting the customer expectations and changing the service according to that Various underpinnings of academic libraries: Due to the changing nature of the libraries, they should be built with the latest features. They should include all features like: Customer care and communication service Since most of the professionals in the libraries deal with the customers directly, there should be a strategy adopted to improve the quality of the service. It forms the base in any organization. Information As the main service of the library is to pass information, it should be able to provide the customers with information regarding educational and business matters. There should never be any complaint that a particular individual did not get what he or she was looking for in the library. Reference and research There should be a provision for reference, so that it could be accessed in case it is required. Researches should be conducted to know various problems and evolve their solutions. Critical analysis and results From the analysis we can find that there are short comings in various areas, Services provided are not sufficient enough to meet all the requirements. Thus, there should be proper training to improve this section. Service is not provided 24x 7, hence, it makes the customers to wait, which results in the wastage of their precious time. There is a lack of quality from the providers. The problems of speed, interruptions etc are still affecting many people. Old methods are still being used. New softwares or advanced modems have not yet been set up in the libraries. Customers cannot access all the data they need. Development From the analysis, it is clear that customers are not at all satisfied with the services, and many improvements are required in this field. Considering all the facts, only the self- development technique can improve this sector, as it requires self- improvement rather than trying to improve or correct others. Improvements are needed in Management sector Information technology sector Changing to digital libraries Information collected Electronic sources Cooperation from other sectors. Customer satisfaction survey results: At the end of last year 200 people were interviewed as a part of the survey. They were asked to rate various sections on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing the most unsatisfactory services and 10 representing the best services. Service area average rating 1) Over all satisfaction of the service 6.5 2) Availability of information 7.3 3) Quality of availability 5.5 4) Speed of connection 5.1 5) Access to data 6.1 6) Answering to various problems 7.1 7) Knowledge in solving problems 6.6 8) Interest and skill in solving 6.3 9) Timely response 6.5 10) Use of latest technologies 5.2 Graphical representation of Customer satisfaction survey results Conclusion: Service is the main issue, which is to be considered most important not only in this case but also in every organization. Assuring quality services should be main perspective of any organization. Upgrading the services is not to be taken care of just once; it should be done regularly to keep in touch with the latest developments and to increase the service quality. Recommendations: The internet service includes the following 1. Selecting the best service providers. The quality different services are different, and here we need is to select the one which can serve our purpose in an effective. 2. Service without interruption, as the various data’s that people are looking towards from libraries are sufficiently high, an interruption can cause the complete damage of data’s. 3. 24 hours service should be maintained, for this selection of service is important 4. Using of wireless method is very important as the people using i phones are increasing. 5. Upgrade the software, software’s are the one which is charge of maintaining the connection, it should be updated using proper channels to serve better 6. In the buildings having many walls or turns use Ethernet in place of Wi-Fi, because interruption becomes so large in this case. Ethernet is wired solution when wireless connection is in problem. Reference List Administration :University Libraries, 2011. [Online] MEMPHIS. Available at: http://www.memphis.edu/administration/libqual_usr_svy02.php [Accessed 25 March 2011]. Roy, P. 2010. Gap Analysis- Parameters to Measure Service Quality, [Online] suite101. Available at: http://www.suite101.com/content/gap-analysis--parameters-to-measure-service-quality-a222295 [Accessed 25 March 2011]. Sohn, C. & Tadisina, SK., 2011. Development of e-service quality measure for internet-based financial institutions. [Online] inform world. Available at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a901446779~db=all~order=page [Accessed 25 March 2011]. UEL Direct, n.d. [Online] University of East London. Available at: http://www.uel.ac.uk/campuses/facilities.html [Accessed 25 March 2011]. University of East London, 2010. [Online] The Student Room. Available at: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/University_of_East_London [Accessed 25 March 2011]. What is Quality of Service, 2011. [Online] wise GEEK. Available at: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-quality-of-service.htm [Accessed 25 March 2011]. Read More