Residential customer’s expectation and perception of services provided by eThekwini Municipality electricity call centre.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Customer service and customer satisfaction play a vital role in any business. The success of any organisation is largely dependent on how they satisfy their customers by ensuring that quality customer service is delivered across all levels of the organisation. Businesses and public service organisations, together with their employees need to understand the perceptions and expectations of their customers in order to provide optimum quality service to the customer. Focusing on Clare-Hills Ward 23 in eThekwini Municipality, the research investigated residential customers’ expectations and perceptions of service quality using SERVQUAL model by focusing specifically on services provided by eThekwini Municipality Electricity Call Centre in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. A quantitative research approach was utilised for this study. The study adopted “stratified random sampling” to select 80 residential customers as participants from Clare-Hills Ward 23 with experience of service provided by eThekwini Municipality Electricity Call Centre. Data was collected using a questionnaire, and analysed using descriptive statistics. The study revealed that Clare-Hills residents had high expectations of a reliable and responsive service by eThekwini Municipality Electricity Call Centre. More specifically, the highest expectations of residential customers were on eThekwini Municipality Electricity Call Centre having the consumer’s best interest at heart but also the expectation of EMECC “fulfilling the promise to do something by a certain time”. The study also found gaps between Clare-Hills customers’ expectations and their respective perceptions on all the dimensions of SERVQUAL, which were all negative and not met. In conclusion, the overall negative gaps between customer expectations and perceptions obtained on all dimensions of SERVQUAL show that eThekwini Municipality Electricity Unit through call centre services have failed the residents of Clare-Hills Ward 23 in Durban by not meeting their expectations in terms of service quality as users of eThekwini Municipality Electricity Unit. V Recommendation on service quality improvements by eThekwini Municipality Call Centre are highlighted in this study. Areas for future research are also illuminated.