Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Smes in Benin City
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The objective of the study is to assess the service quality and customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city. The specific objectives are;
- To ascertain whether service quality have any effect on customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city
- To examine which quality of services may be improved in SMEs in Benin city
- To ascertain the importance of customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Cook (2008) and Levy et al. (2012) posits that many organizations across the globe place increasing emphasis on excellent customer service as a means of building customer loyalty and developing a sustainable competitive advantage. According to Levy et al. (2012), good services do not only keep customers returning to a business but generates positive word-of-mouth which attracts new customers. Customer service covers all aspects of the customer and the supplier relationship (Boachie-Mensah 2009) and hence seeks to close the gap between client expectations and experience (Lancaster et al., 1999). The concept of customer service according to Clutterbuck (1998) represents a basic approach to the standard of service quality. This implies that the role of customer care in business development is important as captured by Whiteley (1991) that the voice of the customer is crucial for business planning and control. Cook (2008) again maintained that a company’s ability to attract and retain its customers is a plus to the growth of the company. A firm’s ability to remain in business is a function of its competitiveness with other firms for customers and its ability to retain customers from the competition. To achieve this, firms need not only to maintain quality customer service but to extend their service to relationship management (IBF Management 2004). Customer relationship management is gaining impetus in academic and business literature that can enforce sustainable competitive advantage. According to Thompson (2004) customer relationship management attained a greater recognition in the mid – 1190s, and has now attracted wider application in the era of information technology. It improves the satisfaction level of customers, retain existing ones and leads to a rise is customer loyalty (Barbara 2011). The ultimate goal of customer relation management is to increase profitability and this can be attained through offering quality services to customers. Bavarsad (2013), Kunar and Petersen (2005), Khojeh (2013) and many other studies all conclude that the customer is a key asset in business needs and must be satisfied through good care and relationship management. Chen and Popovich (2003) are of the view that firms will reap a lot of success by implementing customer relationship management. However successful implementation is intangible to many firms as the process appears to be cumbersome. Thompson (2004) points out that the fundamental drivers of customer relationship management have not been given the needed attention by firms. Most often than not, firms do not truly understand what really goes on in the customer’s mind and hence poses a threat to most businesses that do not put weight on customer expectations (Nabi 2012). Ernst and Young (2013) stated that, a clear understanding of consumer behaviour especially what the customer needs in an organization will drive profitable growth strategies. This position implies that firm performance cannot be independent of customer care services. Consistent with this proposition, William (2005) argues that genuine commitment to customers at all levels should be considered as a basic practice among firms’ managers. If the customer is really important to organizational success as put forward by literature, then the argument proposed by Thompson (2004); that the relationship between the customer and the service provider should be managed has implications for quality customer service. Thompson (2004) provides that customer services cannot operate holistically without adding or implementing aspects of customer relationship management thus implying a positive correlation between the two variables.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research is the process of arriving at a dependable solution to problems through planned and systematic collection, analyzing and interpretation of data (Osuala, 1993).
Green and Full (1975) defines research methodology as the specification of procedures for collecting and analyzing the data necessary to solve the problem at hand such that the differences between the cost of obtaining various levels of accuracy and the expected value of the information associated with each level of accuracy is optimized.
Thus, in this chapter the method and techniques of data collection and analysis for this study are discussed in details, research design, population of study, sample and sampling technique, sources of data collection, research instrument, validity of the instrument, reliability of the instrument, procedure for administration of research instrument, as well as the limitation of the research methodology. This will be important in order to service quality and customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin City.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter is about the analysis and presentation of data collected from the field through questionnaire. The analysis of the data with particular question immediately followed by the presentation of findings.
As mentioned in chapter three, 50 questionnaires were administered and 50 were retrieved and necessary analysis was carried out on them and presented as follows:
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain service quality and customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of service quality and customer satisfaction in SMEs
Summary
This study was on service quality and customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city. Three objectives were raised which included: To ascertain whether service quality have any effect on customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city, to examine which quality of services may be improved in SMEs in Benin city and to ascertain the importance of customer satisfaction in SMEs in Benin city. In line with these objectives, three research questions and research hypotheses were formulated and three null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 75 staff of selected SMEs in Benin city. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study.
Conclusion
Findings showed that providing customers with quality services will make them happy, delighted and contented thus retaining and attracting more customers. Hence, it is necessary for the SMEs to emphasize on fulfilling management promises made to customers as soon as possible. The management should also sympathize and reassure customers on handling complaints made to them. SME should make customers feel safe when conducting business with them, give them individual attention and create trust.
Recommendation
It is therefore, recommended that SMEs in Benin city should enhance their service provision by adopting the best models suggested for customer relationship management that are highly recommended by both market and academic research as a recent approach to firm’s development. Besides, firms’ managers can improve upon their marketing strategies by developing and implementing consistent steps to ensure proper delivery of excellent customer service. In the process, managements must employ market intelligence to understand the service needs of their target customers. This would enable them influence their employees’ by giving them access to in-service training programmes on marketing to improve their knowledge and skills necessary to deliver quality customer care services to the public.
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