Abstract
Over the past few years, there has been a heightened importance on service quality and customer satisfaction within service units of the South African government. This is evidenced by nationwide service delivery protests, suggesting that the quality of service that is expected to be delivered, as envisaged by the public, as customers, is not being delivered to expectation. Visa facilitation service (VFS) centres were established in South Africa in 2014 as a radical departure, which was informed by the South African government’s commitment to improve efficiencies and turnaround time. In cognisance of the visa facilitation centres’ context, a non-probability convenience sampling procedure was adopted. Data were generated from 297 international students conveniently drawn from a selected university in Gauteng province of South Africa. The multiple regression analysis undertaken showed positive significant predictive relationship between reliability and customer satisfaction (β=0.230, t-value=4.271, p<0.000), responsiveness and customer satisfaction (β=0.156, t-value=2.861, p<0.01) and empathy with customer satisfaction (β= 0.396, t-value =7.074, p<0.000. The study also showed insignificant association between tangibility and customer satisfaction (β=0.038, t-value =0.841, p>0.01) and assurance with customer satisfaction (β= 0.096, t-value =1.683, p >0.01). The study emphasises the need for identifying the dimensions of service quality that are critical in relation to customer satisfaction within the VFS setting.
Highlights
Since democratisation of South Africa in 1990, the public sector has undergone a number of transformations necessitated by its accountability and responsibilities towards its communities and citizens (Ramseook-Munhurrun, Lukea-Bhjwajee & Naidoo 2010)
In post-modern economies, the public sector is seen encompassing a broad range of miscellaneous activities ranging from justice and welfare through to housing and transport (Laing 2003). government service is an intangible product with service encounters, where both government officials and frontline employees must develop a trust relationship with customers to enhance customer satisfaction
The findings revealed that reliability, responsiveness and empathy are key components of service quality within Visa facilitation service (VFS)
Summary
Since democratisation of South Africa in 1990, the public sector has undergone a number of transformations necessitated by its accountability and responsibilities towards its communities and citizens (Ramseook-Munhurrun, Lukea-Bhjwajee & Naidoo 2010). A substantial number of concerns are raised by the public due to the collapsing of service provision and delays by the public sectors in taking remedial actions in such instances. Measuring service quality is problematic due to its exceptional characteristics, namely intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability (Naik, Gantasala & Prabhakar 2010). In this regard, the customer is the determinant in how good a service is, not the service provider
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