The Quality Of Service Delivery In Zimbabwean Urban Councils: A Case Study Of Bindura Municipality 2009 To 2011.
Abstract
The study sought to assess the quality of service delivery in Zimbabwean urban councils using Bindura Municipality as a case study. The objectives of the study were to establish the levels of service quality, determine the challenges that hindered quality service delivery, analyse the service quality management strategies and propose suitable strategies Bindura municipality can adopt to enhance service quality delivery.A descriptive survey design was used and questionnaires and structured interviews were used as data collection instruments. A sample of 300 householdswas drawn from the municipality rate payers’ data base. The population was stratified into low, medium and high density residents. Systematic random sampling was used to draw the participants in each stratum. Ten interviews were conducted with senior management using convenience sampling and documentary evidence was generated from menus, minutes and reports. The major findings were that the quality of service delivery was generally poor. This was mainly attributed to inadequate and disintegrated service delivery and management strategies. In addition human resource issues, poor governance structures and political interferences were causes of concern. It was concluded that the quality of service delivery by Bindura Municipality fell far short of residents’ expectations.The study recommended that for effective service delivery the municipality should among other strategies, adopt blue printing and total quality management.
References
Albright, K. (2002) A gap Analysis of professional service quality, Journal of Marketing, 53, pp, 92-98.
Bailey, D. (1994), How to avoid Being Bullied by unreasonable customers, Managing Service Quality, 4 (5), 36-8.
Bitner, M. (1993), Managing the Evidence of service, in E. Scheuing and W. Christopher (eds). The service Quarterly Handbook, Amacom, New York.
Brady, M. and Cronin J. J. (2001), Some New Thoughts on Conceptualizing perceived Quality, A Hierarchy approach, journal of Marketing, 65 (July) , 34-49.
Carbone, L. and Hackel, S. (1999), Engineering Customer Experiences, Marketing Management Magazine. AMA, 1-10.
Carmel,J (2002), Improving Service Delivery. Occassional Paper No 8, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, South Africa.
Dellinger, M. (1993).A comprehensive Model for assessing quality and productivity, Courses unit.edu.com.
Devlin, G. and Dong, B. (1994), “Designing Services that Deliver” Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 133-39.
Ferguson (1999), Sustaining Local Involvement Community Development journal Vol 28 No. 4:299-304.
Fitzimmons, J. and Fitszimmons, M (1994), Service Management for Competitive Advantage, McGraw Hill Inc, USA.
Garvin, D. (1988) Managing Quality, The Free Press, New York.
Kingman –Brundage, J. (1989). The ABCs of Service System Blueprinting, in Designing a Winning Service Strategy. (eds), M Bitner and L. Crosby, L. (AMA, Chicago).
Kotler, (1998), Principles of Marketing, Prentice Hall.
Lovelock, C. H. (1992) A Basic Toolkit for Service Managers in: C.H. Lovelock (ed). Managing Services – Marketing Operations and Human Resources .New Jersey, Prentice –Hall pp. 17-30.
Lovelock, C. Patterson, P. and Walker, R. (2001) Services Marketing, and Asian-Pacific Perspective, Prentice Hall Sydney.
Schostak, (1984), Service Positioning Through Structural Change, journal Of Marketing 51 (1), 34-43.
Semans, M. (2001), “Customer Familiarity and its Effects on Satisfaction and Behavioral intentions’ Psychology and Marketing, 19 (10) 861.
Shostak, K. (1987), Planning the Service Encounter, In the Service Encounter, eds j. Czepiel.
Strauss, B. and Weinlich, B. (1997), Process Oriented Measurement of Service Quality, Applying the Sequential incident Method, European Journal of Marketing 31 pp 33-55.
World Bank, (2000) Total Quality Management in the African Business Community.
Copyright information
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 - CC BY 3.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
info@cbuni.cz, www.cbuni.cz, ojs.journals.cz
