An Investigation Of The Impact Of Quality Of Service On Customer Satisfaction Of Nampower Residential Customers

ABSTRACT  

To remain competitive in the service industry, it is essential for companies to understand the concept of service quality and customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to gather more knowledge about the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction of NamPower residential customers in Namibia, using the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model. The study investigated whether customer perceptions of NamPower services match their expectations; if perceptions exceeded expectations, then customer satisfaction has been attained and vice versa. The research was descriptive and quantitative in nature; it employed an online survey design. The structured questionnaire comprised 22 items of a modified SERVQUAL model measured on a 5-point Likert-scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. The questionnaire distributed via e-mails to collect data from 338 residential NamPower customers. The results revealed that the overall quality of service did not satisfy NamPower customers. This stemmed from a negative gap that existed between customer expectation and perception in all the five dimensions of service quality. The overall mean expectation of NamPower’s service quality was 4.280 and the overall mean perception was 3.132 resulting in the overall service quality gap of -1.148. These results further revealed that customer satisfaction towards NamPower services in Otjozondjupa, Khomas, Omaheke, Hardap and Karas region was significantly influenced by all five dimensions of service quality. On average, responsiveness and empathy dimension of service quality were found to have the most and least significant impact on customer satisfaction respectively. The findings of this study have the potential of influencing researchers and marketers to adopt the SERVQUAL method among different electricity utilities. The study suggests some marketing strategies for NamPower management in order to raise the level of customer satisfaction. It is recommended that NamPower conducts regular customer surveys to learn more about customers’ expectations and perceptions.