Service Quality and Its Impacts on Customer Satisfaction in Ceylon Electricity Board (Colombo South Area)

Abstract

Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that companies must understand in order to remain competitive and survive in the business. Therefore it is vital for businesses to understand how to measure service quality from the consumers’ perspective. Delivering a quality service will leads to higher customer satisfaction and profitability, reduction cost, enhance customer loyalty and retention. The main purpose of this study is to identify Service Quality and Its Impacts on Customer Satisfaction in Colombo South Area of Ceylon Electricity Board. SERVQUAL model is used to measure the quality of the service offered by Ceylon Electricity Board. The model consists of five dimensions such as tangibility, reliability, responsiveness assurance and empathy. Data was collected from customers in Colombo South Area in order to assess their expectations and perceptions of services received through structured questionnaire. Findings indicate there are relationships between service quality and service quality dimensions, all the SERVQUAL dimensions have a significant relationship with service quality and customer satisfaction. Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and empathy are all equally important for customer satisfaction. The management should not only focus for achieving objectives of the government and making profits, but must also look into the needs of the customers as well. Management should take responsibilities for implementing service quality improvement programmes and such programmes to be strictly followed effectively.