Customers ’ Satisfaction towards Counter Service of Local Authority in Terengganu , Malaysia

The development of public administration not only contributes to the modernization of the public service but has also educated the public. Public expects the civil service to fulfill their needs in the best tune. Therefore, the quality of the services given by the public service, in all aspects, need to recognize the customers’ expectation. Realizing the important of improving the public service, this paper aimed to investigate the customer’s satisfaction towards service quality in the counter of the local authority. Even though the operation of each local authority followed the same operating procedures, but still the satisfaction rendered to the customers differ. With the intention of understanding and assisting the state government to improve their services, we decided to focus our study in the district of Kemaman, Dungun and Marang to represent other districts in the state of Terengganu. The main objective of this study is to measure the quality of services provided at the counter. The data were collected cross-sectionally using self-administered questionnaire. The dimensions concerning employees’ performance at the counter, layout plan and counter service quality were selected to be the predictor of the dependent variable which influences customer’s level of satisfaction. Our findings revealed that, there were significant relationships between the selected dimensions as to the main theme of our discussion.


Introduction
The role of the public sector in shaping the development of the nation has always been extensively debated in the Malaysian parliament but received less attention in the research literature.Represented by more than 1.2 million total workforces, it is expected that the public sector will provide a favorable image as the engine of the economic and social growth of the nation.Failure of any public department to execute the assigned responsibilities will therefore reflect the image of the ministries concerned and thus the role of the government.In the case of local authorities in Malaysia, their position as the lowest of the three levels in the government hierarchy, they are very close to the public.Their major functions are town planning, street lighting, building control, licensing, trades controls, maintenance of local roads and car parks.Therefore, with all these roles and responsibilities, their interaction with the public happen every moment.
Based on the interview among the CEOs and finance directors of local government bodies such as in Australia, the public sector in most developing nations is hardly have any performance measure of their services provided (Kloot, 1999).This leads to the local government officers and councilors believe that they are largely responsible and accountable to the State and Federal agencies but the people they serve (Kuppusamy et al 2006).Although the service provided likely to be beneficial for the public, however it does not always develop a strong package of significant satisfaction accordingly to meet the needs of the communities.Lack of knowledge about interrelatedness of one department with another department, method of operation, styles of negotiation and the execution of delivery found to be frequent causes of dissatisfaction.Dissemination of information, exchange of views and ideas, and the analysis of potential solution to cases are therefore important factors for consequent satisfaction.
Based on previous research, customer satisfaction can be defined as the result achieved when service or product features respond to customer need and when the company meets or exceeds customer expectations over the lifetime of a product or service (Juran, 1981).As suggested by Jones and Sesser (1995), providing customers with outstanding value may be the only reliable way to achieve sustained customer satisfaction.Companies or firms must realize that different actions are required to convert neutral customers to satisfied customers than to convert satisfied customers into completely satisfied customers.
Going through the literature, it is evident that companies have been trying to measure customer satisfaction ever since the 70's.During that period of time, much of the works were based on theories, which among others stated that increasing customer satisfaction would help them to prosper (Coyles and Gokey, 2002).In the 80s, witnessed the issue of service quality, performance monitoring and resource allocation being added to customer satisfaction (Bolton, 1998).In the 1990's however, organizations and researchers have become increasingly concerned about the financial implications brought about by customer satisfaction (Rust and Zahorik, 1993;Bolton, 1998) Providing service is not the same as manufacturing and selling tangible goods to the customers.When buying tangible item, consumers may have some expectation about the product based on advertising, word-of-mouth or previous ownership of the product.From those, customers will develop some feelings about the quality of the product after some experience with it, but these perceptions of product quality are not influenced by personal contact with those individuals who manufactured the product (Burke et al, 2005).When individuals purchased a service, however, they are influenced by the service provider and the quality of experience or encounter they have with the service provider.The provision of service is face-to-face; the receipt of service is both a personal and a psychological experience.The findings by Burke et. al. (2005) well support the notion by earlier researchers (Schneider, 1990;Schneider and Bowen, 1985) Interestingly, customer satisfaction can result from any dimensions, whether or not it is quality related (Choi et.al., 2004).Customer satisfaction can result from a number of non-quality issues such as needs, equity and perceptions of fairness.Based on that, it is believed that customer satisfaction to have more conceptual antecedents.However, one thing for sure, customer satisfaction do require experience with the service or provider.Without the experience, one will be unable to judge the level of service provided.
Many researchers (Oliver, 1981;Brady and Robertson, 2001;Lovelock et.al., 2001) conceptualize customer satisfaction as an individual's feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product's perceived performance (or outcome) in relation to his or her expectations.Combining all of those studies, there are two general conceptualization of satisfaction can be identified; namely transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction (Boulding et al, 1993;Jones and Suh, 2000;Yi and La, 2004).Transaction-specific satisfaction is a customer's evaluation of his or her experience and reactions to a particular service encounter (Cronin and Taylor, 1992;Boshoff and Gray, 2004), and cumulative satisfaction refers to the customer's overall evaluation of the consumption experience to date .
In the study conducted by Nowak and Washburn (1994), 4 main areas were being used as the factors that contribute most to customers' overall satisfaction.It includes product quality, service quality, cost management and timeliness.From all of the factors, product quality turns out to be the most important aspect to be considered by customers.
It is important to note from previous research that, service quality and customer satisfaction are in deed of different constructs and that service quality leads to customer satisfaction (Shemwell et al, 1998).In providing service quality, the role of emotion has started to come into the picture.In addition to that, research by Leiter and Maslach (1988), have shown that one's emotions have an influence on customers behaviour.Study by Sureshchandar et al (2002) revealed the strong correlation between service quality and customer satisfaction.The result also indicated that both service quality and customer satisfaction are independent and closely related.It is implying that the increase in one is likely to increase in another.It agrees to the study done by Oliver (1993) which also distinguish the two constructs and suggested that "satisfaction is potentially all salient dimensions that requires experience dependency and involves emotions." In other point, research done by Price et. al., (2003) pinpoints that the impact of facilities on undergraduate students' choice of university.8 top reasons given by the students include right course, availability of computers, quality of library facilities, good teaching reputation, availability of 'quiet' areas, availability of areas for self-study, quality of public transport and friendly attitude towards students.The study clearly indicates that students' perceptions of the university facilities are one of the main influences on their decision to enroll (Price et al, 2003).A survey conducted at King Fahd University found apart from 'contact personnel' that influence students' evaluation on service quality, there are a number of other issues raised by the respondents.Those factors significantly contribute to students concept of service quality include physical environment, layout, lighting, classrooms, appearance of buildings and grounds and the overall cleanliness (Sohail and Shaikh, 2004).Carlzon (1989) is of to the opinion that the quality of any service encounters or "moments of truth" experienced by customers forms part of their overall impression of the whole service provided (Dale, 2003) and by implication, their impression of the organization itself.As commented by Deming (1982), most people give their opinions based on the people that they see, and they are either satisfied or dissatisfied or delighted or even on the continuum in between.As such according to Parasuraman et. al., (1985), measuring the service quality is more difficult than product quality.Service quality perception results from a comparison of customer expectations with actual service performance.Tracking back the study by Schneider and Bowen (1995), they deduced that the quality of the core services influences the overall quality of the service perception and thus lead to customer satisfaction.Evans and Lindsay (2001) suggested that services have three basic components.First it is made up of physical facilities, processes and procedures.The employee's behavior representing the second component, and employee's professional judgment formed the third component.In a nutshell, designing a service essentially involves determining an effective balance of these components.The goal then is to provide a service whose elements are internally consistent and directed at meeting the needs of a specific target market segment.Too much or too little emphasis on one component will lead to problems and poor customer perceptions.Too much emphasis on behavior might provide of friendly and personable environment at the expense of slow, inconsistent, or chaotic service.Too much emphasis on professional judgment might lead to good solution to customer problems but also to slow, inconsistent or insensitive service.
In Malaysia, apart from the customer-oriented policies that were repeatedly announced, the obvious trend towards a friendlier and efficient delivery of services found to be lacking in the local authorities as compared to those deliveries done by the private sectors.However, these policies and changes that had occurred were seriously affected by the inability of certain factors such as the facilities and layout, the performance of the staff involved, and the quality of service delivery.This paper therefore seeks to conduct an investigation about Customer's Satisfaction towards Counter Service at Local Authority.As this part of our big scale project we have to focus our study only in three districts out of seven districts in the state of Terengganu.

Issues Obscuring Customers Satisfaction
Issues relating to the efficiency of service deliveries among the government department and agencies were seriously debated at the parliament.Meanwhile the umbrella body of government servant associations keeps on demanding the need to equitably address incentive given to the civil servant.One of the conclusion arrived in matching the two confrontations is reviewing the salary of the civil servant while ensuring that the performance at work is further enhanced.Nevertheless based on several reviews of previous studies indicate that satisfaction of the customers on the services provided by the employees at the counter service in local authority still unable to match the client charter (piagam pelanggan).Thus the main concerned of this paper is to address the following research questions: 1. How employees' performance can affect customers' satisfaction?2. How counter service quality can measure the customers' satisfaction?3. How the facilities provided at the counter satisfy customers' needs?

Scope and Objective of the Study
The study was conducted at the local authority in three districts covering Kemaman, Dungun and Marang in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia.Our respondents were the local people or customers that recieved the services from the local authority's office.
The objective of the study was to measure the quality of services provided at the counter.Among other related issues, our investigation focused on the study of employee's performance at the counter, whether they are efficient or not in doing their job.Besides that, the study also explored the customer's satisfaction towards counter service of the local authorities.

The Contribution of the Study
The contribution of this study lies not primarily in the specific results obtained.The usefulness appeared to be depending on understanding of the importance of the construct in providing the provocative ideas.In this study, the identifiable constructs were singled out as well as jointly predicted so that it is possible to estimate empirically rather then judging them subjectively on the model parameters.Thus the discussion of this paper is highly significant to the service providers as it will provide the information as to what extent they are able to meet the need of the end customers.Furthermore, with the discussions it could enhance the activities of benchmarking the quality of services provided at the counter and can take action intensively in order to improve the employee's performance at the counter.

Research Hypotheses
The preceding discussion leads to the statement of the following hypotheses: H1: There is a significant relationship between employee's performance at the counter and customer's satisfaction towards counter service at local authority.
H2: There is a significant relationship between office layout and customer's satisfaction towards counter service at local authority.
H3: There is a significant relationship between the counter service quality and customer's satisfaction towards counter service at local authority.

Theoretical Considerations
The framework as depicted below provides a broad view on the relevant construct to be discussed in the paper.

Methodology
The research is in the form of exploratory study which is cross-sectional in nature.The investigation was undertaken to ascertain and describe the characteristic of the profiles and explaining the relationship among variables of interest.For the purpose of exploring the relationship, several constructs concerning the counter layout, employee's performance, and counter service quality were measured and tested to explain their contribution to customer satisfaction.

Measures
In the past, many research concerning customer satisfaction has been operationalized based on the servqual model (Parasuraman et. al., 1993).The approaches found to be highly consistent either in the servicing or manufacturing industries but only few studies done involving the local authority.The present investigation has extended the construct as there were great efforts been invested hoping to generate efficiency of delivery in the public sectors.
For the purpose of acquiring first hand information, our group focused on collected quantitative data as the primary source.The quantitative data which measures the constructs of interest adopted closed-ended questionnaire which was screened and tested through the pilot study.By means of questionnaire, a formulated written set of questions to which respondents recorded their answers within the boundary of well-defined alternatives were personally administered.Questionnaire was divided into five sections.First section (Section A) is for demographic questions, section B is about facilities and office layout, section C is about employee's performance, section D is about counter service quality and section E is about customer satisfaction.
The measures of customer satisfaction, facilities, office layout, and employees performance were collected based on the customers' self-reported perceptions of the degree of agreeableness on several statements on 5-point scales (1 strongly agree till 5 strongly disagree).In measuring the profile of the respondents several questions in the form of nominal format were constructed for analysis of frequencies and to be cross-tabulated with other measurements.Vol. 6, No. 8;August 2010 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 201

Research Sample and Design
The sample of 150 responses used in this study was obtained as part of the survey on the three districts out of seven in the state of Terengganu.The survey had been conducted within the period of two months by employing the enumerators that were stationed at the designated Local Authority Office.
Given the criteria for inclusion in the survey, the vast majority of respondents were among those coming to the Local Authority to get their service in various categories.The sample which formed the complete group of entities sharing some common set of characteristics such as values, origin, interest, educational background etc., were conveniently selected.For our study, our population is approximately the dwellers in three districts including Kemaman, Dungun and Marang, with the population of 169,912, 155,895, and 99,900 (UPEN 2005) respectively, representing developed, developing and less-developed districts in the state of Terengganu.
In determining the sample size for our study, we calculated the number of observation by referring to table formulated by Sudman (1970).Given the whole population, the suggested sample size was approximately 200, however the actual sample that were collected end up with only 150 usable responses.As this is an exploratory study we therefore proceed with the analysis.
The table presented below describe the profile of the respondents been surveyed.Samples were collected from three districts of Kemaman, Dungun and Marang with 50 respondents for each district representing 33.3% each.
Most of the respondents were in the age of 20-29 (34%), followed by the age of 40-49 (28.7%) and 28% within the age of 30-39.60% of the sample represented by male while 40% were female.The description of profiles related to education, employment sector were displayed in the table below.
Insert Table 1 Here

Analysis and Results
Correlation analysis, Regression analysis, Cross tabulation, and one way ANOVA were utilized to address the issues obscuring the variables under investigation.To verify the reliability of the construct, the reliability analysis was performed.

Insert Table 2 Here
The above table shows the result of Cronbach's Alpha for reliability analysis explaining that dependent variable in section E computed at the score of 0.823 which therefore considered highly reliable.One question has been removed from this section for to improving the reliability.Similarly, section B, C and D concerning Layout Plan, Employees Performance and Counter Service Quality with the value of 0.705, 0.884 and 0.711 indicated that they were reliable as well.Thus all the above measurements were therefore consistent, reliable and acceptable for further analysis and discussion.

Correlation Analysis
Insert Table 3 Here Pearson Correlation was used to assess the relationship among the constructs and dependent variable.The result indicated that all the constructs were statistically significant with the satisfaction at 0.01 levels with the p-value of 0.000.In term of the strength of relationship, the Counter Service Quality have a strong indicators at Pearson Correlation score of r = 0.748, followed by Employees Performance with r = 0.674 that could be assumed moderately strong, and Layout Plan with r = 0.510 which could be assumed to be moderate.

Regression Analysis
*Note, R²=0.640 Insert Table 4 Here The table further indicated that with the combine effect of all the constructs, one of them found to be not significant and while the other two were statistically significant.The two constructss that indicated the significant contribution were Employees Performance and Counter Service Quality at the p-value of 0.000., whereas Layout Plan was at the p-value of 0.569 which therefore indicated of not significant in this study.However, as a whole the combination effort of the constructs still found to be significant.The theoretical model for this study found to be very useful as R-squared (R²) of 0.640 can be use to explain the important of the selected construct in explaining the satisfaction of the customer of the sample under study.

Cross Tabulation Analysis
In this part, our analysis moved on to explore the differences of the selected district and the gender profile as to the satisfaction status.

Insert Table 5 Here
The table above indicated that most of the customers in Kemaman, Dungun, and Marang were satisfied with the seating facilities provided with 84%, 82%, and 82% showed their agreement to its role respectively.In term of their perception on the suitability of the counter location and easier for the customers that come to the office to get information about their business most of the respondents indicated that they were satisfied.When asked about the level of customers' satisfaction towards the staff image that posted at the counter, most of the respondents indicated that they are satisfied with the staff image portrayed at the counter.
In addressing the issue of dealing period that customers have to wait at the counter to settle up their business, most of the respondents indicated of their satisfaction over 80% in the districts investigated, except for the district of Marang which was 60% perceived to be satisfied.In measuring whether the local authority management accommodates good facilities at the office especially at the counter service itself, most of the respondents indicated of their satisfaction with the good facilities in which Kemaman was the highest with 84%, followed by Dungun 64%, while only 48% for those in Marang.When cross-tabulated between district and efficient and fast service given by the employees at the counter, most of the respondents indicated their satisfaction which is more then 82%, while those in Marang found to be less satisfied.
Thus our analysis revealed that among the district investigated, one of them that is the district of Marang, indicated of performing below the expectation of the customers

Insert Table 6 Here
The table above shows the cross tabulation between gender and staff image at the counter.Most of the respondents were satisfied with the staff image that are very friendly in doing their job with more then 93% for male and 82% for female perceived higher satisfaction.As to measuring patient in delivery both gender indicated of more then 80% of their satisfaction.Similarly when imposing the issue of their happiness with the management of local authority, 80% and 72% of male and female respondents respectively displayed their satisfaction.In attempting to measure the customers' satisfaction towards positive and favorable attention given, 85% of the male respondents revealed their satisfaction, while 71% of the female respondent indicated their satisfaction.The above analysis demonstrated that male customers were more satisfied then female customers when dealing with the local authorities.

Insert Table 7 Here
The above table7 shows the result of differences of seat, counter location, staff image, dealing period, good facilities and efficient and fast service.Cross tabulated value among the districts explained that there was a significant difference between district as related to seat, counter location, staff image, dealing period, good facilities, efficient and fast service as indicated by the Chi-Square value of 0.036, 0.000, 0.000, 0.008, 0.000, 0.000.

Insert Table 8 Here
Table 8 above attempted to explore whether there is any significant difference in terms of genders opinion as to the differences of been friendly, patient, satisfied towards management and satisfied attention.The above cross tabulated value explained that there was no significant different between gender as to the dimension concerning friendly, patient, satisfied towards management, satisfied attention.The result indicated that the value of Chi-Square is 0.122, 0.240, 0.239 and 0.105.

Summary and Conclusion
The main aim of this study is to measure the customers' satisfaction towards counter service at local authority in three selected districts which were Kemaman, Dungun and Marang.As expected, these surveyed of the customers were not a homogeneous group and so it would not be unwise to treat them as such.However, within the diverse mixture of the profiles as demonstrated in Table 2 and Table 4 an underlying pattern emerged from the Principal Components Analysis.Moreover and reassuringly, the selected construct revealed the meaningful expression in relation to the literature.Indeed, most of the measurement items identified through the reliability analysis correspond to those claimed by the machineries of the government agencies.Therefore, the first important conclusion from this study is that some statements made by the public about the less efficient and poor performance delivery of the local authorities would appear to be driven by a very minority group of individuals rather then the mass societies.However, this result does not imply mutual exclusivity, as no serious attempts were made to review the relationship among the independent variables.The analysis of this research was determined the factors that strongly contribute the level of customers' satisfaction towards the service quality provided at the local authority's office.The factors that influence to the customers' satisfaction are Layout Plan, Employees Performance and Counter Service Quality that represent as independent variables.The independent variables that we used are related and important for influencing the customers' satisfaction.There is a strong relationship among the variables.Independent variables show this analysis and findings has a good Alpha value and we have concluded that the questions in all section of the analysis are reliable and acceptable based on the result indicated by the Alpha computed.
From the Multiple Regression analysis, with the combining effort of all independent variables to predict the satisfaction of the sample, the result revealed that one of the construct was not significant related with the satisfaction, while the other two were statistically significant.The two independent variables that were significant involved Employees Performance (0.000) and Counter Service Quality (0.000) whereas Layout Plan (0.569) was not significant in this study.As a result, not all independent variables could fit each other to predict the satisfaction of the customer, especially the construct concerning layout plan became less importance when grouped together.Despite of differences of the outcome, the whole model for the study could conclude as an acceptable model based on the R-squared (R²) value of 0.640.So, the study viewed that given the same environment the three identifiable construct as been proposed in this study are very relevant in predicting the outcome of customers' satisfaction.
Our analysis demonstrated that among the three districts investigated, the respondent that received service from the local authority in Marang found to be less satisfied then those in other districts.Our observation revealed that among the significant factors that led to low satisfaction include factors like facilities, building, and other infrastructure were not as modern like the other districts.Further the location of the office eventhough was easily accessible but other facilities like parking space, office space, and the number of staff attending the customers is still inadequate compared to other districts.As such our chi-square analysis indicated that there was significant difference among the district involved in the study of satisfaction.In another analysis among the gender, our cross-tabulated figure indicated that male respondent were more satisfied then female counterpart.Although the result revealed some differences, but as a whole the perception of gender satisfaction found to be generally similar.Thus through the chi-square analysis the result demonstrate that there was no significant relationship.

Recommendation
In order to increase the level of customers' satisfaction towards counter service at local authority, the management itself as well as the state government of Terengganu should provide more support in term of facilities, staff training, adequate budget support, application of technology and continuous motivation at all levels.The staff at the counter should be further enhanced with motivational spirit or given more professional training in performing their tasks.The mission of giving the best services to the customers should be always becoming the top priorities.The spill effect of this mission justifiably position staff at the counter to become more confident in dealing with the customers and at the same time it will increase productivity, knowledge and their performance at work place.
As our finding indicated that there was a gap between rural and urban area in term of the development or modernization.Thus, attempts should be made to standardize the policies, procedures, technologies, and communication skills.By consistently improving the above elements, the idea of matching the challenges of customers' satisfaction is attainable.Although most of the respondents were satisfied with the facilities provided at the counter, but one should always realized that there are always room for improvement.Thus, the management of each local authority in these three districts should take serious incentives to improve their service quality.
Table 4 explained the summary of multiple regression analysis of the constructs which are Layout Plan, Employees Performance and Counter Service Quality towards Customer's Satisfaction that is the dependent variable of this study.The indicated value of Counter Service Quality is the highest contribution with t-value=8.646and beta=0.537;followed by Employees Performance indicates t-value=3.955and beta=0.321;then followed by Layout Plan with t-value=0.570and beta=0.041.

Table 1 .
Demographic Profile of the Respondents

Table 2 .
Reliability Alpha for dependent variable and independent variables

Table 4 .
Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis