ASSESSMENT OF THE SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF ETHIOPIAN COMMODITY EXCHANGE (ECX)

Transcription

1 ASSESSMENT OF THE SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF ETHIOPIAN COMMODITY EXCHANGE (ECX) Dr. Brehanu Borji 30 Temesgen Tefera 31 ABSTRACT Commodity exchange market is established with the aim to provide a modern and quality marketing service, which can satisfy all the market actors and make a reasonable profit. It should render a quality service and time base response to its customers to win their loyalty and retain them with the service provided by the organization in question. However, ECX could not satisfy its customers up to their expectation and there are number of complaints related to such a problem. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to assess factors affecting service quality and its impact on customer satisfaction in Ethiopian commodity exchange market. The population of this study consisted of 386 customers who are receiving services from ECX. These customers were categorized into different strata. To draw a representative sample from such strata, the study used stratified sampling technique and employed the formula presented by Yemane Taro (1967). Accordingly, 79 respondents were selected. Liker- scale questionnaire was administered based on SERVQUAL s five-dimension model. Before distributing the set questionnaire to the selected respondents, its reliability was tested using Cronbach s Alpha and its value was proved to be greater than As a result, the questionnaire was distributed to sample respondents, which are proportionally selected from the population, and they returned duly filled in responses with 88.6 percent response rate. The data were analyzed using SPSS version-20. The findings showed that all the five service quality dimensions have direct relation with customer satisfaction. From the five dimensions, Responsiveness and Assurance have high gap score whereas reliability, empathy and tangibility dimensions have relatively low gap. The result also indicated that the overall service quality perceived by consumers was not satisfactory, meaning expectations exceeded perceptions and all the expected level of service quality demanded by customers. The findings suggested that ECX need to improve its service quality in all the dimensions. KEYWORDS Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, Expectation, Perception, Service Gap etc. INTRODUCTION To remain competitive and to have trust from the customers, service providers must render quality service to their customers. Moreover, understanding and meeting customers expectations and fulfilling their desire by implementing modern and transparent marketing system is important in order to survive in the contemporary world of globalization. ECX was designed to be a market place where buyers and sellers can come together to trade and be assured of quality, delivery, and payment. It is a national multi commodity exchange with the aim of providing market integrity by guaranteeing the product grade and quantity. ECX s model is the first of its kind in Africa with its end-to-end integrated system of central trading, warehousing, product grade certification, clearing, settlement, delivery, and market information dissemination (ECX. 2010). The ECX is entrusted with broad objective of modernizing the Ethiopian agricultural market by providing a quality service and thereby attaining overall economic growth. It is also expected to provide a centralized marketing mechanism in which transactions are carried out publicly through a physical trading floor or electronic system or both and to create an efficient, transparent, and orderly marketing system which addresses the interest of all stakeholders including buyers, sellers and intermediaries and small scale producers. Service quality has become as one of the key driving forces for business sustainability and is vital for firms accomplishme nt (Rust and Oliver, 1994). Customer service Quality is a crucial source of distinctive competence and often considered as a key success factor in sustaining competitive advantage in service industries. According to Hansemark and Albinson (2004), customer satisfaction is an overall customer attitude towards a service provider, or an emotional reaction to the difference between what customers anticipate and what they receive, regarding the fulfillment of some needs, goals or desire. However, dissatisfied customers may try to reduce the dissonance by abandoning or returning the product, or they may try to reduce the dissonance by seeking information that might confirm its high value. Achieving Service quality and customer satisfaction is crucial in the commodity exchange sector because of the special nature of the commodity market services. The market is characterized by intensive contacts with customers who are running with the world market and the price flexibility. Without giving a quality service, it is difficult to achieve the desired target in a commodity market. The investigator is induced by the going down service quality in commodity exchange market and therefore attempted to 30 Associate Professor (Marketing Management), School of Management and Accounting, College of Business and Economics, Hawassa University, Ethiopia, brehanu.borji@yahoo.com 31 MBA-Graduate, Dilla University, Ethio-Telecom Hawassa Branch, Ethiopia P a g e

2 investigate the effect of customer service quality on customer satisfaction. The study also attempted to identify and assess the factors affecting the service quality in the study organization. REVIEW OF LITERATURE According to Murdick (1990), service can be defined as economic activity that produces time, place, form, or psychological utilities. Many service firms have become successful by identifying a previously unrecognized or unsatisfied customer wants. Stanton (1994) stated, Services are identifiable, intangible activities that are the main object of a transaction designed to provide want satisfaction to customers. According to him, the travel, hospitals, finance, entertainment, health communications, utilities and professional services are prime examples. Recognizing the importance of marketing, many of these industries and organizations within them are now adding marketing-related personnel. According to Kotler (1996), service is defined as any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. A service is an act or performance that one party can offer to another. It is perishable, variable, inseparable and intangible. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product (Kotler, 1998). In today s increasingly competitive business environment, service quality is essential for the success of any organization. Service quality is important aspect that affects the competitiveness of business. Organizations should increase the quality of service constantly since there is no assurance that the current outstanding service is also suitable for future. Consequently, organizations should develop new strategy to satisfy their customers and should provide quality service to distinguish themselves from their rivals (Siddiqi; 2011). The challenge in defining quality is that it is a subjective concept, like beauty. Everyone has a different definition based on their personal experiences. Crosby (1979) defined quality as Conformance to requirements. This definition implies that organizations must establish requirements and specifications. Once these specifications are established, the quality goal of the various functions of an organization is to comply strictly with them. Juran (1982) defined quality as Fitness for use. According to different authors, quality can be defined from different point of views such as: from customer point, from process point of view, from product point of view and from the cost point of view. From customer point of view: quality means fitness for use and meeting customer satisfaction. From process point of view: quality means conformance with the process design, standards and specifications. From product point of view: quality means the degree of excellence at an acceptable price. From the cost point of view: quality means best combination between costs and features. As described by Lewis and Booms (1983), giving quality service implies meeting the requirements to customer expectations regularly. Also Parasuraman (1985) defined service quality as the degree and direction of discrepancy between consumer s perceptions and expectations in terms of different but relatively important dimensions of the service quality, which can affect their future purchasing behavior. This definition clearly shows that service quality is what customers assess through their expectations and perceptions of a service experience. Customers perceptions of service quality result from a comparison of their before-service expectations with their actual service experience. Service quality is founded on a comparison between what the customer feels should be offered and what is provided (Parasuraman et. al, 1985). Quality is a measure of how closely a product confirms to customers needs, wants and expectation. A product conforms to customer expectation and specification to a degree. Customer s service quality expectation is formed by their experience, word of mouth, service firm advertising and personnel needs. They compare the perceived service with expected service. If the perceived service fall below the expected service, customers lose interest in the provider and if the perceived service meets or exceeds the expectation, they opt to use the provider s service again. Service quality is a focused evaluation that reflects the customer s perception of elements of service such as interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality. These elements are in turn evaluated based on specific quality dimensions (Zeithmoal.M, 2003). Expectations are reference points against which service delivery is compared only at beginning. The level of expectation can vary widely depending on the reference point the customer hold. Customer expectations embrace several elements including desired service, adequate service, predicated services and a zone of tolerance that falls between the desired and adequate service levels (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2004). The definition of customer satisfaction has been widely debated as organizations increasingly attempt to measure it. Customer satisfaction can be experienced in a variety of situations and connected to both goods and services. It is a highly personal assessment that is greatly affected by customer expectations. Satisfaction also is based on the customer s experience of both contact with the organization (the moment of truth as it is called in business literature) and personal outcomes. Some researchers define satisfied customer within the private sector as one who receives significant added value to his/her bottom line a definition that may apply just as well to public services (Smith,2007). Customer satisfaction is the outcome felt by buyers who have experienced a company s performance that has fulfilled expectation. Customers are satisfied when their expectations are exceeded. Satisfied customers remain loyal longer, but more or less price sensitive and talk favorably about the company P a g e

3 Customer satisfaction measures how well a company's products or services meet or exceed customer expectations. These expectations often reflect many aspects of the company's business activities including the actual product, service, company, and how the company operates in the global environment. Customer satisfaction measures are an overall psychological evaluation that is based on the customer's lifetime of product and service experience (Smith, 2007). Matzler (2002) classified factors that affect customers satisfaction into three categories: 1) Basic factors: These are the minimum requirements that are required in a product to prevent the customer from being dissatisfied. They do not necessarily cause satisfaction but lead to dissatisfaction if absent. These factors lead to the fulfillment of the basic requirement for which the product is produced. These constitute the basic attributes of the product or service. They thus have a low impact on satisfaction even though they are a prerequisite for satisfaction. Briefly, these include competence and accessibility, 2) Performance factors: these are the factors that lead to satisfaction if fulfilled and can lead to dissatisfaction if not fulfilled. These include reliab ility and friendliness. 3) Excitement factors: These factors increase customers satisfaction if fulfilled but does not cause dissatisfaction if not fulfilled. They include project management. For measuring customer satisfaction with respect to different aspects of service quality and to overcome problems, which are created because of the gap between management and customers, a survey instrument called SERVQUAL was developed (Parasuraman, Ziethaml and Berry 1988). The basic assumption of the measurement instrument was that customers could evaluate a firm s service quality by comparing their perceptions with their experience. The instrument was designed to measure service quality as perceived by the customer. Based on the information from focus group interviews, Parasuraman et al. (1985) identified basic dimensions that reflect service attributes used by consumers in evaluating the quality of service provided by service businesses. When evaluating service quality, consumer examines five dimensions; tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Tangibles: Physical evidence of the service; physical facilities, tools and equipment s; appearance of providers; appearance of other customers in the service facility are the tangibles Reliability: Consistency of performance and dependability; performs service right at the first time; honors its promises; keeps accurate records, corrects billing, and performs services at the designated times are the parameters of reliability. Responsiveness: It is the willingness of the firm s staff to help customers and to provide them with prompt service. Readiness s to provide the service; timeliness; setting up appointments promptly are the symptoms of responsiveness. Assurance: Knowledge, competence and courtesy of employees; trust and confidence; required skills and knowledge; politeness, respectfulness, considerate, friendliness; trustworthiness, believability, honesty are signs of assurance. Empathy: Caring; individualized attention, approachability, easiness of contact; effort in understanding the customers needs are signs of empathy. For each dimension, the SERVQUAL scale provides a score for customer expectations. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM The customer is the judge of quality. Understanding customer needs, both current and future, and keeping pace with changing markets requires effective strategies for listening to and learning from customers, measuring their satisfaction relative to the needs, and building close relationships, is a key issue for the survival of service organizations. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction information are important because understanding them leads to the right improvements that can create satisfied customers who reward the company with loyalty, repeat business, and positive referrals. Creating satisfied customers includes prompt and effective response and solutions to their needs and desires as well as building and maintaining good relationships. A service giving organization can achieve success only by understanding and fulfilling the needs of customers (Siddiqi, 2011). As the mention of it has been made earlier, ECX has been established to provide quality service to its customers in the exchange market. However, during service delivery there are different problems, which have an impact on customer satisfaction and organizational performance. To this effect, there are number of complaints related to service delivery system of Ethiopian commodity exchange at the branch service center regarding grading and warehousing services. The researcher is, therefore, motivated to carry out and assess the root causes of the problem and give possible solutions to the factors affecting quality and customer satisfaction. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY General Objective The general objective of this study is to assess factors affecting service quality and customer satisfaction in Ethiopian Commodity Exchange market. Specific Objectives To measure customers expectation and perception with the five dimensions of service quality using SERVQUAL instrument. To determine the gap in customers perceptions and expectations in each of the five dimensions of service quality in ECX. To assess whether the service provided by the organization satisfies customers or not P a g e

4 To propose possible solutions that may help the exchange in improving its quality service delivery that will enable to achieve customer satisfaction. Fill the literature gap related to service quality and customer satisfaction in commodity exchange sector. Research Questions Does the service provided by the ECX is according to the customer expectation? Does the service provided by the Corporation satisfy customers or not? Does the current service delivery system improve customer satisfaction? What is the relationship between service quality dimensions and customer Satisfaction in Ethiopia commodity exchange? Which service quality dimension has strong relation with Customer satisfaction in ECX? Is there well-designed quality service delivery procedure in the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange at the branch level? SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY The study is conducted to assess the factors affecting quality service delivery and its impact on customer satisfaction in ECX at the branch level. The beneficiaries of the study are: Provide some insight about customers perception of service quality in Ethiopian commodity exchange branch level. Give feedback for operation managers of the branch that considered in the study regarding the perceptions of their customers toward their service quality. Identify the gap between management s perception of service quality and that of their customers and taking actions to close the gaps. Fill the literature gap related to service quality and customer satisfaction in commodity exchange sector. Dilla University, Ethiopian commodity exchange Hawassa branch, Ethiopian commodity exchange authority Hawassa branch office and other officials and researchers can use the research for further investigation and to fill the knowledge gap in the sector. SCOPE OF STUDY The study is to assess the factors affecting quality service delivery and its impact on customer satisfaction in Ethiopian Customer Exchange Market at branch level. Thus, the study examines the ECX service quality from customers point of view at Hawassa Branch. The study covers time from the establishment of the branch to till date. Since the study is behavioral in its nature, it will focus on qualitative and quantitative approaches of research to collect both primary and secondary data and analyze it using SPSS version-20. LIMITATIONS OF STUDY Customers service delivery covers all aspects of an organization performance. However, due to budget and time constraints this study is limited to assessment of customer service delivery and customer satisfaction particularly by taking ECX Hawassa branch only. Furthermore, since the sample is only in Hawassa branch, it is not large enough to represent the entire organization nationwide. Therefore, the finding of this study may not be generalized to other branches located in other cities. Another study with a large sample size may be required in the future to arrive at reliable conclusion about ECX customer service delivery s ystem nationwide. METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH In this study, descriptive research has been used for description of perceived service quality and customer satisfaction, which are qualitative in nature. Both primary and secondary data were collected and used from primary and secondary sources even though more attention was given to primary data collected using questionnaire method. The population of this study constituted all 386 customers of Ethiopian Commodity Exchange. This population is categorized into five different homogeneous strata consisting o f supplier s agent, exporter s agent, self-suppliers, union and others. The researcher used stratified sampling technique to draw a sample proportionally from each stratum. Consequently, 79 sample respondents were selected from the target population of the study. To measure the satisfaction of customers from the services rendered to them by Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, the study used SERVQUAL model of five dimensions. Liker-scale questionnaire was administered based on the five dimensions of SERVQUAL model. Before distributing the questionnaire to sample respondents, its reliability was tested by using Cronbach s Alpha the result of which may be seen in Table 1, here under P a g e

5 Table-1: Result of Reliability Test using Cronbach s Alpha Dimensions Number of Attributes Cronbach s Alpha of Perceived Performance Cronbach s Alpha of Expectation Tangibility Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy As Cronbach s Alpha value for all dimensions is greater than 0.70, the set questionnaires were accepted and distributed to 79 sample respondents. They returned back, however, only 74 duly filled in questionnaires. The 4 out 74 responses were defective and only 70 responses were utilized in the study. The response rate was calculated to be 88.6 percent. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version-20. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Table 2: Gender Distribution of Respondent Sex Frequency Percentage Male Female Total According to Table-2, male respondents constitute 80.9 percent whereas female respondents consisted of only 19.1 percent. This implies that the majority of ECX customers are male, which may be conclude, as there is a higher gap between male and female in commodity exchange market participation. Table-3: Age Distribution of Respondents Age Frequency Percentage > Total As it can be seen from table-3, most of the respondents fall within the age category of years old. This clearly indicates that most of the organization s customers are well matured and are in a position to evaluate and request ECX to render them quality service. Table-4: Marital Status of Respondents Marital Status Frequency Percentage Married Unmarried Total According to Table 4, most of the respondents 37(52.9%) are married and the remaining 33(47.1%) of the respondents are unmarried. This implies that most of the respondents (customers) are married and shouldering more responsibility, which enables them to give more attention for service quality, offered them by ECX P a g e

6 Table-5: Educational Background of Respondents Educational level Frequency Percentage secondary school complete Certificate Diploma First degree and above Total Table 5 shows educational background of the respondents. Accordingly, the respondents have different educational levels, which imply that their expectation of service quality differs from person to person depending on his/her educational background. Explanation of Expectation and Perception Tests Expectations and perceptions were both measured by using the 5-point Likert-scale whereby the higher numbers indicate higher level of expectation or perception. In general, consumer expectation exceeded the perceived level of service shown by the perception scores. This resulted in a negative gap score (Perception Expectation). According to Parasuraman et al., (1988), it is common for consumer s expectation to exceed the actual service perceived and this signifies that there is always need for improvement. The items with the highest average expectation scores in ECX Hawassa branch are the responsiveness dimension with the average score of (4.8), and the lowest average expectation is Empathy (4.74). Scores are not very different from scores of other items and this implies generally that consumers expect very high from ECX. The items rated highest for actual service perceived are perception of tangibility (3.9), and the lowest is perception of Responsiveness (3.64). There is no so much difference between the scores of perceptions but are generally lower than expectations. The gap scores are the difference between the perception and expectation scores with a range of values from -5 to +5 and these gap scores measure service quality and hence customer satisfaction. The more perceptions are close to expectations, the higher the perceived level of quality. Parasuraman et al. (1985) defined service quality as a measure of how well the service level delivered matches customer expectations. According to him, delivering quality service means confirming to customer expectations on a consistent basis. The researcher calculated the gap between perceived performance and customer s expectation by subtracting the mean score of customers expectation from the mean score of perceived performance. This can be clearly seen in Table 6, here under. Table-6: Mean of Perceived Performance, Expectation and Gap Score of Service Reliability of ECX Attributes Perceived Performance Score Expected Score Gap Score P Reliability 1-E Reliability P Reliability 2-E Reliability P Reliability 3-E Reliability P Reliability 4-E Reliability P Reliability 5-E Reliability Average Gap Scores According to Table-6, the mean difference between P Reliability 1-E Reliability 1 is This means, the mean score of customers expectation about the ECX S ability to honor its promises to do something in a certain time and its ability to perform it at the designated time is more than the mean of perceived performance score. As the gap is negative, one can understand that ECX is not keeping its promise as expected by its customers. As indicated in Table 6, the mean difference between P Reliability 2 and E Reliability 2 is This shows that there is a negative difference between the mean of customers expectation regarding the ECX s capacity of showing sincere interest to solve customers problems and the mean of perceived performance. From this it is clear that ECX staff is not giving due attention in assisting customers when they face problem. This, in turn, proves that ECX employees are not always willing to solve the problem of customers. As per the same table here above, the mean of P Reliability 3 and E Reliability 3 have a gap score of -0.71, which means that there is a gap between customer s expectation about the ability of ECX to perform the service right the first time and perceived performance. Giving service right the first time directly related with the service level agreement / SLA / as the gap indicates that, the customers of the organizations are not happy with the first time service. Commodity exchange market performs its service right first time. From this, one can conclude that ECX s right first time service is not matching the expectation of the customers. The table also shows that the difference between the mean score of customers expectation and perceived performance concerning the ability of ECX in providing service at the time they promised and its dependency on error free records. As per the respondents response, there is gap between their expectation and perceived performance regarding the ability of ECX in providing its service at the time it promised. The negative gap implies that ECX could not provide timely service. In addition to this, the perceived performance of ECX s insistence on error free records is less by from customer s expectation. This amount of gap for error free record is a big difference of customer expectation and 1665 P a g e

7 perception. It is believed that modern commodity exchange markets are expected to serve their customers in error free or zero default on transaction, but the collected data is showing that there is high gap in error free record as to ECX. This shows that ECX is still having a problem to providing error free transactions and records. Table-7: Mean of Perceived Performance, Expectation and Gap Score of Service Responsiveness of ECX Attributes Perceived Performance Score Expected Score Gap Score P Responsiveness 1-E Responsiveness P Responsiveness 2-E Responsiveness P Responsiveness 3-E Responsiveness P Responsiveness 4-E Responsiveness Average gap scores The above table 7 indicates the data about the responsiveness. Responsiveness is the major dimension for service providers in the table. The gap between P Responsiveness 1and E Responsiveness 1 is negative. Accordingly, the mean of customers expectation about the employee s willingness to tell the exact time when they provide service to the customers is greater than perceived performance. From this, it can be concluded that ECX s employees are not willing to inform the exact time when the service would be delivered to their customers. As indicated in table 7, there is a gap of between the score of mean of P Responsiveness 2 and E Responsiveness 2. This means the customers expectation about the employees ability to provide quick service for their customers is greater than perceived performance. This gap (-1.57) implies that employees of ECX are not providing prompt service to their customers. On the other hand, the gap between customers expectation and perceived performance (P Responsiveness 3- E Responsiveness 3) concerning the willingness of employees in helping customers is negative (-1.51). This implies that ECX s employees are not willing to help customers. P Responsiveness 4 E Responsiveness 4, as presented in table 7, indicate negative gap (-0.78) which implies that the customers are expecting more service from ECX s employees. However, employees are not willing to respond promptly to customers questions. Table 8: Mean of Perceived Performance, Expectation and Gap Score of Service Assurance of ECX Attributes Perceived Performance Score Expected Score Gap Score P Assurance1-E Assurance P Assurance2-E Assurance P Assurance3-E Assurance P Assurance4-E Assurance Average gap scores Table 8 shows the difference of the mean score between perceived performance and customers expectation on employees ability in developing confidence in the customers is The gap clearly shows that employs ability in developing confidence in customers is very low. Confidence in the customers can be developed by giving them quality service with zero defects, which as a result builds their trust and increases their loyalty to the organization. Table 8 shows the gap between P Assurance 2 and E Assurance 2, which is This shows that the customers of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange market will not feel safe in their transactions because they are lacking trust in the organization. Concerning politeness of employees, there is a negative gap of (-1.50) which implies that employees are not courteous to customers. The table also shows the gap between P Assurance 4 and E Assurance 4 whose result is Consequently, the knowledge of employees to answer the customers questions properly is negative. As their knowledge is not updated with the requirement of customers, employees need training on timely basis. Table-9: Mean of Perceived Performance, Expectation and Gap Score on Empathy of ECX Attributes Perceived Performance Score Expected Score Gap Score P Empathy1-E Empathy P Empathy2-E Empathy P Empathy3-E Empathy P Empathy4-E Empathy P Empathy5-E Empathy Average gap scores P a g e

8 As illustrated in table 9, the gap score between P Empathy1 and E Empathy1 is 1.21 which implies that the organization is not giving sufficient individualized attention for its customers. The gap score between P Empathy2 and E Empathy2 is which implies that ECX does not have convenient operating hours that fit to all customers. As a result, customers are not happy with the convenience and conduciveness of operating hours. In the same manner, the gap score between P Empathy 3 and E Empathy 3 is This implies that ECX does not possess employees who give customers personal attention. Therefore, ECX has to give training and development to its employees on how to serve customers giving personal attention. In the same table, the gap score between P Empathy 4 E Empathy 4 is -1.19, which implies that ECX employees do not have the customers best interests at heart. The empathy attributes, P Empathy 5- E Empathy 5, is which indicates that the customer s expectation is greater than the actual performance regarding the employees understanding of the specific needs of customers. This means the employees of ECX have not great ability of understanding the specific needs of their customers. Table-10: Mean of Perceived Performance, Expectation and Gap Score on Tangibles of ECX Attributes Perceived Performance Score Expected Score Gap Score P Tangibles1-E Tangibles P Tangibles2-E Tangibles P Tangibles3-E Tangibles P Tangibles4-E Tangibles Average Gap Scores As it can be seen from table 10, the gap score for P Tangibles 1-E Tangibles 1 is -0.92, which implies that the perceived performance about the nature of the organization s equipment is less than the expectation of customers. The customers expect more from the organization regarding its equipment. Since the gap is low and below average, the customers are still in need of more modern and updated equipment especially of laboratory and ICT materials. The gap score result of P Tangibility 2- E Tangibility 2, as can be seen from table 10, is -0.79, which indicates that the mean score of customers expectation exceeds the mean perceived performance score with regard to attractive physical facility of the organization. This means, the equipment s were not visually attractive and appealing to customers. The gap score between P Tangibility 3-E Tangibility 3 is indicating that the score of mean expectation exceeds the score of mean perceived performance. The negative gap between P Tangibility 3 and E Tangibility 3 shows that employees are neither well-dressed nor neat in appearance. The gap score between P Tangibility 4 and E Tangibility 4 is and it describes that Materials associated with the service (such as pamphlets or statements) were not visually appealing at ECX. Generally, ECX has scored a lower gap score in the tangibility dimensions in relation to other dimensions. This shows that the materials and associated facilities are good and the organization is expected to maintain or improve it consistently. CONCLUSION The ECX's ability to deliver service as promised has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. However, the organization is not providing the service to its customers as promised, the employees are not showing sincere interest in solving customers problems and the organization is not providing the service on the time they promised to do so. The customers are not satisfied with the services rendered to them by the organization in question. The safety of the service, operating hours of the organization, the dressing and appearance of employees were relatively good. When the organization responsiveness increases, the level of customer satisfaction also increases. Therefore, willingness and readiness of employees of the organization in providing service has positive effect on customer satisfaction. Thus, customers of ECX in Hawassa prefer the organization to be willing and ready to give prompt service and they have to avoid unnecessary reason for postponing service. In addition, most customers expect help and answer for their problems and questions from members and Clint relations. Nevertheless, the organization is not promising the service level agreement especially in the pick period and not providing prompt service as expected by customer. In addition to these, employees of the organization are not always willing to help customers in solving their problems and respond positively to customers questions. Knowledge and competence of service providers and the ability to convey trust and confidence has positive effect on customer satisfaction. However, employees in the organization have a problem in instilling confidence in customers. At the same time, they are not courteous as expected by customers. If the organization understands the customers' needs and provides individualized attention to their customers or increase the empathy, they can also improve the level of customer s satisfaction. However, ECX's workers have problem in giving individualized attention. Farther more, the employees have a problem in understanding the specific need and the interest of the customers as per the customers expectation. The ECX facilities, equipment s and the appearance of personnel have positive effect on customer satisfaction. In this regard, the organization has modern visually appealing equipment as expected by customers and farther more they do 1667 P a g e

9 have clear and visually appealing materials associated with the service. This is because; the gap score is relatively low as compared to other dimensions. In general, speaking ECX is doing well and have scored smaller gap in the tangibility and reliability and empathy dimension were as they have scored higher gap in the responsiveness and assurance dimensions. RECOMMENDATION Based on the findings of this study, the researcher found that, it is important to make some recommendations for the organization and other concerned bodies: ECX customers are almost all male. Since ECX is working to create a modern and a transparent market, which benefits all the community, it has to work hard to attract female agents and suppliers. It is believed that keeping the promise for customers contributes in attracting as well as improving the modern marketing system in the organization. The employees of the organization should keep their promises by telling customers only the truth about their services. CX and its employees should give due attention to customer satisfaction because the satisfied customers will become loyal users of the organization's services. Hence, the employees of ECX should be polite and cooperative to help customers in solving their problems and answering their questions. This should need continuous follow up from the part of management. For delivering prompt service adds the satisfaction level of the customers, the employees of the organization should give quality services that could contribute to increasing the organization's image and attract more loyal to the services offered by the organization. Excellent working environment or conditions such as enough working place and well-organized office arrangement facilitates the service delivery of the employees for the customers that adds value for the satisfaction of customers. Therefore, in order to do so, the organization should create a good working condition that can create satisfied employees, who can serve the customers well. Office grooming and equipping it with modern facilities, organizing the office in well and comfortable manner have immeasurable value in facilitating service delivery system that in turn increases the satisfaction of customers. Thus as the study result shows, ECX is working well in fulfilling modern and modern looking equipment s and visually appealing physical facilities. ECX should have to be updating all the information technology materials and other working machines. ECX should also have to prepare materials like pamphlets and statements in clear, understandable and visually appealing manner. It is advisable to build customers reception desk and to fulfill it with modern information technology materials such as satellite television so that the customers can wait by recreating until they are delivered with their service. Moreover, to serve the customers well, providing timely training and development for employees plays a great role. Thus, ECX should give training to staff to enable them in serving the customers well and provide them with relevant and timely information that enables the organization to have proper communication among staff members and ensuring error-free transaction. Evidence from the study shows that ECX has to work hard in the responsiveness dimension because this dimension is mostly attached with the willingness and kindness of employees to be as a servant. Without improving the responsiveness dimension, it is impossible to fulfill the service quality. ECX needs to do more and more to minimize the gap in the responsiveness and assurance dimensions. They also should make hard effort in order to remove the smallest gap in the reliability, tangibility and empathy dimensions The compliant handling procedure is too long and it discourages customers to claim ECX, so ECX has to revise the complaint handling mechanism and make it short as much as possible. ECX has to decentralize most of the departments and their works such as IT support team and finance. This can help the organization to support any problems occurring in the service centers. ECX has to reduce the long procedure to unload a commodity as this can give answer to varies customer complaints and can help the organization to minimize the service level agreement days. ECX has to increase the staff especially in the service center; the number of employee and the workload must be balanced because of which the organization can achieve the desired service quality. In general, delivering quality service for customers has a great effect on customers satisfaction, which in turn determines the existence and success of the organization. Therefore, it is mandatory that ECX should attempt to maintain consistent service quality at levels customers expectation by assessing all service quality dimensions regularly. REFERENCES 1. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1998). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, P a g e

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