ASSESEMENT OF SERVICE QUALITY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:- THE CASE OF ETHIOPIAN COMMODITY EXCHANGE

Abstract

Quality is an important source of competitive advantage in service sector. Service quality is used to differentiate and add value to service offerings and as a way to win strategic competitive advantage. Customer satisfaction and Service quality are important concepts to academic researchers studying consumer evaluations and to practitioners as a means of creating competitive advantages and customer loyalty. The main objective of the study is to examine the service quality provided by Ethiopian commodity exchange and its effect on customer satisfaction using SERVPERF model (tangibility, assurance, responsiveness, empathy & reliability).A quantitative method has been applied to analyze the data collected from the service recipient in Addis Ababa. Descriptive statistics such as frequency mean and correlation analysis techniques are applied to analyze background information of respondents. Respondents’ perception on service quality and satisfaction as well as relationship between service quality dimensions and customers satisfaction are also analyzed under descriptive statistics. Besides, regression analysis technique is applied to investigate the impacts of service quality dimensions on satisfaction and at the same time test the hypothesis developed. The finding of the study shows that customers are satisfied on tangibility, empathy and assurance while they are dissatisfied on reliability and responsiveness. The finding on the base of correlation analysis also implies that the relationship between service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction result shows all service quality dimensions have positive and significant relation with customer satisfaction. The finding also confirms the service quality dimensions have an impact on customers’ satisfaction implying that the higher the quality of service, the higher is the level of customers’ satisfaction. From this finding, it is recommended that ecx can improve its service by mostly focusing on reliability and responsiveness service quality dimensions.