Measuring and understanding customer satisfaction: a study of military engineer services

Abstract

Military Engineer Services is one of the largest public sector organisations in the industry of construction and infrastructure providers. Customer satisfaction and client orientation concepts are the need of the hour in all service providing organisations including those in public sector where the public perception about their services is at its lowest ebb. This study measures the expectations, perceptions, and satisfaction as also the importance of various service elements among MES clients. Customers survey mode was used to measure satisfaction with responses received from 31 Army/Air force units/fmns at Bangalore. The perceived quality of MES services was measured with SERQUAL instrument on selected attributes using the Gap approach which was integrated with Importance-Satisfaction model for identifying priorities. The integrated approach provided important inputs for design and delivery of services to meet the client needs. The results demonstrated that the perception of MES services is better in case of Air Force clients compared with those from Army. In assurance and empathy dimensions, MES services were rated satisfactory by the clients but the same cannot be said about tangibles, responsiveness and reliability dimensions. The importance-satisfaction model corroborated these findings by highlighting the factors corresponding to these dimensions, like use of modern tools and techniques, speed of service and delivery of promise made. Facilities in housing units, is among critical areas with high importance but low satisfaction level in the eyes of clients. The deficiencies as came out from the data suggest structural and process changes in the institutional mechanism for improving the service quality. Revision of scales to provide better facilities in residential accommodation, abridging the works processing channel in Army, more powers to officers at the CWE level, strengthening complaint redressal system are some of the recommendations expected to improve the reliability and responsiveness of MES towards the clients. Formulation of service standards, creating an enabling working environment, automation with integrated knowledge management and project management system, and introducing opportunity cost concept for enhancing decision taking ability of officers are among other recommendations aimed at enhancing client satisfaction in MES.