Customers’ Perception of Quality of Service in Private Primary Schools in Kisumu City

Abstract

The survey sought to assess customers’ perception of Quality of Service in Private Primary Schools in Kisumu City. Quality of Service is a significant aspect of customer satisfaction. Today, most organizations focus on providing the service quality in pursuit of increased customer satisfaction. The study was steered by the specific objective: To determine the perception of SQ of parents in private primary schools in Kisumu City with a view of identifying the main SQ attributes. Cross sectional descriptive survey design was employed to collect quantitative data from customers in 10 randomly selected PPS. This was done so as to get their expectations and perceptions on SQ which were then substituted in the SERVEQUAL Model. The literature on customers’ perception of SQ in PPS was reviewed. To test for validity and reliability of the tools, the questionnaires were piloted to 6 study subjects. The outcomes of the pilot study were used to revise the study instruments with some items being deleted, others reframed and fine-tuned. The research instrument was then adopted and administered to solicit for responses from the selected subjects. The survey findings revealed that all the respondents indicated that they were seeking quality education for their children. 100% of the subjects affirmed that they were seeking excellent academic performance especially in the national examinations. Customers perceived the SQ offered in PPS as high with 90 percent of the customers indicating that their perception of SQ offerings were met. The outcomes further revealed that Tangible dimensions contributed most to customers’ perception. Empathy was identified to contribute the least. The findings from the study are valuable to the government through the MoE in policy formulation in the context of improving SQ in PPS. The researcher recommends that MoE to continually inspect and regulate the private education sector to ensure quality education and protection of customers by weeding out rogue private schools. It also provided results that are useful to managers of PPS for effective strategic marketing planning: the provision of adequate facilities, staffing of teachers and non teaching staff, learning as well as teaching materials among others to improve SQ. The researcher therefore suggests that future studies need to focus on larger sample sizes by picking numerous PPS so as get conclusive data. The larger sample size would give a broader representation in the measurement of perception and expectation gaps.