Service Quality Practices and Customer Satisfaction in Taxi Companies in Nairobi

Abstract

The study was purely motivated by the fact that there’s limited research carried out in the taxi industry in Kenya at large. The concept of service quality and customer satisfaction in the taxi industry in Kenya has not been examined at all. The study determined the extent to which service quality practices are adopted by taxi firms and also established the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in the taxi companies in Nairobi. The area of study was Nairobi County and a cross sectional descriptive survey design was used to collect data on service quality and customer satisfaction simultaneously at one point in time. Primary data was collected from both the managers of taxi companies and also clients (riders) using a Likert type scale questionnaire. The target population for the study was taxi industry managers and their customers. A sample of 40 managers and 120 customers which is equivalent to 3 customers from every company was randomly selected from the total taxi firms and their respective customers. Data was cleaned and edited to eliminate errors and omissions then coded to assign numbers to responses and were arranged against each research question. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics and was presented using graphs, charts, tables and even using narrations. The result indicated Majority of the customers are satisfied with the taxi companies and thus are just loyal to the taxi company services they have subscribed to and this might be due to quality services offered to them (customer satisfaction). Also, the practice of Service quality dimensions was found to be different among different taxi companies in Nairobi. The study recommended that the managers of taxi companies should pay keen attention to service quality and other factors which lead to customer satisfaction.