EVALUATING CUSTOMERS’ SATISFACTION OF SERVICE QUALITY OF STATE-OWNED TRANSPORT COMPANY: A CASE OF KANO STATE TRANSPORT AUTHOURITY (KANO LINE), NIGERIA

Abstract

Customers satisfaction and service quality are critical to the business survival of transport organisation. This is why this study attempts to examine the total customer satisfaction together with service quality of the inter-city transport service of Kano State Transport Authority, Nigeria. The data used for this study was obtained through the administration of 210 questionnaires to passengers at KSTA Loading Terminal using simple random sampling technique. The SERVQUAL model was adopted for measuring and management of service quality across different service contexts. Seven dimensions of service quality were used, these include; tangibility, reliability, Empathy, Responsiveness, Safety Comfortability and Assurance. After the analysis, the result shows that, the average mean score of 3.34 was calculated for customer level of satisfaction, which infers that users are fairly contented with the transport services rendered by KSTA. In terms of perception of quality of service of KSTA, the customer average mean score of 3.62 was calculated, implying that the customers perceptions of the quality of service of KSTA is moderately high. The findings also divulge that the satisfaction of Customer is meaningfully interrelated to all the dimensions of quality of service of satisfaction, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangible. Based on these findings, some specific measures that touch on improved vehicle maintenance management practices, passenger care, service reliability and effective service monitoring and regular feedback mechanism are recommended.