An importance-performance analysis of sustainable service quality in water and sewerage companies

Abstract

Sustainable service quality (SUSSERV) is crucial to identify how far the company able to meet customers’ expectations will determine its sustainability. SUSSERV model with six independent variables namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and sustainability has been developed by modifying the SERVQUAL instrument. This research employed a survey with quota sampling technique through 500 questionnaires comprised of 250 each to the customers of water (WC) and sewerage (SC) companies in the state of Selangor, Federal Territory (F.T.) Putrajaya and F.T. Kuala Lumpur. WC’s on the perceived service quality for all SUSSERV dimensions were much lower than SC. It was also found that there were no significant differences between the means of perceptions with the exception of eight out of 31 variables and three out of 31 variables in the category of Services (Water and Sewerage) and in Living Status (Type of Houses) respectively. The importance-performance analysis (IPA) indicates that the Assurance and Responsiveness dimensions were at high levels but Sustainability dimension was low for both performance (perceptions) and importance (expectations). The advantage of using the IPA is to assist companies to improve their services. The IPA indicates that both WC and SC services are rated as very reliable by the customers despite the dissatisfaction of majority of the customers with the services rendered by both companies investigated in the study. The main contribution of this study is the successful utilization of a modified SERVQUAL instrument that can measure sustainable service quality. Future research should focus on extending the use of this instrument in other states to further validate and test this instrument.