THE EFFECT OF SERVICE QUALITY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION; IN THE CASE OF MAIN DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY AFFAIRS IN ADDIS ABABA BOLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT BRANCH

Abstract

International travel is becoming the order of the day. People these days are crossing borders for a wide variety of reasons: be it business, vacation, educational tours and lots of others. The provision of various services that traveler customers receive at entry point’s influence their impression of the destination countries, positive or negative, to a greater extent. Excellent customer service coupled with utmost efficiency is what service providers, public or private, should strive. The study was aimed at the effect of service quality delivery on customer satisfaction at Immigration Department, Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. To serve the purpose of the study and achieve the main objective, explanatory and descriptive study design was employed and 304 incoming passengers selected through convenience sampling method were consulted. The data collection instrument used was questionnaire and interview. The collected data was analyzed by using statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation, correlation and regression tests. The results of this study indicate that, most satisfied with the tangibility dimensions of service quality. To the contrary, however, customers were less satisfied with responsiveness dimensions of service quality. The findings also revealed that the overall satisfaction level of the customers with the five SERVEQUAL rates on mean of 2.197. Moreover, the outcomes of correlation and regression analysis indict Empathy, tangibility and responsiveness has a high relationship & Reliability and assurance dimension has moderate relationship. Also responsiveness has a higher beta coefficient. Finally, based on the findings of the study, The researcher recommends that, the more the department invests on enhancing its employee’s ability to help customers and be responsive to customer’s enquiry, the more the customer will satisfy. The management also should pay adequate attention to address the acute shortage of manpower and to constantly train the existing workforce in the areas of service quality in general and customer handling in particular which in turn enable them to cope with the existing realities of the current world.