AN ASSESSMENT OF SERVICE QUALITY ON

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:
A Case Study of Tel•One (Pvt) Limited

LOVEMORE MUTSVANGA

R102387N

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for

the Degree of Master of Strategic Marketing Management
Business Studies Department,
Faculty of Commerce, University of Zimbabwe.

Supervisor: Mr JD. Nhavira

May 2014
 DECLARATION

Student’s Declaration - I, Lovemore Mutsvanga do hereby declare that this dissertation is the
result of my own investigation and research, except to the extent indicated in the
acknowledgements, references and by documents included in the body of the report, and that
it has not been submitted in part or in full for any degree in any other university.

Student Name: Lovemore Mutsvanga

Student Number: R102387N

Signature ………………………………….. Date ………………….

(Student)

Supervisor Declaration – I JD Nhavira, confirm that the work reported in this dissertation
was carried out by the candidate under my supervision as the University supervisor. This
dissertation has been submitted for review with my approval as University Supervisor.

______________________________ ________________________
Signature (Supervisor) Date

i
 DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my dear wife Dorica Mutsvanga and my children Silence and
Shalom Mutsvanga for making me who I am today out of their love and sacrifices.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I take this opportunity to acknowledge all those who helped me to come up with this
complete project and those who have inspired me and contributed to my deep understanding
of service quality and customer satisfaction in Business organisations in Zimbabwe and
Parastatals in Zimbabwe and particularly in Tel•One (Pvt) Ltd. My acknowledgement of
appreciation goes to my Lecturer, Mr. N. Muzondo for his leadership and encouragement in
carrying out this project. His encouragement when I needed advice and assistance helped me
so much right through the production of this project. I say Thank You.

I am also grateful for the support that I received from Dr Kaseke. His leadership and
inspiration will forever be remembered for this study. I am also indebted to Mr Gwavuya for
his assistance and support as an early Lecturer and advisor in my academic life at University
of Zimbabwe.

I have received inspiration and encouragement many times in my life from my colleague,
who is also my uncle, Mr Stanley Munyaradzi Choto. I also acknowledge the support I
received from my friends and colleagues and chief among a long list include; Mr E Woyo,
Mr. S Dube and Mr E Nyambo. To Mr E Woyo, I say your contribution and support to this
document will never be forgotten.

I am greatly indebted to my Supervisor, Mr J.D. Nhavira for constantly and patiently guiding
and supporting right through this research project, I say many thanks to you. I take this
opportunity to the encouragement and inspiration I received from my uncle and his wife
Edwel and Aretha Maposa. The encouragement has made a lot of great difference in my life
and of what I am today. To my uncle Edwel, I say you become an all round man to my life. I
say Thank You.

I take this opportunity to thank my wife Mrs Dorica Mutsvanga and children Silence and
Shalom Mutsvanga for their encouragement. I thank my wife and children for exercising
patience during the time when I was away from them working on this project and attending
lecturers during weekends and holidays. I spent several hours of study time away home at the
expense of their quality family time and they even stretch further with their financial support
towards my studies at University. Without their understanding this dissertation wouldn’t be
successful. I say Thank You so much.

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 ABSTRACT

With a view to remaining competitive and for businesses to grow, service quality and
customer satisfaction are key concepts. These two paradigms are rather different concepts,
but, however, are closely correlated. (Sureshchandar et al, 2003). However, in Zimbabwe,
over the past decade, the performance of Tel•One Private Limited has been poor, and
continuously deteriorating in this regard. There was a strong reason to believe that this
exponential decline in performance has been due to the deteriorating service quality. Basing
on Sureshchandar’s propositions, it was therefore the major purpose of this study to ascertain
the perceived service quality and to explore the relationship, if any, between service quality
and customer satisfaction in the context of Tel•One, a Zimbabwean Telecommunications
Company. Basing on the SERVQUAL instrument, a questionnaire was developed and
distributed using a convenience sampling technique to 150 respondents in Harare. From the
analysis, it was found that the overall service quality in Tel•One as was relatively poor, and
that the customers were not satisfied with the services of Tel•One. Further, inferential
analysis proved true the dependency of customer satisfaction on the quality of service, and
that this relationship was a very high positive correlation. The service quality attributes that
affect customer satisfaction were also evaluated and are, in order of decresing importance,
Reliability, Tangibles, Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy and Products. The major
recommendation was that there was a great need for Tel•One to revisit it service quality, and
that the SERQUAL model, along with the results of this study, would help in improving
customer satisfaction, and thus improving its performance and the overall profitability.

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Table of Contents

DECLARATION ........................................................................................................................ i

DEDICATION ...........................................................................................................................ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iii

ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. iv

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... xi

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................xii

CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................ 1

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1

1.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background of Study ........................................................................................................... 2

1.2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................... 5

1.3 Research Objectives ............................................................................................................. 6

1.4 Research Hypothesis/Proposition/Assumption/Theory ....................................................... 7

1.5 Significance of the Study ..................................................................................................... 7
1.5.1 Benefits of the research ..................................................................................................... 7
1.5.1.1 Benefits to the Researcher ...................................................................................... 7
1.5.1.2 Benefits to Tel•One Private Limited and Other Business Organisations ............... 8
1.6 Scope of Research ................................................................................................................ 8

1.7 Definition of Terms.............................................................................................................. 9

1.7.1 Service Quality.................................................................................................................. 9

1.7.2 Customer Satisfaction ....................................................................................................... 9
1.8 Structure of the Dissertation .............................................................................................. 10

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CHAPTER TWO ..................................................................................................................... 11

LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................ 11

2.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 11

2.1 Service Quality................................................................................................................... 11

2.2 Consumer Satisfaction ....................................................................................................... 13

2.3 The SERVQUAL Model.................................................................................................... 17

2.4 Service Quality Models...................................................................................................... 19

2.4.1 Gap 1: Customer Expectation vs. Management Perception Gap .................................... 20

2.4.2 Gap 2: Management Perception versus Service Quality Specifications ........................ 21
2.4.3 Gap 3: Provider Quality Specs versus Service Delivery ............................................... 21
2.4.4 Gap 4: Service Delivery – External Communications Gap ............................................ 22
2.4.5 Gap 5: Expected Service – Perceived Service Gap ........................................................ 22
2.5 Models for Measuring Quality ........................................................................................... 22

2.6 Criticisms of the SERVQUAL........................................................................................... 24

2.7 Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction ....................................................................... 25

2.8 Provider Quality Concept in Zimbabwe ............................................................................ 30

CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................................. 31

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY............................................................................................. 31

3.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 31

3.1 Research Design................................................................................................................. 31

3.1.1 Exploratory Research design .......................................................................................... 32

3.1.2 Descriptive Research Design .......................................................................................... 32
3.1.3 Explanatory Research Design ......................................................................................... 32
3.2 Research Philosophy .......................................................................................................... 33

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3.2.1 Positivism........................................................................................................................ 33
3.2.2 Interpretivism .................................................................................................................. 34
3.3 Research Approach ............................................................................................................ 34

3.4 Research Strategy............................................................................................................... 35

3.4.1 Action Research .............................................................................................................. 35

3.4.2 Case study ....................................................................................................................... 36
3.5 Population and Sampling Techniques ................................................................................ 37

3.5.1 Sampling and Sampling Techniques ............................................................................... 38

3.5.2 Sampling Unit ................................................................................................................. 38
3.5.3 Sample size ..................................................................................................................... 38
3.5.4 Sampling Techniques ...................................................................................................... 39
3.6 Data Collection Methods ................................................................................................... 40

3.7 Data Collection Instruments .............................................................................................. 42

3.7.1 Questionnaire Instrument ................................................................................................ 42

3.7.2 Interview Instrument ....................................................................................................... 43
3.7.3 Questionnaire Design ...................................................................................................... 44
3.74 Administering the Questionnaire ..................................................................................... 45
3.8 Pre-testing the Research Instrument .................................................................................. 45

3.9 Validity and Reliability ...................................................................................................... 46

3.10 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................... 47

3.11 Ethical Considerations ..................................................................................................... 47

3.12 Problems and Limitations of Study.................................................................................. 47

3.13 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 48

CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................... 49

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS ......................................................................... 49

4.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 49

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4.1 Reliability Analysis ............................................................................................................ 49

4.2 Response Rate .................................................................................................................... 49

4.3 Demographic Analysis ....................................................................................................... 50

4.3.1 Gender ............................................................................................................................. 50

4.3.2 Respondents’ Age ........................................................................................................... 51
4.4 Tel•One Service Delivery Status Quo ............................................................................... 51

4.4.1 Quality of Service and Products from Tel•One .............................................................. 52

4.4.2Perceptions on Speed of Service Delivery ....................................................................... 53
4.4.3Reliability of Tel•One’s Products and Services ............................................................... 54

4.4.4 Customer Satisfaction ..................................................................................................... 55

4.4.5Technical Quality ............................................................................................................. 55
4.4.6Responsiveness to Customers .......................................................................................... 56
4.4.7Price and Value for Money .............................................................................................. 57
4.5 Factors influencing Service Quality................................................................................... 58

4.5.1 Gender and Service Quality ............................................................................................ 62

4.5.2 Age and Service Quality ................................................................................................. 63
4.6 The Relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction............................. 65

4.7 The Greatest Impact Service Quality Factors on Customer Satisfaction ........................... 67

4.8 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 69

CHAPTER FIVE ..................................................................................................................... 70

5.0 Introduction and Findings .................................................................................................. 70

5.1 Service Delivery at Tel•One .............................................................................................. 70

5.2 Factors Influencing Service Quality at Tel•One ................................................................ 70

5.3 Relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction .................................... 71

5.4 Major factors affecting Customer Satisfaction in Tel•One ................................................ 71

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5.5 Conclusions of the Study ................................................................................................... 71

5.3 Recommendations of the Study ......................................................................................... 72

5.4 Limitations of the Research .......................................................................................... 74

5.4 Directions of Future Research ........................................................................................... 74
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 75

APPENDIX 1: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE................................................................... 81

Questionnaire ........................................................................................................................... 81

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 LIST OF ACRONYMS

POTRAZ - Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe

GOZ - Government of Zimbabwe

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Reliability Statistics ……………………………………………………. 49

Table 4.2 Response rate …………………………………………………………… 50
Table 4.3 Factor Analysis.......................................................................................... 59
Table 4.4: ANOVA Analysis.................................................................................... 61
Table 4.5: Independent Samples t-test, Gender……………………………………. 63
Table 4.6: Independent Samples t-test, Age………………………………………. 64
Table 4.7:Service Quality/Customer Satisfaction Contingency Table .................... 65
Table 4.8: Chi-Square Analysis................................................................................. 65
Table 4.9: Spearman’s Rho Correlation Analysis..................................................... 66
Table 4.10: Regression Model Summary.................................................................. 67
Table 4.11: Multiple Regression Analysis – Coefficients ....................................... 68

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: SERVQUAL Model................................................................................ 16

Figure 4.1 Distribution by Gender............................................................................. 50
Figure 4.2: Age Distribution...................................................................................... 51
Figure 4.3: Quality of Service and Products from Tel•One…………………………52
Figure 4.4: Speed of Service Delivery …………………………………………….. 53
Figure 4.5: Reliability of Tel•One Products and Services........................................ 54
Figure 4.6: Customer Satisfaction…………………………………………………..55
Figure 4.7: Technical Quality.................................................................................... 56
Figure 4.8: Responsiveness to Customers................................................................. 57
Figure 4.9: Price and Value for Money..................................................................... 57

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

In order to remain competitive and for business to grow, service quality and customer
satisfaction are key concepts. Service quality and customer satisfaction are different, but
related concepts (Sureshchandar et al, 2003), but however, these two exhibit a very strong
correlation. Satisfaction can be regarded as an antecedent of service quality (Carman, 1990).
Thus, satisfactory experience may therefore affect customer attitude and his or her
assessment of perceived service quality. Thus, satisfaction with a specific transaction may
result with positive global assessment of service quality. However, other authors have argued
that it is the other way round that is service quality is antecedent of customer satisfaction
(Oliver, 1997).

However, in Zimbabwe, over years, the performance of Tel•One Private Limited has been
poor in this regard. The purpose of this study was to describe how customers perceive service
quality and weather they are satisfied with services offered by Tel•One, a business
Telecommunications Company. The thrust of this study was to compose an assessment of
service quality and customer satisfaction in business organisations in Zimbabwe in
Zimbabwe within the context of Tel•One Private Limited. In this study efforts were made to
examine how service quality issues are being managed within business organisations in
Zimbabwe. It was also imperative to note that this study, also examined the factors that were
driving service quality and customer satisfaction which in this study strictly referred to the
context of Tel•One Private Limited.

Service quality and customer satisfaction are very imperative concepts to academic
researchers studying evaluations and to practitioners as a means of creating competitive
advantages and customer loyalty. Many industries are paying attention to service quality and
customer satisfaction for numerous reasons and chief among them are increased competition
and deregulation. The ever changing and competitive market environment offers challenges
and opportunities to many organisations across the globe. Customers’ perception of service
quality always pose a great challenge which is unique than other business challenges.

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Excellence in service quality has become quite imperative for organisational sustainability
(Lewis et al., 1994). The advances in information and communication technologies have
enabled a number of organisations to provide superior services for customers’ satisfaction
(Surjadjaja et al., 2003)

1.1 Background of Study

Today’s fast paced and increasingly competitive global market requires effective and
efficient strategies to survive and to make profits which can contribute toward the growth of
the organisation. Service quality and customer satisfaction and customer retention are global
issues that affect all organisations whether private or business, small or large, global or local.
Literature available showed that organisations are interested in studying, evaluating, and
implementing marketing strategies that aim to improve customer satisfaction and retention
with an intention to maximise the financial performance of the firm. International literature
showed that there has been a strong advocacy for the adoption of customer retention as one of
the key performance indicators as noted by Kaplan and Norton (2001). Service quality and
customer satisfaction have long been recognised as playing a crucial role towards the
organisational success and survival in today’s global competitive market.

It is obvious that the customers are more important stakeholders in many organisations and
their satisfaction is a priority in marketing management. Customer satisfaction and service
quality has been a subject of interest to researchers and organisations as it has been proven by
some researchers that service quality is related to customer satisfaction. Profit maximisation
can be achieved through increase in sales with lesser costs and one of the ways of achieving
that is through exceeding customer satisfaction (Wilson et al, 2008).

Customers are constantly aiming to get the highest satisfaction from products or services that
they buy from various organisations across the globe. Thus, it must be noted that winning in
today’s competitive marketplace demands that organisations need to build profitable and
lasting customer relationship . (Kotler, et al,.2002).

Much research has also gone into customer-centric marketing philosophies by marketing
researchers, scholars and practitioners. Both researchers and practitioners are increasingly
looking for ways to understand, attract, retain and build intimate long term relationships with

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profitable customers (Kotler, 2006). It goes without mentioning that one of the key and
imperative ways of building customer centred marketing is ensuring that existing customers
are satisfied with the quality of service on offer. Thus, it becomes key for this study to find
out the efforts that Tel•One Private Limited is putting in ensuring that it becomes a customer
centred organisations. In addition to this, it is also the objective of this study to assess the
current efforts by Tel•One Private Limited towards service quality and customer satisfaction
and how it has impacted on building profitable customer relationships.

It is well documented that various business organisations are studying and developing
strategies to satisfy customers and meet customer expectations. Research has shown that a
very satisfied customer is nearly six times more likely to be loyal to the organisation and
chances are high when it comes to repeat business. In addition to this, it is generally agreed
among scholars that a satisfied client is likely to make recommendation of the product or
service to family and friends as compared to dissatisfied customers (Kotler, 2006).

Tel•One Private Limited is a fixed telecommunications service provider that is 100% owned
by the Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ). Tel•One Private Limited is an organisation within
the telecommunications industry in Zimbabwe. Like any other service organisations Tel•One
has the quest to deliver quality service to satisfy its customers in the midst of fierce
competition for market share with numerous local and global competitors. The
telecommunications industry in Zimbabwe is regulated by Postal and Telecommunications
Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), which has the object of ensuring effective
administration, supervision and regulation and control of the business of telecommunications
in Zimbabwe. Over the past decade, competition in the industry has greatly increased as
many new products and entrants have joined the industry.

In Zimbabwe, it must be noted that the telecommunications industry is undergoing a

tremendous and dramatic transformation and experiencing heightened competition. The
telecommunications industry is an important sector of the economy but often neglected area
of academic study and research. The fact is that ‘telecommunications business’ is regarded as
a low credence service and the quality of the services are difficult to prove until customers
consume the service. Given these imperative issues that need to be addressed, the purpose of
this study will be an assessment of factors affecting service quality and customer satisfaction
in business enterprises with particular reference to Tel•One Private Limited. Specifically, this

3
study seeks to assess the nature and relationship between service quality and customer
satisfaction within Tel•One and how it influences patronage.

However, as many industry sectors in Zimbabwe mature, competitive advantage through high
service quality is an increasingly important weapon in business survival given the height of
globalisation. The telecommunications industry from which Tel•One Private Limited
operates has certainly not been exempted from increased competition from Econet Wireless,
Telecel Zimbabwe, Africom, Powertel and Net One. In addition to this, the organisation has
not been exempted from escalating customer expectations of service quality. In Zimbabwe,
the telecommunications industry is really undergoing a tremendous transformation and
experiencing heightened competition from numerous players who are part of the emerging
industry in Zimbabwe. The telecommunications industry is a critical industry in Zimbabwe
but it has received little academic attention.

It must be noted that the performance of telecommunications in Zimbabwe has received little
or no academic attention with regards to service quality and customer satisfaction. Thus it
will be the objective of this study to assess if the performance of Tel•One Private Limited
would affect the service quality that is usually given to customers. In today’s fast-paced and
increasingly competitive market, the bottom line of a firm’s marketing strategies and tactics
is to make profits and contribute to the growth of the company. Customer satisfaction, service
quality and maintenance are global issues that affect all organizations, be it large or small,
profit or non-profit, global or local, business or private owned (Kaplan and Norton, 2001).
Many companies are interested in studying, evaluating and implementing marketing
strategies that aim at improving customer retention and maximizing share of customers in
view of the beneficial effects on the financial performance for the firm.

A high correlation between customer retention and profitability was established (Reichheldet
al, 1990), thus it becomes the aim of this study to test the correlation between service quality
and customer satisfaction within the confines of Tel•One Private Limited. Service quality and
customer satisfaction playing a very important role towards the success and competitiveness
of a firm in today’s dynamic and competitive global market (Söderlundet al, 2005). It must be
noted that, considerable research has gone into these concepts. Notably, service quality and
customer satisfaction have been linked to customer behavioural intentions like purchase and
loyalty intention, willingness to spread positive word of mouth, referral, and complaint

4
intention by many researchers (Söderlund and Öhman, 2005) thus this must be assessed in the
context of Tel•One Private Limited and see if the same results can be obtained.

The focus on customer-centric marketing philosophies has received considerable attention in

the marketing literature by scholars and practitioners. Both practitioners and scholars are
increasingly looking for ways to comprehend, exert a pull on, preserve and build cherished
long term relationships with profitable customers (Kotler, 2006). One of the key areas in the
customer-centred marketing concept is ensuring that existing customers are satisfied for the
purposes of repeat business in the future. As a result organisations have been studying and
developing strategies to satisfy customers and achieve customer delight.

1.2 Problem Statement

The problem of this study is principally informed by the fact that there is very limited
empirical documentation in the area of customer satisfaction and service quality in the
telecommunications industry in Zimbabwe for both research and industrial management. It
must be noted that in Zimbabwe the empirical studies on the state of quality service and
customer satisfaction in business organisations is very scanty. As far as researchers are
concerned little academic attention has been done within the telecommunications industry in
Zimbabwe to inform stakeholders, including POTRAZ regarding service quality delivered by
Telecommunication companies including Tel•One Private Limited to its customers. Tel•One
is one such company that is failing to adapt to the change in the business environment. This is
evidenced by its relatively declining customer base (POTRAZ, 2014),public criticism for lack
of skills proficiency (Makura, 2013), diversion of company funds (Mhlanga, 2013), carrying
a bloated workforce (Bulawayo24, 2012) and general failure to adopt new technology. To
further compound these problems, Tel·One’s financial situation is unhealthy as it is owed
close to US$300 million by its customers and its owing around the same figure in long term
loans. High churn rate of customers due to failure top service bills and poor customer
satisfaction within the company.

Tel·One’s problems arose primarily from the legacy debt it inherited from the former Posts
and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) which was unbundled in 1999. Since the debt
was passed on Tel•One the company has been failing to service it on time with interest
expenses increasing each year. Additionally, the company is still operating using equipment

5
and technology that was originally put in place in the early 1900s which has since become
obsolete and inadequate to support new telecommunications services. Internally, the
company’s processes particularly service processes have not evolved much and the
organisational hierarchy is still structured in line with the original business model. To
compound this problem the country economic situation declined significantly in the past
decade which has seen the economy phase out the local currency for a multi-currency regime.

In Zimbabwe, telecommunications market is forecast to be worth $1.34 billion by 2016 in

terms of revenue (ICT Strategy Document 2012).The projections assume that companies such
as Tel•One Private Limited follow an organic growth curve in terms of building customer
relationship and infrastructure development (POTRAZ 2011). As such, there is an urgent
need to increase understanding of the factors that drive customer satisfaction in the
telecommunications industry in order to provide Tel•One Private Limited’s management with
empirical basis for developing effective service quality and effective marketing strategies that
promote growth in terms of its customer base. Thus, the research problem is that TelOne
(Pvt) Ltd is not delivering quality services inorder to meet its customer satisfaction.

With regard to the above statement of the problem, the study will seek to answer the
following specific research questions:
1. What is the status quo in terms of service delivery in Tel•One
2. What are the factors influencing service quality in Tel•One?
3. What is the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction?
4. What are the major factors that affect customer satisfaction in Tel•One?
5. What mechanisms can Tel•One Private Limited use to continuously improve the level
of service quality and customer satisfaction?

1.3 Research Objectives

The purpose of this study will be to assess the service quality and the effect it has on
customer satisfaction within the context of Tel•One. Thus, the objectives of this study will
be:
1. To assess the status quo in relation to service delivery at Tel•One
2. To examine the factors influencing service quality in the context of Tel•One
3. To establish the relationship between service quality on customer satisfaction;

6
 4. To establish the major factors affecting customer satisfaction in Tel•One.
5. To identify mechanisms to continuously improve the level of service quality and
customer satisfaction within Tel•One.

1.4 Research Hypothesis/Proposition/Assumption/Theory

From the foregoing, the primary research hypotheses were:

H0: Customer Satisfaction is not dependent on Service Quality

H1: Customer Satisfaction is dependent on Service Quality

The research also sought to establish the validity of the SERVQUAL factors attributes in the
context of Tel•One, and below are further hypotheses that were proposed:

H1: Tel•One’s Empathy has an impact on Service Quality

H2: Tel•One’s Assurance has an impact on Service Quality
H3: Tel•One’s Tangibles have an impact on Service Quality
H4: Tel•One’s Responsiveness has an impact on Service Quality

1.5 Significance of the Study

This section reports on the significance of the study. The major importance of this study, was
to explore and understand the relationship, if any, between Tel•One’s quality of services and
the satisfaction of its customers, whose outcome would help in strategically resolving the
problems that this research would unfold, and thus help increase the company’s profitability.
This research will also uncover the dimensions of service quality that customers considered
as significant. This will provide empirical support for management strategic decisions in
several critical areas of their operations.

1.5.1 Benefits of the research

The benefits of the research are multifold as highlighted below:

1.5.1.1 Benefits to the Researcher
Through this research the researcher was able to further numerous skills of critical research,
make academic and evaluative judgments in practical field, thus put to test the knowledge

7
acquired. In this study, the researcher was enabled to get an appreciation of the versatile
marketing environment in which business organisations in Zimbabwe and the competitive
telecommunications industry. It is in this vain that the researcher was able to develop a
positive perception of the achievements and challenges met by other researchers in
establishing the fundamentals of research foundation in terms of service quality and customer
satisfaction within business organisations in Zimbabwe and the telecommunications industry
which has been quite competitive over the years.

1.5.1.2 Benefits to Tel•One Private Limited and Other Business Organisations

Wherever possible, the results of this study will help policy makers within Tel•One Private
Limited:
 To implementing strategies that maintain and enhance service quality that
meets and exceeds customer expectations
 To develop effective and consistent service standards to relevant stakeholders
 To assist Tel•One Private Limited to understand the importance of service
quality and customer satisfaction.
 To assist Tel•One Private Limited to benchmark among the state enterprise
and telecommunications through effective service delivery and customer
satisfaction
 To understand the importance of service quality in building competitiveness
and profitable customer satisfaction within the telecommunications

1.6 Scope of Research

The study will be done in Harare using the Tel•One Private Limited as a case study. Thus, the
administration personnel of Tel•One Private Limited and workers and other respondents will
be drawn from different stations in Harare, and institutional customers who use Tel•One
Private Limited services and those who would have used the same services before. The
researcher chose to deal with Harare stations because most of the customers are dominated in
Harare than other regions and more so Harare is where it is Head Office is situated where it is
responsible for corporate strategy and decision making. It is the researcher’s assumption that
Tel•One Private Limited is somehow engaged in some kind of service quality management.
The choice of Tel•One Private Limited as a case has been motivated by the fact that the
researcher is eager to make an assessment of service quality and how it affects customer

8
satisfaction within the telecommunications in Zimbabwe. These and many other geopolitical,
social factors make Harare an interesting delimitation of this study.

1.7 Definition of Terms

It is of essence and indispensable that terms to be applied in this study be defined in a way
that they are going to be applied in the dissertation. These definitions are meant to spell out
the milieu, in which the terms are used and applied in this dissertation

1.7.1 Service Quality

Parasuramanet al. (1985) defines service quality as the comprehensive assessment or outlook
of overall excellence of services being provided to a number of stakeholders including the
organisation’s customers. Thus, it can be noted that service quality is the differentiation
between the customer’s expectation and perceptions of services delivered by firms. Nitecki et
al. (2000) defines service quality in terms of meeting or exceeding customer perceptions and
expectations of service. Thus, it must be noted that the definition by Parasuraman (1985) will
be applied throughout this dissertation.

1.7.2 Customer Satisfaction

Solomon (2009: 34) defined a customer as the most important stakeholder of an organisation
who provides payment in exchange for the product offering provided to a person by the
organisation with an objective of fulfilling a need and ultimately maximise satisfaction of the
same. While there is no consensus between scholars and researchers on the definitions of a
customer and a consumer, this study is going to restrict the meaning of a customer as defined
by Solomon (2009: 34) as the person who does the buying of the product offering while the
consumer will refer to the person who ultimately consumes the product. It must be noted that
when both the consumer and the customer is pleased with either the product offering or
services is termed satisfaction. Kotler and Keller (2009:789) define satisfaction as the
person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment that results from comparing a product’s
perceived performance or outcome with their expectations. Thus, the definition by Kotler and
Keller (2009) will be applied throughout this dissertation.

9
1.8 Structure of the Dissertation

This research dissertation consists of five chapters and the organisation and outline of this
study is as follows:

Chapter two examines the obtainable literature on the topic and how the research fits into the
gaps. Chapter three outlines the research methodologies and describes the study area and
parameters. It is also in this chapter where the research strategy is also outlined. It covers the
selection of the sample, sampling techniques, instrument design, data collection process,
extensive research approach and the overall methodology employed in this study including
the research’s limitations. The fourth chapter presents the analysis of data collected. The
results of the interviews with the Tel•One Private Limited’s Administration, Staff and
customers are analysed in this chapter. It includes an in depth discussion of the results.

10
 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction

This chapter provides the assessment of the literary work relevant to this research study and
also offers the theoretical framework. The first part of the chapter will be a review of the
definitions of service quality and customer satisfaction and this will be followed by literature
on the dimensions of the principles of service quality and consumer satisfaction and the
relationship between the two principles.

It is in this chapter that the researcher demonstrates awareness of the modern state of
knowledge in the research and how the research will fit in the broader viewpoint. This
chapter will additionally determine what is recognized by scholars to establish the present
state of affairs regarding the evaluation of service quality and customer satisfaction in
businesses, in the context of Tel•One. This chapter will also figure out the driving factors
behind service quality and its inherent effect on consumer satisfaction in Zimbabwe such that
the researcher will additionally be able to establish the standing position of organisations in
Zimbabwe.

The research will make an evaluation of every service provided by Tel•One as a state
enterprise on the theories of service quality and customer satisfaction. This literary review in
this chapter will eventually assist the researcher to develop the right methodology through the
recognition of the gaps that exist in the body of knowledge.

2.1 Service Quality

Parasuraman et al. (1985) describes service quality as the evaluation of the general quality of
services being provided to customers. Therefore, it can be noted that service quality is the
differentiation between the customer is expectation and the perceptions of services delivered
by organizations. Nitecki et al. (2000) describes service quality in terms of surpassing
customer perceptions and expectations of service. It is therefore important for this research to
concentrate on the assessment of service quality and its resultant impact on customer
satisfaction in the context of Tel•One as a state enterprise in Zimbabwe.

11
A scrutiny of available literature verifies that not much research has been done in this respect
in the context of organisations in Zimbabwe. It is, however, well documented that in order for
an organization to achieve customer satisfaction, there is need for services and these services
more often than not depend on the type of product offering and differs from one organisation
to another. Keller and Kotler (2009:789) define a service as any intangible performance or
work that one party provides to another that does not end up in the ownership of anything”.
Therefore, a service can additionally be defined as an intangible offer by one party which in
this research relates to Tel•One, to another in change of cash. Quality, having said that, is one
of the products that customers will look for in an offer (Solomon, 2009:413). Kotler et al,.
(2002: 831) defines quality as the totality of the functions and characteristics of an product or
services that bear on its capability to satisfy stated or suggested requirements.

Scholars generally agree that quality is associated to the value of a product offering which
could either result in satisfaction or dissatisfaction on the part of the individual. Zeithaml et
al,. (1990) cited in David and Bowen (2005:340) notes that service quality is, therefore, the
level to which customers’ perceptions of service meet and/or exceed their expectations. From
the foregoing, it becomes critical for this research to discover how customers are serviced in
organisations in Zimbabwe and appraise how it impacts their satisfaction levels.

Despite Parasuraman (1988) defining service quality as the distinction that exists between
customer’s objectives and the perceptions of the service, scholars in this domain, however,
contend that calculating service quality as the distinction that exists between the perceived
and the expected service had been a legitimate means and could make the management
recognize gaps to what they provide as this research seeks to verify if this exists in Tel•One.
Gaps in service quality in organisations in Zimbabwe are to be identified in the process of the
research and the conclusions of the study will add to the current body of knowledge. It is also
rather significant for this research to confirm just how Tel•One is management determine
gaps for their products and see if it confirms the conclusions of Parasuraman (1988).

The research will discover if Tel•One has quality services which can satisfy their customers
or not. In addition to this, efforts will be made to determine service quality in the context of
Tel•One and dictate whether Tel•One is in a position to provide excellent services to its
customers. Haywood (1998) notes that there are three elements of service quality and they are

12
christened as the 3Ps of service quality. The Haywood (1998), research describes service
quality as comprising three elements which are:
 Physical facilities, processes and procedures;
 Personal behaviour on the part of serving staff, and ;
 Professional judgement on the part of the serving staff but to get good quality service
(Haywood, 1998).

Haywood (1998) further states that a very carefully balanced mix of these three elements
must be accomplished and it becomes crucial for this study to understand how balanced is the
mix of these elements in Zimbabwe in the context of Tel•One and its subsequent result on
service quality and eventually customer satisfaction.

2.2 Consumer Satisfaction

Solomon (2009: 34) describes a customer as the most crucial stakeholder of an organization
who provides payment in exchange for product offering provided to him/her by the
organisation with a goal of satisfying a need and eventually maximising satisfaction of the
same. While there is no any agreement between scholars on the definitions of a consumer and
a customer, this research is will go by Solomon (2009: 34) who defines a customer as an
individual who does the purchasing of a product offering as compared to the consumer who
finally uses the product. It must be noted that whenever the customers and consumers are
happy with either the product offering or services, it is termed satisfaction.

Kotler and Keller (2009:789) define satisfaction as the feeling of delight or dissatisfaction
that results from comparing a product’s perceived performance with its expectations.
Therefore, it is generally thought by numerous researchers and scholars that satisfaction
could be the enjoyment that one derives from the usage of products and services provided and
customer pleasure is an indication of consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, Tse and Wilton
(1998:2004) define consumer satisfaction as the perceived discrepancy between previous
expectations and the real performance of the product or service as perceived after its usage,
hence they consider satisfaction as a post-purchase evaluation by the consumer as (Fornell,
1992) notes.

13
There is, however, a lack of coherence among scholars on just what constitute customer
satisfaction. Sureshchander et al. (2002) concur that consumer’s level of satisfaction is
determined by one is cumulative understanding at the point of contact with the service
provider. There is indeed a need to work out the meaning of customer satisfaction since
various researchers and scholars are coming up with various definitions for the term. Hence,
it becomes crucial for this research to discover away if consumer satisfaction within
parastatals is determined by one is cumulative knowledge at the idea of contact with Tel•One
or not.

Kotler et al. (2002) define consumer satisfaction as the degree to which the perception of a
product’s performance matches a buyer’s expectation, while Schiffman and Kanuk (2004)
define consumer satisfaction as the individual’s perception of the performance of the products
or services with comparison to one’s expectations. In addition to this, Kotler (1996) defines
customer satisfaction as the level of an individual’s experienced state resulting from
contrasting a product’s perceived performance or result in violation to one’s expectations.
Consumer satisfaction could be regarded as a relative behavior between inputs beforehand
and post- obtainments. There have actually been numerous efforts to measure and determine
customer satisfaction. Despite these efforts by Kotler (1996), Kotler et al.(2002) and Kanuk
and Schiffman (2004) to determine customer satisfaction, there still remains disagreements
regarding the definition (Giese and Cote, 2000).

Hasemark and Albinsson (2004) define satisfaction as an overall attitude towards the service
provider or a psychological response to the distinction between what customers anticipate and
what they actually get regarding the fulfilment of a need. Other scholars have additionally
defined satisfaction as a person’s emotions of pleasure, delight, enjoyment, or dissatisfaction
which results from comparing a recognized product or service performance to his or her
expectations (Kotler, 2000). Ciavolino and Dahlgaard (2007) recommend that customer
satisfaction can be regarded as the overall evaluation of the performance of a service. The
lack of harmony on the definitions of customer satisfaction is a cause of concern and this will
have a an impact on future researches on this domain.

Satisfaction refers to the contentment that an individual feels whenever his/her desires have
been fulfilled or needs, objectives or expectations have been achieved. Customer satisfaction
can therefore be a measure of how delighted customers are with the services and

14
products of a telecomunication company. It's of benefit for organizations or business firms
to keep their customers happy. Satisfied customers have a greater likelihood of remaining
loyal, would consume more of services of the business organisation, and would recommend
friends and relatives to the service provider. Customer satisfaction can make the customers
faithful to one telecommunication service provider. Earlier researchers have found that
satisfaction of the consumers can assist the brands to build profitable and long relationships
along with their consumers will result.

Therefore, customer satisfaction is the enjoyment obtained from consuming a service offered.
Measuring the effect of service quality on the satisfaction of customers could be very difficult
at times because it is an effort to determine how human being beings feel. NBRI, 2009
suggests that the probable measurements that can be used in measuring satisfaction of a
consumer consist of:
• Quality of service;
• Speed of service;
• Pricing;
• Complaints or problems;
• Trust in employees;
• The closeness of the relationship with associates in the firm;
• Other kinds of services needed; and
• The positioning of the company in the minds of the customers (NBRI, 2009).

It is the goal of the dissertation to find the status quo of Tel•One with regards to customer
satisfaction in terms of the dimensions identified by NBRI (2009). The literature shows that
consumer satisfaction is calculated via service quality of which service quality is measured
by different measurement tools developed by many researchers and and chief among them
are the SERVEPERF, SERVQUAL, and WEBQUAL (Kumbhar, 2011). Many studies
addressed the part of customer satisfaction in service contexts but a few researches have been
done in the context of state-enterprises. Literature suggests that service quality is a more
specific judgement which can lead to a wide assessment of customer satisfaction (Oliver
1993; Parasuraman et al. 1985, 1988, 2005). Therefore, it is recognized that perceived service
quality results in increased customer satisfaction and whenever perceived service quality is
less than expected service quality this would mean that the customers will be rather

15
dissatisfied (Jain and Gupta, 2004). This view must be validated in the context of Tel•One as
a company firm.

Customer satisfaction has been conceptualised as transaction-specific meaning that it is based

on the customer’s acquaintance on a specific service encounter (Taylor and Cronin, 2002).
Nevertheless, other scholars such as Jones and Suh (2000) argue that consumer satisfaction is
a construct that is significantly increasing based mostly on the assessment of the service
encounter by the consumer. These deviating views show that consumer satisfaction is
familiarity based and are the result of the service that is rendered to the customer by the
service provider.

While there is an opposing view on exactly what constitutes consumer satisfaction, another
school of thought suggests that customer satisfaction is just a mindset the customer has for a
service rendered (Los Angeles and Yi, 2004). This notion features has to be confirmed in the
context of Tel•One as a state enterprise in Zimbabwe. Parasuraman et al., (1988:17) argue
that more frequently there are various views whenever it comes to the expectations of the
customer in both the existing satisfaction and service quality literature.

Expectations on one hand are regarded as predictions by customers about what is most likely
to happen during a specific deal and having said that, service quality literature see the exact
same as the desires or desires the customers might have or feel as the service provider should
provide or would instead provide. For the purposes of this research, the researcher will
explore how service quality and customer satisfaction are defined in the operations of
Tel•One and establish whether this might be based on previous experiences and information
that a customer would have gotten in the past (Douglas and Connor, 2003). It is going to be
crucial for this research to understand and at the same time determine the customer’s
expectations in order to identify any gaps in delivering services with quality that could assist
Tel•One ensure satisfaction (Negi, 2009).

The perceptions of customers are entirely based on just what they would have gotten from the
service provider (Douglas and Connor, 2003). Therefore, this research will be based on the
differences that might occur between expected service quality and perceived service from the
viewpoint of the consumer. There is an urgent need in this research to understand exactly
how Tel•One customers perceive service quality. Parasuraman et al. (1985) argue that there

16
are ten determinants on exactly how organisations can assess service quality in their
operations and they are; protection, competence, courtesy, access, interaction, credibility,
dependability, empathy, responsiveness, and tangibles. Nevertheless, it must be noted that
many of these service quality determinants calls for a customer to have previous knowledge
in order to provide an assessment of the service quality of the service provider and therefore,
there's need to get information from older customers of Tel•One other than getting
information from possible or brand new customers.

2.3 The SERVQUAL Model

The SERVQUAL Model had been recommended for this research and its features have been
used as a framework. One of the most valuable dimensions of service quality is the
proportions from the popular SERVQUAL model and therefore the research recommended it
for that reason. Parasuraman (1985) identifies numerous characteristics that have an effect of
service quality on consumer satisfaction in the SERVQUAL model. This model is
additionally recognized as the gap model whose features has been proven by practitioners and
scholars to be one of the best methods to determine that quality of services provided to
customers by service providers across the world. This evaluation technique has been proven
dependable by many scholars and practitioners across the world (Brown et al. 1993) and this
research seeks to show if the same can be validated in the context of Tel•One as a state
enterprise in Zimbabwe and see if the same conclusions can be found.

Scholars on this domain generally express certainty that whenever the experienced service is
less than the expected service, it suggests less than satisfactory service quality; when
perceived service is more than expected service, the apparent inference is that service quality
will be more than satisfactory (Gupta and Jain, 2004:27). SERVQUAL best fits the analysis
of service quality from the viewpoint of the customer because it compares the perceived and
anticipated service. It is also key for this research to test the elements of the SERVQUAL
model in the functional context of Tel•One as a state enterprise in Zimbabwe.

It must be noted that researchers such as Parasuraman et al. (1985) analysed four various
types of services, and the outcomes revealed that service quality was defined in terms of
dependability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility,

17
security, understanding the customer and tangibility. This current research seeks to verify
these findings identified by other researchers such as Parasuraman et al (1985).

Generally researchers within this area concur that the assessment of service quality is much
more difficult to compare than in the instance of real product offerings (Parasuraman et al.
1985). Customers can decide on purchasing physically present products after evaluating the
aesthetic characteristics of the product. Nevertheless, services are intangible as they cannot be
seen, handled or believed (Hoffman and Bateson, 2002) and this makes it much more difficult
to make sound judgements of the quality. Service quality is therefore a multifarious, and
subjective. To different people, it means different things. Nevertheless, the most common
meaning of service quality among scholars and practitioners have been the one provided by
Parasuraman et al (1988) which defines it as a contrast that customers make between their
perceptions and expectations of the accepted service.

Quality as a concept features many dimensions. Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1982) determined
three measurements of service quality, which are, physical quality, interactive quality and
business quality. Likewise, other researchers such as Grönroos (1984) contend that service
quality comprises of many elements and chief among them is practical quality, technical
quality, as well as corporate image. The SERVQUAL scale had been created by
Parasuraman et al. (1985; 1988) to be the absolute most popular tool for calculating service
quality. The scale identified five key proportions of service quality particularly empathy,
tangibles, responsiveness, assurance and empathy (as shown in Fig 2.1 below) and this
research seeks to rate these elements in the context of Tel•One given that such type of
studies have not been carried out in Zimbabwe. The SERVQUAL scale features 22 items for
evaluating consumer perceptions and objectives regarding the quality of service. A level of
agreement or disagreement with an offered product is ranked on a seven-point Likert scale.
Outcomes are then used to determine negative and positive gaps and this research seeks to
unearth the level of disagreement of the service that Tel•One provides to its customers. The
gap is calculated by the distinction between perception and expectation ratings and suggests
the level of service quality.

18
Figure 2.2: SERVQUAL Model and the relationship between Quality of Service
Delivery and Customer Satisfaction

Tangibility
H1
H1

Reliability H2
Customer
Responsiveness H3 Satisfaction
Service Quality

H4
Assurance
Source: (Kumar et al, 2009)
H5

Empathy
According to Kumar et al, 2009, the five hypotheses of the SERVQUAL Model are as
follows:
Source: (Kumar et al, 2009)
In accordance to Kumar et al, 2009, the five hypotheses of the SERVQUAL Model are:
H1: Tangibility will have a significant effect on customer satisfaction;
H2: Reliability will have a significant effect on customer satisfaction;
H3: Responsiveness will have a significant effect on customer satisfaction;
H4: Assurance will have a significant effect on customer satisfaction; and
H5: Empathy will have a significant effect on customer satisfaction.

2.4 Service Quality Models

A review of literature shows that service quality has been defined in a different way by
different people and there is no consensus as to exactly what the real definition is. This
research adopted the defnition by Parasuraman et al. (1988, p.5), which describes quality of
service as the discrepancy between a customers’ expectation of a service and the perception
of the service provided. Nevertheless, determining service quality has been one of the most
recurrent subjects in marketing management literature as noted by many other scholars such
as Parasuraman et al. (1988), Gronroos, (1984), Cronin et al., (1992). Thus, on this basis,
there is need for developing reliable instruments for the systematic evaluation of service
quality of Tel•One from the view point of its customers and to analyse the correlation that
exists between the perceived service quality and other key organisational outcomes such as
consumer satisfaction (Cronin et al. 2010).

19
Lacobucci and Gilbert (2005) reviewed the different methods measure quality of service.
These include, the expectancy-disconfirmation approach, usually associated with the
recognition of the customer’s expectation versus what they really experienced. The major
focus was on the contrast of the service performance using the customer’s expectations. The
customer’s expectations could be examined after the encounter of by asking the customer to
remember the expectatons. In addition to this, the performance-only approach just assesses
quality of service by merely asking consumers their level of satisfaction with different service
offerings after a service had been offered. Technical and functional dichotomy techniques
identify two service elements that lead to consumer satisfaction particularly, the technical
quality of the product which is based on product characteristics such as safety, durability, real
functions while functionality quality is mainly concerned with relationships between service
provider and customer such as courtesy, speediness of service delivery and efficacy.

Renowned scholars in service quality such a Parasuraman et al., (1985) established a

conceptual model of service quality where they identified five gaps that could have an effect
on the consumer’s evaluation of service quality in four different sectors (retail banking, credit
card, securities brokerage and product repair and maintenance) and the telecommunications
companies were not part of the study in general. These gaps are as follows:

2.4.1 Gap 1: Customer Expectation vs. Management Perception Gap

According to (Kumar et al, 2009) service providers may perhaps not comprehend what
features a service must have in order to meet the needs of a customer and to what extent the
overall performance on those functions are required to deliver high service quality. Gap 1 is
developed whenever the management does not comprehend exactly what their customers
want. Sometimes business professionals may fail to comprehend just what customers
anticipate in a service and which functions are required to deliver high-quality service.
Numerous businesses conduct pilot studies to figure out just what their market wishes, but
later on become internally-focused, oblivion to the fact that customers’ need could have
changed over time.

20
2.4.2 Gap 2: Management Perception versus Service Quality Specifications

Whenever the management understand just what their customers want, but are not in a
position or are not ready to develop systems which would deliver it, this results in a Gap 2
situation. A number of reasons have been specified for this gap, for instance inadequate
commitment to quality of service, shortage of perception of feasibility, inadequate task
standardizations and the lacking of goal-setting (Kumar et al, 2009).

Because some organizations may look for short-term earnings, they are reluctant to spend in
people or in equipment. This gap arises as soon as the business identifies the desires of the
customers, but without the means to deliver the expectations. Other factors that impact this
gap are resource limitations, market conditions and management indifference. These could
impact service quality perception of the customer (Kumar et al, 2009).

2.4.3 Gap 3: Provider Quality Specs versus Service Delivery

Under service quality specifications, service delivery gap propounds that organizations could
have manuals for doing service well and dealing with customers properly, but these do not
necessarily mean that the best overall performance is assured. Employees perform a crucial
part in assuring great service quality perception and their overall performance cannot be
standardised. This impacts the delivery of service which has an effect on the way customers
perceive service quality. A Gap 3 situation is often referred to as ‘the service-performance
gap’. It happens whenever the management understands just what needs to be delivered and
proper specifications have been developed, but it is the employees who are not in a position
or perhaps not ready to deliver the service. A Gap 3 situation, therefore, results from the
interaction of the employees and customers (Kumar et al, 2009).

Service operations that use devices to deliver service are unlikely to have Gap 3 errors, for
instance, ATMs in the banking sector and E-ticketing in the airline sector. This is due to the
fact that machines are not associated with human errors, while consumers anticipate less from
machines. Thus internal marketing programmes and the management of the human resource
function can be used to minimize Gap 3 errors. These human resource functions include
training, monitoring working conditions, hiring and developing reward systems (Kumar et al,
2009).

21
2.4.4 Gap 4: Service Delivery – External Communications Gap

External communications impacts not just the expectations of consumers, but also, the
perceptions of the consumers from the delivered service. Organisations can neglect to notify
customers of unique efforts to guarantee quality that are perhaps not noticeable to them and
this could affect service quality perceptions by customers (Kumar et al, 2009).

2.4.5 Gap 5: Expected Service – Perceived Service Gap

From their research, it revealed that one of the keys to making sure great service quality is
achieved or exceeded relies on how customers perceive the general performance in the
context of what they expected (Kumar et al, 2009).

2.5 Models for Measuring Quality

Quality of service is an important area in the field of intellectuals because of its relevancy to
service organizations and as a result, many researchers have developed different theories and
processes to determine it, despite the claims that it is difficult to compute because of its
intangibility which is difficult to quantify (Connor and Douglas, 2003). A great deal of
research has been invested in this field to justify the importance of the subject, despite studies
not being systematic as what the researchers want.

It is generally their nature that services are intangible and therefore, assessing the customer’s
perceptions of quality can be done through interaction with the employees providing the
service (Magi et al. 1996). From their recommendation, the relationship that exists between
service and service provider is very crucial whenever measuring the quality of service
because it is through that interaction, that the service provider effortlessly understand the
consumer’s needs better and recognize just what they really want. Thus this research seeks to
determine the interaction that exists between Tel•One and its customers and exactly how it
generally impacts the levels of satisfaction of the customer.

Nevertheless, many models have been theorized as being measures of service quality, being
either attitude-based measures or disconfirmation models. It is extremely important to
measure the quality of service because it facilitates evaluations before and after

22
modifications, identifies quality associated issues, and assists in developing clear criteria for
service delivery. Hence, this research is nevertheless likely to utilize the SERVQUAL model
to attempt and determine quality related challenges or issues within Tel•One Private Limited
and how such quality problems impact on the levels of customer satisfaction. The service
performance (SERVPERF) model had been developed by Cronin and Taylor, (1992), and the
model utilizes the overall performance approach method to measure service quality and this
methodology is generally based on the consumer’s general sentiments towards service. This
model is great to determine service quality but does perhaps not provide information on just
how customers will prefer service to be in order for service firms to make improvements.

Another model developed by Teas (1993) was called the assessed overall performance model.
The model was developed to solve the critics raised for the SERVQUAL and other foremost
designs (Gronroos 1984; Parasuraman, 1984, 1988). It contends that there is a need to
measure that gap that exists between recognized overall performance and the perfect quantity
of a measurement of service quality instead than making use of customer’s service
expectation.

Parasuraman et al. (1985), developed the model of service quality after researching on the
four service sectors, namely, credit card services, long distance telephone services, retail
banking and repair and maintenance of electrical appliances, and long-distance phone
services; thus, his model will also be applied in the context of Tel•One given that there has
been a lot of changes in the communications sector since the late 1980.

The SERVQUAL model represents service quality as the divergence between a customer’s
expectations of service quality and the perceptions of the service received (Parasuraman et
al., 1985). This makes it an attitude measure and these attitudes will be measured in this
research, in to the context of Tel•One.

The SERVQUAL model strives to precisely determine the consumer’s perception of the
service quality and this might depend on the size of the gap between expected service and
perceived service which in turn, depends on the gaps under the control of the service provider
such as distribution of service, marketing, (Parasuraman et al., 1985). This dimension of
service quality is based on both how customers evaluate the service procedure and the result

23
of the service, (Parasuraman et al., 1985:42). Hence, it will be the objective of this research to
assess the quality of service of Tel•One from the customer’s viewpoint.

It is agreed among scholars that a high service quality is considered to be one which fulfills
or surpasses consumer’s expectations of the service (Parasuraman et al. 1985:46). It is from
this viewpoint that the researcher sought to determine the service quality of Tel•One and just
how it impacts the satisfaction of its customers. The SERVQUAL model had been made of
ten measurements of service quality. Parasuraman et al. (1985) nevertheless, later on reduced
these dimensions to five because some dimensions had been overlapping (security,
competence, courtesy, credibility, interaction, understanding access and customers) and they
included, Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance; Empathy (Parasuraman et al.
1988: 23).

These primarily concentrate on the individual aspects of service distribution. Ladhari, (2009),
suggests that the SERVQUAL model is a great scale to utilize whenever measuring quality of
service in different sectors, but that it is more appropriate to select the most crucial
dimensions of the model that fit to the specific service being measured to help in assuring the
reliability and validity of the results. In this respect, the researcher will adopt this model to
suit the context of Tel•One (Shahin et al. 2006:3).

Buttle (1996:8) makes mention of a number of researchers that have actually utilized the
SERVQUAL model in different sectors such as retail, airlines, telecommunications, financial,
education, food et cetera. It should be noted, however, that this model had not been applied in
Zimbabwe. Buttle (1996) more recommends that service quality dimensions has become a
very crucial subject because of its apparent relationship to profitability, consumer
satisfaction, consumer retention and the overall economic performance it was extensively
considered as an engine for corporate marketing and financial performance. It is therefore
critical for this research to discover the meaning and importance of service quality in the
context of Tel•One.

2.6 Criticisms of the SERVQUAL

Despite the utility of the SERVQUAL model, Buttler (1996) established that the model was
not ideal enough citing two major criticisms, that is, theoretical criticism and operational
criticisms, as well detailed below.

24
Table 2.1: Theoretical and Operational Criticism of SERVQUAL
Theoretical Criticisms
• It dwells on the disconfirmation model
other than an attitudinal model;
• Fails to conclude on established
economical analyses and and
psychological theories
• There is little or no evidence that
customers ever evaluate the quality of
service
• The quality cannot just be measured in
terms of perceptions and expectations
only
• Its emphasis is mainly biased towards
the process of service delivery other than
the service quality outcome
• The dimensions in the SERVQUAL
model are highly inter-correlated, and
the direction of the relationship may be
difficult to establish.
Source: Buttler (1996)
Operational Criticisms
• The term expectation is subjective
• Customers often use standards rather
than expectations to evaluate the quality
of service
• It does not at all evaluate the actual
service expectations
• The 5 proposed dimensions are not
exhaustive, or rather, are not enough to
reliably model service quality
• The moment of truth on expectations
and perceptions of service quality from
customers varies from time to time

2.7 Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

Analysis of service quality and customer satisfaction has drawn the interest of researchers
and marketers because of the constructs’ relevancy in building the relationship and
competition that exists between them (Eshghi et al. 2008). More research has been done
because researchers desired to discover the connection between them with the aim of
enhancing the general overall performance of the service providers (Julander and Magi,
1996:40). Analysis into customer satisfaction has been examined by many researchers for
example Cronin and Taylor, (1992) who suggested that the consumers’ feelings towards a
service is expected to measure satisfaction while other individuals utilize a multiple-item
scale Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) and that satisfaction is calculated using different
measurements for instance the SERVQUAL proportions.

25
According to Tse et al., (1988) customer satisfaction can be defined as a function of the
customer’s objectives and perceptions of overall performance in accordance to the
expectancy - disconfirmation theorem (Magi and Julander, 1996:34). Different studies that
concentrated on the link between satisfaction and quality argued for various views in terms of
their existing relationship. A number of researchers on one hand, believe that quality leads to
satisfaction and chief among these scholars are Levesque and McDougall, (1996, 2000) and
Negi, (2009). On the other hand, scholars such as Taylor and Cronin (1992) support the fact
that satisfaction leads to quality. Therefore, it becomes crucial for this research to establish
the validity of these divergent philosophies in the context of Tel•One and to establish which
of the two paradigms is proper. The leading scholars on this domain such as Parasuraman et
al,. (1988:16) try to link consumer satisfaction to service quality provided the challenges the
SERVQUAL model features on working with problems of just how to determine mindset in
the procedure. Parasuraman et al. (1988) argue that consumer satisfaction is seen as a
function of particular services and therefore, consumers are expected to be pleased with a
certain aspect of the service provided while observed service quality becomes a
comprehensive judgement to a service.

It additionally goes without saying that Negi (2009) clearly points out that general service
quality is considerably connected with and contributes to the general satisfaction of
customers. Nevertheless, this view is additionally propounded by Saravanan and Rao (2007)
who argue that customer satisfaction is based on the level of service that is delivered by
service providers to their customers. This generally is determined by the customer’s
collective experiences at all points of contact they would have had with the organization
(Cicerone et al,. 2009). Therefore, it can be noted through this review that there is some link
between service quality and customer satisfaction, which highlights the value of customer
satisfaction whenever determining quality (Roethlein and Wicks, 2009).

Nevertheless, all these studies verified that a significant relationship exists between service
quality and consumer satisfaction. To the contrary, Asubonteng et al., (1996) argue that there
is no relationship between the two constructs and this research will try to examine and
validateor refute this in the context of Tel•One. It must be pointed, however, that quite a
number of scholars and practitioners are in concurrence that service quality and customer
satisfaction have characteristics that are measured and it is alongside this background that this

26
research will make an evaluation of service quality and customer satisfaction making use of
the SERVQUAL model with its dimensions.

The inspiration in an evaluation of the impact of service quality on consumer satisfaction

within Tel•One was enthused by the realization that consumer satisfaction does not on its
own produce customer life time value as Appiah-Adu (1999) records. It's worth mentioning
that service quality and consumer satisfaction are closely related to the market share and
customer retention and this research seeks to establish the degree to which these ideas have
actually been linked to the market share and customer retention in the context of Tel•One
(Fornell, 1992). There have been many arguments among scholars on the impact of service
quality on customer satisfaction. Giles and Hormozi (2004) note that it is much more costly
to acquire new customers than to retain the existing ones, while other researchers argue that
customer replacements expenses like marketing, promotion, and product sales expenditures
are large and it takes time for new customers to be profitable.

Worldwide literature that has been evaluated by the researcher therefore shows that there has
been significant and considerable interest from both marketing practitioners and academia
since the very early 1970s on the topic of consumer satisfaction (Suh and Jones, 2000).
Coyles and Gokey (2002) argue that researchers and organizations alike attempted to
determine customer satisfaction in the very early 1970s and learned a lesson that increasing
customer satisfaction would assist organisations to be profitable. Nevertheless, during the
1980s, researchers relied on consumer satisfaction and service quality ranks acquired from
studies for overall performance tracking, payment and resource allocation (Bolton, 1998).
The focus of the researchers in the 1990s was worried about the economic implications of
customer satisfaction (Bolton, 1998).

More research has been done by many researchers in various sectors (Caruana, 2002; Prabhu
and Ranaweera, 2003) but not much research has been done in organisations in Zimbabwe,
the telecommunications industry in particular. Therefore, this research seeks to narrow this
gap and add significantly to the present body of knowledge. This view is supported by
Caruana (2002) and it is important for this dissertation to study the impact of service quality
as a construct on customer satisfaction.

27
Service quality and customer satisfaction are two separate constructs, although they are
closely related. Sureshchandar et al, (2003) identifies that strong relationships exist between
service quality and consumer satisfaction while emphasizing that these two are conceptually
distinct constructs from the customers’ point of view. For this reason, it is the goal of the
research to establish if such a connection exists between service quality and consumer
satisfaction within Tel•One.

Despite the arguments by other scholars such as Carman (1990) and Drew and Bolton (1991)
that satisfaction can be regarded as a precursor of service quality, other authors argue that it is
the other way round, and these include Suprenant and Churchill (1982) and Oliver (1997).
These scholars are of the school of thought that service quality is the precursor of customer
satisfaction and they also recommend that service quality is an intellectual assessment which
may lead to satisfaction. Thus, from the conclusions of their conclusions, it must be noted
that consumer satisfaction becomes the outcome of service quality and this research seeks to
confirm that. It additionally goes without saying that the symbiotic connection between
service quality and consumer satisfaction is rather a multifaceted one. Although there
continues to be a variety of unresolved concerns on this domain, many writers concluded that
service quality and consumer satisfaction can be sensed as separate ideas that have actually
causative this research and connection seeks to authenticate such conclusions in the confines
of Tel•One . It is going to additionally be imperative for this research to see if there's a
causative connection between service quality and consumer satisfaction.

It must be noted that the two principles that considerably impacts consumer behavior as well
as business performance are service quality and customer satisfaction. Some studies have
shown that service quality leads to greater profitability (Gundersen et al., 1996) and customer
satisfaction (Oliver, 1997). Furthermore, other studies have shown a good relationship
between customer satisfaction and customer respect (Kandampully, 2007), and additionally
the association between consumer satisfaction and good word-of-mouth (Söderlund, 1998).
Therefore, worldwide, the key approach for businesses with a customer focus is to constantly
determine and monitor service quality and customer satisfaction.

An analysis of available literature shows that there seems to be a general agreement among
scholars that service quality and consumer satisfaction are rather distinct and separate
constructs which are unique, but with a closer relationship (Oliver, 1993). Quite a number of

28
researchers and scholars in the service domain maintain that these two constructs are distinct
(Carman, 1990; Boulding et al 1993). Scholars in the service quality and customer
satisfaction domain such as Sureshchandar et al. (2002) note that customer satisfaction must
be seen in a multifaceted dimensional construct in since much as service quality is seen. This
might be therefore because customer satisfaction can happen at many levels in an
organization and this research should aim to validate whether customer satisfaction in the
context of Tel•One is occurring at many levels and just how operationalised it is.
Parasuraman et al. (1985) argue that whenever service quality is recognized to a greater
extent, then it is going to enhance consumer satisfaction. This is in line with what Saravan
and Rao (2007) discovered and it is further compounded by the conclusions of Lee et al,
(2000) who acknowledge that consumer satisfaction generally depends upon the level of
service quality that is inherently provided by the service provider who, in this instance, is
Tel•One.

Analysis has shown that the concept of relating service quality and customer satisfaction has
existed for a long time as noted by Negi (2009). Negi (2009) investigates the relevance of
consumer-perceived service quality whenever determining the general customer satisfaction
in the context of mobile services and it had been seen that dependability and community
quality had been one of the keys factors in assessing general service quality. This research
will look for to discover away if the exact same can be stated of Tel•One and see if empathy
can be and guarantee can be ignored in evaluating the general service quality and customer
satisfaction. It additionally becomes really crucial for this research to make and recognize an
evaluation of the factors which are adding towards a customer observed service quality and
customer satisfaction in the context of Tel•One as a state enterprise which drops in the
service industry in Zimbabwe.

It is critical for this research to discover if both service quality and customer satisfaction have
a good correlation with the customer’s loyalty and perform company intentions showing that
both constructs have an important part to play in the operations of Tel•One given the
competitive telecom market it runs. There is need to evaluate the service link that exists
between the two constructs whenever it comes to the operations and standing of Tel•One as a
state company. Though significant research in this direction has been carried out; not a great
deal has been done in the context of organizations in Zimbabwe in specific. Hence, the urgent
need for this research to come up with conclusions whether there exist a great dependency

29
between the constructs or perhaps not offered the fact that service quality is much more
abstract than consumer satisfaction because consumer satisfaction reflects the emotions of the
customer about numerous encounters and experiences one features had with the service
company which in this instance is Tel•One.

2.8 Provider Quality Concept in Zimbabwe

The review of theoretical literature has led to the development of an analytical framework
which presents a cohesive insight into the assessment of service quality and customer
satisfaction in business organisations in Zimbabwe within the context of Tel•One Private
Limited. Importantly, the review of works from a variety of perspectives indicates that work
on service quality within business organisations in Zimbabwe and the telecommunications
industry has not been widely looked at, hence no attempt has been made to investigate
customer service quality and how it impacts satisfaction within the context of Tel One Private
Limited. The marketing literature clears that customer satisfaction is measure via service
quality and service quality is therefore subsequently measured by various measurement tools
and instruments that were developed my numerous researchers and marketing consultancy
organisations and chief among them is SERVQUAL, SERVEPERF, and WEBQUAL
(Kumbhar, 2011). Numerous studies specifically address the role of customer satisfaction in
service contexts. Research literature suggests that service quality is a more specific
judgement which can lead to a broad evaluation of customer satisfaction (Oliver, 1993;
Parasuramanet al. 1985, 1988, 2005). Thus, it is generally agreed among scholars that the
perceived service quality results in increased customer satisfaction and when perceived
service quality is less than expected service quality will be dissatisfied (Jain and Gupta,
2004).

This chapter’s thrust was to provide a review of related literature from the other researchers’
works in an attempt to expose the flaws and how to avoid them in the research design. In this
regard, the researcher gave credibility to the researchers who did the groundwork as their
works paved the way of discovering explicit recommendations for further research on this
topic. The researcher through the works of other researchers has been able to ascertain
insights in research approaches.

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 CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

This chapter of the research outlines the research design and methodology used in collecting
data for this study. The research instruments that were employed by the researcher in
collecting data are also clarified in this chapter. In this chapter the researcher looked at a
number of research variables such as research design, population, sample procedure, sample
size, instruments used for data collection, personal interviews, presentation and data analysis,
summary. It is also the objective of this chapter to make an outline of how the research
instruments used were administered. The chapter describes also the research population and
how the sample for the study was drawn.

3.1 Research Design

A research design provides the framework that defines the data collection and analysis
procedures, and it indicates who or what is involved, and where and when will the study take
place (Du Plooy, 2007). The choice of a research design reflects decisions about the priority
being given to the connections between variables, and the size of the under investigation. The
purpose of a research design is to state what is to be achieved by the research and how the
results can be used.

Oppenhain (1992) defined research design as a basic plan or strategy of the research study
and the logic behind it that makes it possible and valid to draw more general conclusions
from it. Design refers to the format and theoretical structure under which the study would be
carried out, that is how the worthiness and contribution of certain elements are. Walliman and
Kumar (2006) agreed by stating that a research design is generally a basic plan of strategy of
a research and logic behind it, which then makes it possible and valid to make more general
conclusions. Thus, a research design is more like a strategic plan, without it, it would be
impossible to carry out the research successfully. There are three stages that one follows
when designing a research methodology and these are:

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  Exploratory;
 descriptive and ; and
 Explanatory stages (Yin 2003).

3.1.1 Exploratory Research design

Researchers employ exploratory research when little is known about the topic and previous
theories or ideas do not apply. Little is known about why food handlers violate food safety
and also whether they even know what it means, so this research design was adopted in this
study which enabled the researcher to clarify problems, gather data and create initial
hypothesis and theories about subjects. The primary point of exploratory research was to give
the researcher pertinent information and help them to form initial hypotheses about the
subject.

3.1.2 Descriptive Research Design

The researcher also used descriptive research design, which is done with a specific research
question in mind. It gave a set view of the subject, population, market segment or problem.
An example of descriptive research would be a report that provides an age and gender
breakdown of the users of a particular online service. Descriptive research provided research
questions, populations or methods of analysis before the research was started. Both
exploratory and descriptive research have their place in forming a better understanding of a
problem or issue, and understanding the difference between the two made the research more
targeted and effective

3.1.3 Explanatory Research Design

The term explanatory research implies that the research in question is intended to explain,
rather than simply to describe, the phenomena studied. This type of research has had a
contested history in qualitative inquiry, and divergent views of the appropriateness of such
goals in qualitative research are currently held. This entry summarizes the current state of this
debate and describes some of the most important qualitative methods for such explanation.
The researcher did not use this design because traditionally, the research denoted by the term

32
explanatory research has been quantitative in nature, the data are analyzed using statistical
techniques this tend to be time consuming and expensive as well.

The researcher adopted both the descriptive research design, which aimed at providing
answers to questions such as who, what and how part of the topic. This research design was
adopted because it enhanced the reliability, credibility and validity of the research. Rodson
(2002) explained that descriptive research is used to portray an accurate profile of persons,
events and situations. Schindler (2003) shares the same view and further suggests that
descriptive research is appropriate for data derived from the three methods mentioned above.
On this basis descriptive approach was relevant to this study as it intended to gather data on
the assessment of service quality and customer satisfaction within business organisations in
Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe within the context of Tel•One Private Limited. This also allowed the
researcher to come up with both qualitative and quantitative data which aided meaningful
analysis.

3.2 Research Philosophy

Research philosophy refers to the systematic exploration of, knowledge, values, reason, mind,
existence and language. The research philosophy usually involves the assumptions and
beliefs that govern how people generally view the world (Saunders et al. 2000). There are
two research philosophies and these are the positivist and interpretivist philosophies. This
section reports on the types of research philosophies available.

3.2.1 Positivism

Positivism is a philosophy of science based on the view that information derived from logical
and mathematical treatments and reports of sensory experience is the exclusive source of all
authoritative knowledge, and that there is valid knowledge (truth) only in scientific
knowledge. According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (1996), positivism seeks to explain
and predict what happens in the business world by searching for irregularities and causal
relationships between variables, whilst the anti-positivists oppose this arguing that the
business world can only be understood from the point of view of individuals directly involved
in the activities under study.

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3.2.2 Interpretivism

Interpretivism or phenomenological philosophy holds that reality of the world is thought to

arise out of the creation and exchange of social meaning during the process of social
interactions (Sullivan, 2001). This philosophy refers to the approaches which are used to
emphasize the meaningful nature of the people's participation in both social and cultural life.
Phenomenological uses qualitative, more subjective, naturalistic approaches in inductively
and holistically to understand human experiences in context-specific settings.
Phenomenology implies that knowledge is of a softer, subjective and spiritual nature based on
personal experience and insight, so that it has to be personally experienced.

The researcher chose the positivism philosophy more than interpretivist philosophy because
the researcher believed that an assessment of service quality and customer satisfaction
constructs as pertaining to business organisations in Zimbabwe within the context of Tel•One
Private Limited can be assessed more objectively through the use of established theoretical
frameworks and structured instruments to examine and analyse it upon generalisations that
can be made from findings. It can also be noted that in this debate the researcher chose to
incline towards the positivist approach, which acknowledges that knowledge can be acquired
and shared with others. This was done through the use of questionnaires which were
administered to Tel•One employees and management, organisational customers and
individual customers of Tel•One Private Limited. The other reasons for the use of the
positivist approach are;
i) Clear theoretical focus for the research;
ii) Easily comparable data;
iii) Researcher control of the research process and
iv) Economical collection of data.

3.3 Research Approach

The research approach is a method of producing new knowledge or deepening your

understanding of a topic or issue. An inductive research approach was used by the researcher
which is the type of research approach which moves from specific observations to broader
generalizations and theories. Qualitative research is most appropriate where explanation and

34
behavior of a phenomenon is more important than its measurement (Carson et al. 2007). The
researcher used qualitative research, the objective of the qualitative research is to gain
qualitative understanding of the underlying reasons and motivation, whereas, quantitative
research is aimed at quantifying the data and generalizing the results. Qualitative design was
used to describe situations, experiences and concepts of the area under study. It is "any kind
of research that produces findings not arrive at by means of statistical procedures or other
means of quantification" (Manitoba et al. 2009; 35).

Qualitative research is concerned with finding the answers to questions which begin with
why, how, when and what, (Bryman, 2007). Qualitative research helped the researcher to
understand and describe a phenomenon under study. The major advantage of using
qualitative research was its depth of explorations and descriptions that helped the researcher
to illustrate or describe a research. Strength of the qualitative approach was the depth to
which explorations are conducted and descriptions are written, usually resulting in sufficient
details for the reader to grasp the idea of the situation (Silverman, 1993 as cited in Malhotra,
2005). Qualitative data only gave guide to the researcher of the general trends because they
cannot be mathematically analyzed as quantitative results. They are difficult to determine
validity and reliability of findings and the extent to which the researcher has influenced the
results (Gall et al. 2003)

3.4 Research Strategy

Kitamoto(2009) defined a research strategy as a general plan of how the researcher goes
about answering the research questions already set.It must be noted that the choice of data
collection for this study was mainly determined by the research strategy that was adopted for
this study.Examples of research strategies include case studies, experiment, action research,
ethnographic studies, grounded theory or archival research and survey (Saunders et al. 2000;
Malhotra and Birks, 2007).

3.4.1 Action Research

An action research strategy is a strategy that is used in a study that investigates a specific
problem in a specific environment and thereafter an appropriate intervention is then designed
and implemented to solve the problem and/or improve the same (Saunders et al. 2000). It is

35
also a research in action rather than about action. It must be noted that it is diagnostic and
evaluative in nature and it involves people or it is subjective in solving the problem and it is
more collaborative (ibid).

3.4.2 Case study

A case study is a research strategy that involves a study of a particular situation and its
impact in order to have a more accurate derail for analysis and it also requires an in-depth
analysis of the phenomena as it relates to a specific environment. A case study strategy is
mostly used where the motive and objective is to gain rich and in-depth understanding of the
research context and the processes that are being enacted (Saunders et al,.2000). It is a
research strategy that uses quite a number of data collection sources and this is generally
referred to as triangulation. Given that the nature of this study was partly descriptive and
largely exploratory, the research chose a case study research strategy because the research
sought to find out “why”, “what” and “how” issues in a case context. Yin (2003) cited in
Saunders et al,.(2012) maintained that case studies can be single or multiple, holistic and/or
embedded. The researcher used a case study to explore causation in order to find underlying
principles. A case study is an inquiry into an event by either an individual or an organization.

Given the challenges that a descriptive research design can pose, the researcher chose a case
study as a research strategy as a general plan of how the researcher goes about answering the
research question already explored in chapter one. The research used a case study because it
makes use of a combination of the other research strategies. It also goes without saying that
case studies are appropriate when small scale researches that handle few units in a narrow
perspective and where an in-depth study is going to be conducted (Denscombe 2000). Yin
(2009) argued that there is no formula on choosing a research design method arguing that it
depends on the research questions. The case study method becomes a preferred choice when,
“how” and “why” questions are being asked, when the investigator has little control over the
events and when focus is on contemporary issues within real life situations.

Case studies are said to be meta-data method and are used to compare the case study with the
actual situation. A case study can be viewed as an in-depth study of interactions of a single
instance in a closed system (Opie, 2004). There are different ideas about what a case study is
with researchers such as Yin (1994), Merriam (1994), Stake (1995; 1998), Miles and

36
Huberman (1994), and Gillham (2001) but they generally agreed that case study should have
a “case” which is the object of study and in this particular research, the object of research is
Tel•One Private Limited.
Yin (2009) argued that the following are the characteristics of the case:
 be a complex functioning unit;
 be investigated in its natural context with a multitude of methods;
 be contemporary;
 the researcher can ask “how” and “why” questions so as to understand the nature of
complexity of the process; and
 The research is being conducted in area where few, if any, previous studies have been
undertaken.
The research considered quite a number of factors in choosing a case study design and chief
among them was the need to provide a comprehensive picture of a real situation within the
business organisations in Zimbabwe with regards to service quality and customer satisfaction
and how certain factors, if implemented would lead to the satisfaction of the customers
especially in service quality. In addition to this, the researcher also considered the case study
method as the best because it helped the researcher in understanding the research problem
much better as it enabled the researcher to focus on key factors that promote and/or
undermine service quality within the context of Tel•One Private Limited in particular and the
business organisations in Zimbabwe in general (Merriam, Mott and Lee, 1998).

A case study enabled the researcher to do a detailed analysis of the factors that affect service
quality and its subsequent effect on customer satisfaction within the context of Tel•One
Private Limited. Using a case study the researcher was also able to look at issues that are
interconnected and interrelated, thus forming a strong basis for the enquiry of something that
is already in operation. Stake (1995) suggested that achieving balance and variety are
important in selecting cases to research.

3.5 Population and Sampling Techniques

Population refers to the total number of people living in a particular demographic area at a
certain point in time. Target population is defined by Hammond (2005; 105) as “the total
number of individuals, items, or data from which the results of a study are intended to relate
and from which those individuals selected to participate in the study are drawn”. McDaniel

37
and Gates (1993: 457), define population as the total group of people from whom information
is needed. Burns and Grove (1993:779) define a population as all elements (individuals,
objects, and events) that meet the sample criteria for inclusion in the study. The study
population consisted of the organisation’s Top Management, marketing executives,
employees,organisational customers, and individual customers of Tel•One Private Limited.

3.5.1 Sampling and Sampling Techniques

One of the key aspects of communication research is sampling. Jensen (2002:215) elaborated
on the fact that it is essential that the individuals selected in a survey should be representative
of the total population from which they are drawn, if the researcher wants to generalize
findings to the population as a whole. Keyton (2001) mentioned that representativeness is the
main aim in selecting a sample from a population. To the extent that a sample is
representative, all elements in the sample had the same chance of being selected as part of the
sample for the study.

3.5.2 Sampling Unit

The sampling unit is the group of elements subject to the selection of the sample (Jensen,
2002:215). For the purpose of this research, the sampling unit was limited to
Tel•Onemanagement, employees, organisational and individual customers.

3.5.3 Sample size

The population of Tel•Onewas too large. Therefore, it was going to be expensive and time
consuming to collect data from each member of such a large population. The sample selected
was large enough (150 respondents) to make it possible to use statistical techniques to show
the probability that the characteristics of the sample would also be found in the rest of the
population.

A convenient sample of 150 subjects was selected from the study population. Mouton (1996:
132) defines a sample as a subset of the population, representative number of respondents
whose overall viewpoint reflects the viewpoint of the population. There was no explicit
criterion used in selecting the 150 subjects that participated in this study, the selection was
done randomly and based on approval especially from organisational and individual

38
customers. The sample included the Group Chief Executive Officer of Tel•One Private
Limited, 30 employees and 50 organisational customers and 70 individual customers.

3.5.4 Sampling Techniques

Samples can be constructed either on a probability or a non-probability basis. A probability

sample is selected according to the mathematical guidelines whereby the chance for selection
of each unit is known. On the other hand, non-probability sampling does not follow such
guidelines (Jensen, 2002:215). For the purpose of this research, both convenience and
purposive sampling methods were used. A convenience sample was drawn from the units of
analysis that were conveniently available (Plooy, 2007:114). In addition, purposive sampling
was another method which was also employed. This is the method used when respondents are
selected according to specific criteria (Jensen, 2003). In this study, the organisation’s
management, and employees were selected on purpose while organisational and individual
customers were selected on convenience.

A number of sampling techniques exist from which the researcher could have used. They
range from the probability sampling to the non probability sampling techniques. Saunders
etal (2000) hold that probability sampling is most commonly used with survey based research
methodologies where the researcher needs to make suppositions from the sample about a
population to answer the research questions or to meet the research objectives. Given that the
researcher employed a case study research strategy mainly as opposed to a survey, the use of
random sampling was therefore considered inappropriate for this study.

Saunders et al. (2000) argued that there are five main non probability sampling. This includes
the quota, snowball, self selection, convenience, and purposive sampling techniques. Of all
these techniques the researcher used convenience and purposive sampling to come up with
the sample for the study. These approaches enabled the researcher to use one’s judgment to
select cases that could best enable answer the research questions and meet the objectives. Yin
(2003) asserts that convenience and purposive sampling is most appropriate when the
researcher wishes to select cases that are informative. Saunders et al. (1996) also argued that
these approaches enable researchers to undertake an in-depth study which focuses on a small,
perhaps single, sample selected purposively. Thus, the researcher used these approaches to
sampling in an attempt to solicit information that is rich from the case being studied in a bid

39
to explore the research question. It must also be noted that a convenient sample was used to
select respondents especially the customers to Tel•Onewho are scattered across the city of
Harare which made it difficult to contact each of them individually. Given that it was also
difficult in getting the exact number of Tel•One Private Limited’s customers in Harare, which
is required for the use of any probabilistic sampling technique, a convenience sample was
therefore preferred.

3.6 Data Collection Methods

There are two categories for data collection in carrying out a research, that is primary and
secondary data collection. Hakim (1999) cited in Saunders et al. (2000) referred secondary
data as “data that have been collected for other purposes”, while Saunders adds, “secondary
data can provide a useful source to answer or begin to answer one’s research questions”. On
the other hand primary data is new and collected for that specific purpose. Both categories
can further be divided into internal and external sources of data.

Internal data is generated from within the organisation for its specific purposes. This is often
regarded as reliable. The researcher used internal secondary data that is minutes of meetings,
policy documents and various employment forms. On the other hand external data is a little
reliable than internal data because the extraction process is a little less removed from the
source (Saunders et al. 2000). Therefore the researcher did not use external data.

The researcher relied on collection of primary data through questionnaires and interviews;
and the collection and collation of secondary data was an extensive literature review.
Secondary data is defined as data that already exists and might have been collected for other
research and not particularly for this research (Tull and Hawkins, 1993).

Most of the information concerning the assessment of service quality and its effect on
customer satisfaction was obtained using two ways. On one hand, both structured and
unstructured interviews with Tel•One Management, employees, organisational and individual
customers were used. The issues that were discussed with top management of the company
was centered on the factors that affects service quality delivery, customer complaints and
handling procedure and repeat purchase. In addition information about the perceived benefits
of service quality delivery on customer satisfaction was also discussed from the top

40
management and employees of Tel•One Private Limited. On the other hand, questionnaires
were also distributed to the organisational customers and individual comes via email in an
attempt to find out whether service quality helps in being competitive and satisfying the
customers.

The assessment of service quality delivery on customer satisfaction was explored particularly
assess the relationship that exists between the two constructs within business organisations in
Zimbabwe. In the same line, the study also tried to gather information regarding the extent to
which Tel•One was satisfying its customers in terms of service delivery and how it has
helped the company to remain competitive in an environment that is now highly globalised.
During this assessment, attention was paid to the current efforts being currently pursued by
the company as a state enterprise in building a competitive service delivery for the purposes
of satisfying the customer.

The questions were selected carefully for this study in an attempt to solicit reliable and
verifiable information that will help in meeting the research objectives. Thus, the questions
were designed to gain an understanding of how service quality affects the level of satisfaction
of the customers of Tel•One Private Limited, and eventually how to use it for competitive
edge in a globalised market

The appendix 1 shows all the questions that were asked to the organisation’s top
management, and employees of Tel•One Private Limited. The questions were both open
ended and closed with the objective that they will be answered with as much detail as needed
and closed in an attempt to have as much participation in the study as possible. The
interviews both based on the questionnaire and structured were conducted face-to-face with
the top management of Tel•One Private Limited and its selected employees and the
remaining subjects were given questionnaires due to time constraints, but the researcher made
effective follow ups to the participants in this study. Prior to all interviews or questionnaires
administration, the researcher made an exertion to give each participant a list of the meanings
of the abbreviations.

The use of questionnaires enjoyed the benefit that each participant was asked to respond the
same set of questions in a predetermined order. The approach was deemed appropriate by the
researcher because it provided an efficient way of collecting responses from the sample that

41
was big. This method was done concurrently with the use of in-depth interviews that were
structured according to the questionnaire format. Thus, these approaches enabled the
researcher to assess the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction.

3.7 Data Collection Instruments

The researcher intensely relied on the collection of primary data through structured
questionnaires, interviews and use of secondary data. Secondary data is defined by Tull and
Hawkins (1993) as data that already exists and might have been collected for other research
and not particularly for the research at hand. This is, thus, data that might be readily
available, which might be useful to the research being conducted. The secondary data used
included the company’s Strategic Plan, Vision and Mission Statements, Public Relations
Report, Marketing Reports, brochures, and pamphlets of Tel•One Private Limited. Primary
data collected included the service quality strategies, customer satisfaction levels and
complaints by customers.

3.7.1 Questionnaire Instrument

Cannel and Kahn (2008) defined a questionnaire as a list of questions which are carefully
documented and given to a respondent to answer. A self-administered questionnaire was
applied. A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other
prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents (Keyton, 2001). Although
they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case.
The researcher used a questionnaires because they were relatively easy to analyze a large
sample of the given population can be contacted at relatively low cost, they simple to
administer, the format was familiar to most respondents, They were simple and quick for the
respondent to complete, information was collected in a standardized way. The questionnaires
enabled the researcher to get information from individuals on issues that were difficult to
obtain in an interview setting

Both open and closed questions were used so that the problem questions could be thoroughly
answered. Closed questions were important for this study because they captured the attitudes
and perceptions of the chosen population. Open ended questions gave the participants enough
time to read through questions and elaborate on the answers in own words.

42
It must also be noted that the researcher’s time was saved through the use of a questionnaire.
Time needed to screen relevant data was also reduced by the use of the questionnaire. In
addition to this, the questionnaire gave the respondents generous time to fill them as these
were administered to them well in advance thus the researcher managed to get comprehensive
responses on all the questions answered.

However, the researcher encountered a problem with questionnaires, as they did not allow
further probing of the respondents thus some answers that were obtained required further
explanation. The other members of the targeted respondents failed to answer the
questionnaires citing busy schedules and the other questionnaire went missing.

The other limitation that was observed through the use of questionnaires was that most
questions could not provide relevant answers as the researcher would have wanted.

3.7.2 Interview Instrument

Hammond (2005: 127) defined an interview as, ‘a verbal technique for obtaining data.
Jevshik (2008) defined interviews as sessions in which pre-association and hidden sources of
feelings are discussed generally through a very close, unstructured question guide
administered by a skilled interviewer. The major purpose of this technique was to get a full
understanding of the respondent’s actions and discover more fundamental reasons underlying
the respondent’s attitude. Respondents were asked about their expectations of service quality
within the context of Tel•One Private Limited as a state firm. Managers were asked if they
used any methods to determine customer satisfaction in their service delivery strategies and
functions. This was a way to establish if the management took time to research about the
effect of service quality on customer satisfaction and competitiveness within the operations of
Tel•One Private Limited.

In an attempt to critically assess the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction, the
researcher asked the efforts that management is putting towards ensuring there is quality
service delivery that enhances competitiveness and customer satisfaction within the context
of Tel•One Private Limited. Issues of customer complaints were also asked and the
methodologies employed by the company in dealing with the same were also established.

43
Interviews were most significant in this research study because interview questions were
asked at several levels to get the most relevant information on the subject. The combination
of structured and unstructured questions provided depth and richness to the data and at the
same time elicits data comparable from one subject to the next (Jevshik, 2008). Face to face
interviews took the advantage of social cues such as voice intonation and body language as
the researcher relied on social interaction with the interviewees. During interviews, the
researcher was able to ensure that questions were properly understood by repeating or
rephrasing the questions. Interviews were able to give the researcher opportunity to explain
the difficult questions and she could probe and ask follow up questions. Data collection was
immediate and also there was a higher response rate.

The major setback of the interviews was that it was time- consuming as the researcher would
spent more time just on one person, interviews were also prone to bias because of the
interaction between the researcher and respondents.However the interviews conducted for
this study were prone to bias as respondents were being affected by interactions with the
researcher. In this vein, in coming up with conclusions the researcher did an analysis of all
the responses provided by management and employees and tried as much as possible to purge
foregone conclusion in responses.

3.7.3 Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents and the items developed for data
collection was adopted from previous studies (Parasuraman, et al. 1985, 1988). However, it
must be noted that the items in the questionnaire were tailor made to suit the context of
Tel•One Private Limited as both a telecommunications and state enterprise company. The
questionnaire sought the respondents’ perception about the service quality from Tel•One
Private Limited and how it affects the overall customer satisfaction.

The questionnaire was designed in a very simple manner constituting mainly of structured
questions using a 5 point Likert scale. The primary objective was to entice a high response
rate from the participants. Structured questions were considered appropriate given that they
were easy to use in the field especially in a case where the researcher posted the
questionnaires and was not present administering the questionnaire. Thus, the use of
structured questions also helped the researcher to code and tabulates such data at the findings

44
and interpretation stage.The attributes of reliability and validity were also considered in the
design of the questionnaire. The researcher carefully designed the questions to ensure that
each question was relevant to implore the research question and meet the research objectives.

3.74 Administering the Questionnaire

The researcher used two approaches in administering the questionnaire in this study.
Respondents who had email address were reached out via their email addresses and collection
of the filled questionnaires was done through the same mechanism. The researcher also
employed a follow up call to confirm whether they have received the questionnaires or not.
The respondents who had not email addresses had they questionnaires delivered to them by
the researcher. They were first contacted through the phone and advised of the delivery of the
questionnaire. The researcher also had to collect the questionnaires back.

3.8 Pre-testing the Research Instrument

Pre-testing, according to Keyton (2001) happens before data collection actually begins. At
this stage, the researcher tries to administer the questionnaire to a small group of respondents
who are similar to those individuals that form the rest of the population. Keyton (2001)
highlighted four approaches to pre-testing a survey: cognitive, conventional, behaviour
coding and expert panel (Keyton, 2001:182). In regard to this study inquiry, the researcher
used two approaches: the cognitive approach and an expert panel. The main aim of cognitive
approach to pre-testing is to help identify questions that stimulate multiple interpretations.
This approach allows the researcher to test for semantics or problems affecting how easily the
question can be understood (Keyton, 2001:182).

Pilot study was done before conducting the research; this refers to smaller version of a larger
study that is conducted. A pilot study can involve pre-testing a research tool, like a new data
collection method. It can be used to test an idea or hypothesis (Wong Kong, 2009).The main
reason for conducting a pilot test was to detect weaknesses in design and instrumentation as
well as providing alternative data for selection of a probability sample. Pilot tests were done
to the researcher’s ten fellow students; the main reason for choosing this group was that they
were the ones who could have an idea of what service quality in business organisations in
Zimbabwe mean. The researcher discovered that the interview guide did not contain
questions that would have captured relevant and in-depth information because there were too

45
complex to be understood by respondents. It was also discovered that the wording of some
of the questions on the interview guide was not suitable for the target group. The researcher
had to rephrase some questions and remove repetitive ones

Additionally, the expert panel approach to pre-testing was used. The researcher used experts
in brand and research methodologies to assist in improving the questionnaire. The
questionnaire was read through and potential problems discussed. Keyton (2001)
acknowledged that because they are experts, this approach to pre-testing can pinpoint
semantic problems on how questions are worded, as well as potential problems encountered
with analysing the data after the survey is complete.

3.9 Validity and Reliability

The main aim of social scientific research, particularly within the positivist tradition, is the
establishment and demonstration of the reliability and validity of research findings (Jensen,
2003:212). Data obtained through measurements that are not valid are worthless data.
Measurement has validity to the extent that it measures what the researcher wants it to
measure and not something else. On the other hand, reliability speaks to the consistency or
stability of the measurements (Keyton, 2001:110).

Keyton (2001) argued that, there are several types of validity, namely: face validity, content
validity, criterion-related validity, and concurrent validity, predicative and construct validity.
In connection with this research, the researcher used content validity. This is the degree to
which the items in the measuring device represent the full range of characteristics or attitudes
associated with the construct of interest (Keyton, 2001).

Rubin (2005) and Jensen (2003) explained that reliability refers to how dependable,
consistent and repeatable measures are in a study and across several studies. There are several
types of reliability; test-retest reliability, split-half reliability and internal reliability. In this
research, internal reliability was measured. If all the items in the measurement seem to
measure the same thing, one can say that the measure has internal reliability. This study used
the Cronbach’s Alpha to test the valid and reliability of the study.

46
3.10 Data Analysis

The qualitative data was analyzed using concept analysis procedure. This procedure
involves categorizing similar responses and identifying similarities and patterns among
the responses (Lee, 1991). Concept analysis procedure was a lengthy process which
allowed the researcher to rigorously analyse the data. The first step of the process was
reading through all the questionnaires leading to the selection of one questionnaire and
making notes from the emerging themes and ideas. Then responses from the interviews
were also compiled.

After data was complied into concepts and clusters the responses were entered into a fully
coded Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) data set. In the process efforts were
made to check for the completeness of the data and any missing values. In addition to this
reliability and validity of the measuring instruments were also done through confirmatory
factor analysis. SPSS was used in factor analysis, reliability and correlation analysis.
Frequency counts and percentages were also used in data analysis.

Since this research also used a qualitative approach, the open-ended questions were analysed
interpretively. After the researcher conducted the interviews and distributed the
questionnaires, the researcher’s notes were examined for clarity.

3.11 Ethical Considerations

The researcher treated all the information collected from participants with confidentiality
without disclosing the respondent’s identity and was as open minded as possible and
expressed opinions as they were given.

3.12 Problems and Limitations of Study

There were a number of limitations which were faced during the research but the researcher
had to come up with ways to overcome the limitations. Limitations of doing this study could
be noted beginning with the fact that time was limited for this study to cover up a bigger
sample of the Tel•One Private Limited’s customers in Harare. Thus, other customers’ views
and perceptions of service quality within the context of Tel•One Private Limited were not

47
covered in this study due to time constrains. The sampling techniques used by the researcher,
that is purposive and convenience sampling made even the smaller sample uneven.

Given that the study had a sample chosen purposively, the major challenge was on getting the
apt respondents completing the questionnaire personally and not delegating. This position
was clearly communicated to respondents at the time of sending the questionnaire to the
respective respondents. Follow up calls were made upon the receipt of the questionnaire to
the respective respondent and undertaking an overrun to ascertain whether the respondent
completed the questionnaire personally.

The other challenge faced by the researcher in this study was the delay in receiving back the
questionnaires that were administered to the senior managers and middle management that
chose to complete them personally. Follow up calls were made to the respective respondents
as a reminder to them about how imperative their responses were to the outcome of the study.
Moreover, the researcher focused on the assessment of service quality on customer
satisfaction within Tel.One (Pvt) Ltd in Zimbabwe from the perspective of the customer and
service provider; not much effort was done in terms of coming up with impacts from a
financial perspective. It is very important to note that the assessment was done in a specific of
Tel•One Private Limited. Thus the results of this study must be viewed in contextual
perspective. However, notwithstanding this, the findings of this study have a broader
applicability and the lessons derived from this study would be very much useful to state firms
in Zimbabwe.

Tel•One Private Limited- Hararewas selected as a case study area due to the convenience it
has to the researcher. It cannot be assumed that the results from this research could
automatically be used to benchmark other business organisations in Zimbabwe on how
service quality affects customer satisfaction.

3.13 Conclusion
This chapter discussed the research design and the study’s population. A sample size of 150
respondents was chosen from a very large population in Harare. In addition to this, the
researcher chose convenience and purposive sampling techniques. A number of problems
were encountered in data collection and the researcher devised methods of dealing with the
problems and/or reducing its threshold.

48
 CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

4.0 Introduction

This chapter presents and analyses the data which was collected as outlined in the
methodology. The findings are shall be analysed thematically, with respect to the research
objectives. The results shall be analysed using both descriptive and inferential analyses, and
the results shall be presented in tables, pie charts and bar graphs.

4.1 Reliability Analysis

Reliability analysis seeks to establish the internal consistency of the variables in a research
instrument, and in other words, seeks to establish the overall reliability of any research
instrument (George and Mallery, 2003). By convention, the Cronbach’s Alpha is the best
method to use for reliability analysis. The alpha statistic ranges between 0 and 1. According
to Bryman and Bell (2007), a minimum threshold of 0.7 is acceptable for instrument
reliability.

In this research, with a view to establishing the reliability of the research instrument used, the
Cronbach’s Alpha statistic was computed for the 18 variables used in the SERVQUAL
model. The results are shown in the Table 4.1 below.

Table 4.1: Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's
Alpha N of Items

.946 18

The computed Cronbach’s Alpha for the 18 SERVQUAL items was found to be 0.946. This
being greater than 0.7, it shows that there is greater internal consistency of the items in the
scale, and that the research instrument used was very reliable.

4.2 Response Rate

A total of 150 questionnaires were administered. Out of these questionnaires, 30 were

distributed among the Tel•One employees and management and of these, only 28 were

49
returned. The second set of 50 questionnaires was distributed to organisational customers of
Tel•One Private Limited and a total of 40 questionnaires were returned. The remaining 70
questionnaires were distributed among individual customers and 62 questionnaires were
returned. In total, out of the 150 questionnaires, only 130 were returned and the results are
shown in Table 4.2 below.

Table 4.2 Response rate

Administered Returned Response Rate
Tel•One Staff 30 28 93.3%
Organisational Customers 50 40 80.0%
Individual Customers 70 62 88.57%
Total Administered 150 130 86.67%

In all, the average response rate was 86.67%, and this according to Collins (2014), is an
acceptable response rate for medium sized samples, with 100-500 respondents.

4.3 Demographic Analysis

The demographic information collected from the respondents weregender andage

4.3.1 Gender

Figure 4.1 presents the distribution of the study’s sample in terms of gender.

Figure 4.1 Distribution by Gender

46% Male
54% Female

50
From the above figure, the majority, 54%, of the respondents were female, while, only 46%
were males. This proportion was attained following the systematic sampling that was
employed by the researcher in distributing the questionnaires that was more gender inclusive.

4.3.2 Respondents’ Age

The figure below shows the respective distributions of the respondents by age.

40
36.2
35

30
Percentage Frequency

25 22.7
19.2
20

15 12.3

10 8.4

5
1.2
0
< 20 Years 20-29 Years 30-39 Years 40-49 Years 50-59 Years >59 Years

Figure 4.2: Age Distribution

The above distribution shows a more-or-less normal distribution of the respondents by age.
This can further be validated by the skewness statistic of 0.034, which tends towards the 0.00.
Nonetheless, the majority of the respondents constituting 36.2% lied in the 30-39 year age
group. The second dominant age group was the 40-49 age group, comprising 22.7%,
followed by the 20-29 year age group with 19.2%. It follows from the above that the majority
of Tel•One’s subscribers are the middle-aged.

4.4 Tel•One Service Delivery Status Quo

The first objective sought to unearth the status quo in terms of Tel•One’s service delivery.
This sectiontherefore reports on the findings relating to the respondents’ perception of quality
of services and products and their satisfaction.

51
4.4.1 Quality of Service and Products from Tel•One

With regards to the perception of the quality of Tel•One’s services and products below are
the results that were collected from the respondents.

Figure 4.3: Quality of Service and Products from Tel•One

45
41.5
40 37.7

35
Percentage Frequency

30

25

20

15

10 7.7 6.9 6.2

5

0
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree

Figure 4.3 shows that 7.7% and 6.9% of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed
respectively that the quality of service is generally good respectively. Only 6.2% of the
respondents were neutral. From the results, this implies that the quality of service and
products from Tel•One Private Limited was poor as seen with the majority of 41.5% of the
respondents who disagreed that the quality of service from Tel•One Private Limited is poor,
with another 37.7% strongly disagreeing.

Thus, while it is generally agreed among scholars on the effect of quality service and
customer satisfaction, it seems that in Tel•One, the value of quality service has not yet been
fully embraced. This finding is consistent with Carman (1990) cited in Siddiqi (2011) who
argued that quality dimensions of SERVQUAL are not consistent in cross sectional analysis.
This might be accentuated by the fact that state-enterprises in Zimbabwe operate in
bureaucratic environments and thus in-as-much as efforts to improve the quality of service

52
might be proposed, there are external factors that may thwart these initiatives, such as say, the
untimely authorisation and disbursement of funds.

4.4.2 Perceptions on Speed of Service Delivery

It is generally believed that there is a positive relationship between the quality of service and
speed of service delivery. However, it must be noted that for this study, it was found out that
Tel•One Private Limited had not been able to offer its services speedily as illustrated below.

Figure 4.4: Speed of Service Delivery

45 42.3

40 37.7

35

30
Percentage Frequency

25

20

15

9.2
10
6.2
4.6
5

0
Strongly Agree Agree No Comment Disagree Strongly Disagree

The majority of the respondents disagreed on the quality of service in the context of service
delivery, while a further 37.7% of the respondents strongly disagreed on the service quality of
Tel•One. Merely 9.2 % and 4.6 % of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed,
respectively, that there is speed of service delivery; while a paltry 6.2% of the respondents
were just indifferent on the issue of service delivery and how it affects them as customers.
From the section 4.5 above, most of the respondents were not satisfied with the service
quality of Tel•One, and in this section, most of the customers of Tel•One Private Limited
perceived the speed of service delivery to be poor. These findings are consistent with other
researchers’ findings that there is a positive correlation between the speed of service and
customer satisfaction (Carman, 1990 cited in Siddiqi, 2011).

53
4.4.3 Reliability of Tel•One’s Products and Services

Reliability generally refers to the dependability of a service or product. Findings obtained

from this study showed that only 4.6% of the respondents strongly agreed and
agreed,respectively, that Tel•One is able to provide a reliable service to its customers. Only
3.8% were indifferent about the reliability of Tel•One Private Limited in terms of service
provisions to its customers and therefore they could not ascertain whether they were satisfied
or not.However, the majority, 44.6%, strongly disagreed on the reliability ofTel•One with the
other 42.3% also disagreeing that Tel•One was not reliable in its service offerings and thus
were quite disappointed and not satisfied with theirservice as shown in Figure 4.5 below.

Figure 4.5: Reliability of Tel•One Products and Services

50
44.6
45 42.3

40

35
Percentage Frequency

30

25

20

15

10
4.6 4.6 3.8
5

0
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree

Reliability in literature has been believed to be the extent to which the service delivered is
according to the standards promised and expected by the customers. In practice, it generally
represents the customer’s feeling about what they have paid for. According to this study,
there is a positive relationship between reliability and customer satisfaction that has been
identified. Findings have shown that service quality at Tel•One is still very low and
customers are not happy with their level of reliability. It was observed in this study that
customers are not confident with the service provider at all despite other scholars such as Zim
et al (2010) arguing that reliability is the most imperative factor of customer satisfaction.

54
4.4.4 Customer Satisfaction

Most of the researchers found that service quality is the precursor of customer satisfaction
(Bedi, 2010; Kassim and Abdullah, 2010; Kumar et al., 2010) and that was also confirmed by
this study too, though the findings of this study generally showed dissatisfaction from the
perspective of the customers given that they were being subjected to poor service quality by
Tel•One as a service provider of telecommunications and data bundles. From the analysis,
5.4% of the respondents strongly agreed that they were satisfied with the quality of service
from Tel•One Private Limited and those who would just agreed were equally the same at 5.4
%. 8.5% of the respondents were indifferent with the service quality they get from Tel•One.
The majority of the respondents disagreed that Tel•One provided them with quality service,
as seen with 34.6% strongly disagreeing, and 46.2% disagreeing as shown below.

Figure 4.6:Customer Satisfaction

50
46.2
45

40
34.6
35
Percentage Frequency

30

25

20

15

10 8.5
5.4 5.4
5

0
Strongly Agree Agree No Comment Disagree Strongly Disagree

The study confirmed the findings of other researcher since it was noted in this study that
service quality is a precursor of customer satisfaction (Bedi, 2010; Kassim and Abdullah,
2010).

4.4.5 Technical Quality

The study also assessed the overview of technical quality in TelOne.

55
Figure 4.7: Technical Quality
45
42.3

40 38.5

35

30
Percentage Frequency

25

20

15
10
10
6.9

5
2.3

0
Strongly Agree Agree No Comment Disagree Strongly Disagree

From the above analysis, it can be seen that the majority of the respondents believed that the
technical quality of the services and products were not up to scratch as can be seen with the
42.3% of the respondents who strongly disagreed, and 38.5% who disagreed that they were
not satisfied with the technical quality of the product offering from Tel•One Private Limited.
Those who strongly agreed were just 2.3%, with 6.9% just agreeing, while 10% of the
remaining respondents were neither in agreement or disagreement with the technical quality.

4.4.6 Responsiveness to Customers

Respondents generally disagreed on the responsiveness of Tel•One with regard to issues

about customer satisfaction complaints and service quality. The majority, 40.8% of the
respondents disagreed and the other 38.5% of the respondents strongly disagreed. Those who
either strongly agreed or agreed with the responsiveness to customer issues were 3.8% and
7.7% of the respondents respectively; while those indifferent about the responsiveness of
Tel•One to service quality and customer satisfaction issues were 9.2% as shown below.

56
Figure 4.8: Responsiveness to Customers
45
40.8
40 38.5

35

30
Percentage Frequency

25

20

15

9.2
10 7.7

5 3.8

0
Strongly Agree Agree No Comment Disagree Strongly Disagree

4.4.7 Price and Value for Money

The following figure presents the analysis of the price and value for money.

Figure 4.9: Price and Value for Money

50
43.8
45 41.5
40

35
Percentage Frequency

30

25

20

15

10 6.9
4.6
5 3.1

0
Strongly Agree Agree No Comment Disagree Strongly Disagree

From the analysis, only 3.1 % of the respondents strongly agreed that there is value for
money in terms of the quality and price of the service rendered while those who just agreed
stood at 4.6% as seen in Figure 4.9 overleaf. The indifferent respondents were only 6.9 %.

57
However, the majority of the respondents (43.8%) strongly disagreed that there was quality
and value for money on what they paid for as service rendered and 41.5% just disagreed,
arguing that the services they got were not commensurate for the money they pay.

Thus, it was noted that customer satisfaction was affected by the perception of price on
quality. Quite a number and majority of respondents felt that they were getting a raw deal
from Tel•One Private Limited because the connection to ADSL broad band was not as fast
they were told to believe. It was also noted that the service provider was not prompt
especially in delivering service and the technical people are always busy to attend customers’
problems. Hence a majority of the respondents felt they were being duped by the service
provider, and this explains why a combined total of 85.3% of the respondents disagreed on
the issue of value of money and quality. Thus, a number of the respondents who participated
in this study were not happy with the services they get from Tel•One as a service provider.

4.5 Factors influencing Service Quality

Having explored the perceptions of the respondents with regards to their satisfaction with
respect to each of the 5 dimensions of the SERVQUAL model, to ascertain the major factors
influencing service quality, which was the second research objective, Factor Analysis was
considered as the appropriate technique to use to identify these factors (Bryman and Bell,
2007), and ANOVA analysis would then be used to further establish the extent to which the
identified factors impacted on customer satisfaction (Cooper, 2014).

Factor Analysis was done with the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as the extraction
method, and to optimise the reliability of the extraction, the Varimax Rotation with Kaiser
Normalisation was done to the 18 questionnaire items that had been generated from the
SERVQUAL model (Bryman and Bell, 2007).

58
Table 4.3 Factor Analysis

Component

1 2 3 4 5
1. Tel•One is able to give you access to information
about its product offerings .297 .111 .624 .327 .297
2. Tel•One has visually attractive offices, equipment, and
materials .281 .041 .686 .407 .182
3. Appearance of Tel•One ’s Staff is attractive and
professional .513 .338 .522 .105 -.070

4. Tel•One is able to deliver services timely

.251 .176 .441 .239 .635
5. Tel•One is able to keep promises to its customers
.774 .170 .191 -.071 .719
6. Tel•One is dependable and consistent in solving
customers’ service quality complaints .274 .516 .493 .265 .671
7. Tel•One always insists on zero defects in its product
offerings .209 .330 .383 .451 .523

8. Tel•One is able to tell its customers when services will

be performed .430 -.045 .266 .647 .114

9. Tel•One is able to provide prompt services and

attends to customers’ needs .265 .109 .221 .715 .186
10. Tel•One employees are willing to help customers in
emergency situations .317 .214 .709 .437 .150

11. Tel•One ’s technical support staff is approachable and

easy to contact .506 .304 .024 .688 .482
12. Tel•One has ability to communicate effectively with
their customers .624 .320 .389 .291 .216
13. Tel•One has convenient operating times
.646 .219 .032 .340 .271
14. The Tel•One ’s staff always give me a personal service
.672 .360 .192 .187 -.265
15. Tel•One is able to fix problems
-.028 .593 .077 .620 .251
16. Employees have technological knowledge and skills in
solving customer problems .163 .824 .106 -.051 .192
17. Tel•One has got ability to provide quality products that
meet customer’s requirements .206 .626 .213 .406 -.003
18. Tel•One is innovative – ability to use current
technology to improve services .413 .645 .097 .378 -.270

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 8 iterations.

Five components with respective eigenvalues greater than 1.0 were extracted, and
considering factor loadings of 0.5 and above in the screening process, as prescribed by
Cooper (2014), the significant factors are presented below in the Table 4.3 overleaf. To aid in

59
the discrimination process, the original SERVQUAL demarcations were superimposed in the
results table.

Factor 1: From Component 1, only 2 variables were extracted and these variables had the
issue of affordability and value of money in common. Thus, the issue of Empathy
was extracted as a factor affecting customer satisfaction.

Factor 2: The variables in the second-extracted component had Assurance as the common
theme, and this qualifies assurance as the second factor affecting service quality.

Factor 3: The third extracted component had variables that had the Tangibles construct as
the common factor, save for Item 10, that talked of willingness of employees to
assist, whose factor loading was 0.709 in this component. Despite this outlier, it
follows then that the Tangibles had been validated as a factor affecting service
quality.

Factor 4: The fourth component comprised of 4 variables that had a leaning towards the
general Responsiveness of Tel•One employees. From the original demarcations,
only one variable, supposed to be relating to responsiveness was excluded as not
significant in the 4th component, but the third. Despite this anomaly, the majority of
the variables validated Responsiveness as a critical factor affecting service quality.

Factor 5: The fifth component extracted comprised of all the variables that defined the
Reliability of Tel•One. Item 6, however, was significant in both Component 5 and
2, the latter was composed of Assurance variables. Despite this dual entry, it was
confirmed that Reliability was a significant factor affecting service quality.

To ascertain the significance of these factors and their respective degrees of impact on the
overall service quality, the ANOVA analysis was considered, and the 5 extracted factors were
analysed as independent variables, with service quality as the factor.

60
Test: One-way ANOVA

Hypotheses: H0: The extracted factor does not an impact on Service Quality
H1: Tel•One’s Empathy has an impact on Service Quality
H2: Tel•One’s Assurance has an impact on Service Quality
H3: Tel•One’s Tangibles have an impact on Service Quality
H4: Tel•One’s Responsiveness has an impact on Service Quality
H5: Tel•One’s Reliability has an impact on Service Quality

Significance Level: 95% Confidence Level, thus 0.05 significance

Rejection Criteria: Accept H0 if ; Reject H0 if

Decision: The results are shown in the Table 4.5. Since the p-values for all the
hypotheses were seen to be below 0.05, we therefore reject the null
hypotheses and conclude with the alternative hypothesis that there
exist enough evidence at the 95% confidence level to suggest that all
the 5 extracted factors are significant factors that influence Tel•One’s
Service quality.

Table 4.4: ANOVA Analysis

ANOVA

Sum of Mean
Squares df Square F Sig.

Tangibles Between Groups 47.684 4 8.597 13.039 .000

Within Groups 110.378 124 .890

Total 158.062 128

Reliability Between Groups 16.893 4 11.921 13.392 .005
Within Groups 129.155 120 1.076
Total 146.048 124
Responsiveness Between Groups 41.764 4 10.441 10.733 .000
Within Groups 117.705 121 .973
Total 159.468 125
Empathy Between Groups 34.390 4 4.223 3.924 .000
Within Groups 82.418 125 .659
Total 116.808 129
Assurance Between Groups 18.170 4 4.542 4.810 .001

Within Groups 118.053 125 .944

Total 136.223 129

61
Considering the F-ratios from the table, the greater the magnitude implied the greater the
degree of influence on Tel•One’s service quality (Bryman and Bell, 2007). The greatest
magnitude of the F-ration was seen with the Reliability whose statistic was 13.392. Thus it
follows that their service not being reliable was not satisfying Tel•One’s customers and was
the primary of all factors that the customers consider as being the highest in its impact on
service quality. The second highest F-ratio was seen with the tangibles, being 13.039. It
follows that the tangibles construct was the second-major factor being neglected, but
however, impacting the most negatively on the service quality of Tel•One. Again, from the
Table 4.5, Responsiveness came out as the third important factor, Assurance as the fourth,
and Empathy as the least factor.

In conclusion, Thus in all, all the 5 originally theorised SERVQUAL factors affecting service
quality (Parasuraman, 1990) were confirmed to be exhibiting an influence in the context of
this study. Thus, the factors affecting Tel•One’s service quality in order of importance were:
1 Reliability
2 Tangibles
3 Responsiveness
4 Assurance
5 Empathy

4.5.1 Gender and Service Quality

It seemed imperative at this juncture to further ascertain whether the demographic data had
any impact on the perceptions of the respondents. To achieve this, an independent samples t-
test was considered the most appropriate test, and was done, with the gender variable as the
grouping variable and the above 5 service quality variables as the test variables as follows:

Test: Independent Samples T-Test (2-tailed)

Hypotheses:

H0: Gender does not have an impact on Tel•One’s service quality perceptions
H1: Gender has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Tangibles
H2: Gender has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Reliability
H3: Gender has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Responsiveness
H4: Gender has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Empathy
H5: Gender has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Assurance

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Significance Level: 95% Confidence Level, thus 0.05 significance

Rejection Criteria: Accept H0 if ; Reject H0 if

The results of the analysis are shown in the Table 4.6.

Table 4.5: Independent Samples t-test, Gender

t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

t df tailed) Difference Difference

Tangibles Equal variances assumed -.583 124 .561 -.121 .208

Equal variances not assumed -.583 78.922 .562 -.121 .208

Reliability Equal variances assumed -.222 122 .825 -.046 .209
Equal variances not assumed -.222 76.973 .825 -.046 .209
Responsiveness Equal variances assumed -.501 123 .617 -.109 .217
Equal variances not assumed -.522 88.076 .603 -.109 .208
Empathy Equal variances assumed -.588 127 .558 -.105 .178
Equal variances not assumed -.572 78.307 .569 -.105 .183
Assurance Equal variances assumed .421 127 .674 .081 .193

Equal variances not assumed .415 80.934 .679 .081 .196

Decision: Considering the computed p-values, none of the 5 factors was below
0.05. We therefore accept the null hypothesis in all the 5 instances and
conclude that there was sufficient evidence at the 95% confidence level
to conclude that Gender had no effect on the perceptions of each of the
five factors affecting service quality.

4.5.2 Age and Service Quality

Again, to test whether age had an influence on the perception of each of the 5 extracted
factors, an independent samples t-test was conducted, but this time, with the age variable
variable as the grouping variable and the 5 service quality variables viz. Tangibles,
Reliability, Responsiveness, Empathy, and Assurance as the test variables as:

Test: Independent Samples T-Test (2-tailed)

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Hypotheses:

H0: Age does not have an impact on Tel•One’s service quality perceptions
H1: Age has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Tangibles
H2: Age has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Reliability
H3: Age has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Responsiveness
H4: Age has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Empathy
H5: Age has an impact on the perception of Tel•One’s Assurance

Significance Level: 95% Confidence Level, thus 0.05 significance

Rejection Criteria: Accept H0 if ; Reject H0 if

The results of the t-test analysis are shown in the Table 4.7.

Table 4.6: Independent Samples t-test, Age

t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

t df tailed) Difference Difference

Tangibles Equal variances assumed .070 125 .944 .014 .197

Equal variances not assumed .072 119.644 .942 .014 .191

Reliability Equal variances assumed .083 123 .934 .017 .200
Equal variances not assumed .083 101.044 .934 .017 .201
Responsiveness Equal variances assumed 1.001 124 .319 .206 .206
Equal variances not assumed 1.009 107.913 .315 .206 .204
Empathy Equal variances assumed .940 128 .349 .160 .170
Equal variances not assumed .925 103.194 .357 .160 .173
Assurance Equal variances assumed .278 128 .782 .051 .185

Equal variances not assumed .272 101.300 .786 .051 .189

Decision: From the above analysis, again none of the p-values was below the
acceptable maximum threshold of 0.05. According to our rejection
criteria, we accept the null hypothesis in all 5 cases and conclude that
at the 95% confidence level, there was no sufficient evidence to
support the existence of a relationship between age and the perceptions
of each of the five factors affecting service quality.

64
4.6 The Relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

The third research objective sought to establish whether there is a relationship between
service quality and customer satisfaction. To statistically test this association, considering the
categorical-nature of the two constructs under study, the non-parametric Pearson’s goodness-
of-fit Chi Square analysis was considered fit for the analysis(Bryman and Bell, 2007). With
this respect, the contingency table cross-tabulating both constructs is shown below.

Table 4.7: Service Quality/Customer Satisfaction Contingency Table

Customer Satisfaction Total

SA A N D SD
SA 2 0 1 3 4 10
Service Quality

A 0 1 1 4 3 9
N 1 2 1 2 2 8
D 1 2 4 30 17 54
SD 3 2 4 21 19 49
Total 7 7 11 60 45 130

From the above table, it can be seen that the majority of the respondents were skewed
towards the disagreeing for both constructs under analysis, as seen from the shaded red cells.
Descriptively, this tends to be proof that there is a linear association between the two
constructs. However, to inferentially test this association, the following procedures were
done:

Test: Pearson’s Chi-Square (Two-Tailed)

Hypothesis:
H0: Customer Satisfaction is not dependent on Service Quality
H1: Customer Satisfaction is dependent on Service Quality

Significance level:
95% Confidence Interval, 0.05 level of significance;

Rejection Criteria:
Accept H0 if ; Reject H0 if

65
The analysis was done and below in Table 4.9are the results.

Table 4.8: Chi-Square Analysis

Asymp. Sig. (2-

Value df sided)
a
Pearson Chi-Square 47.810 16 .000
Likelihood Ratio 50.067 16 .000
Linear-by-Linear Association 35.451 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 130

a. 14 cells (56.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

expected count is .18.

Decision: From the above analysis done at 95% confidence level, and 16 degrees of freedom,
the computed chi-square statistic was 47.810. The corresponding p-value was
0.000. Being less than the prescribed maximum of 0.05, we therefore reject the
null hypothesis and conclude with the alternative hypothesis that there existed
enough evidence at the 95% confidence interval to suggest that there existed a
significant association between service quality and customer satisfaction, and thus
that, customer satisfaction was indeed dependent on the level of service quality.

To further explore the magnitude and direction of the proved association between the two
constructs, given the ordinal nature of these constructs, the Spearman’s Rho correlation
coefficient was deemed the most appropriate test, and the results are shown in the Table 4.10.

Table 4.9: Spearman’s Rho Correlation Analysis

Asymp. Std.
a b
Value Error Approx. T Approx. Sig.
c
Interval by Interval Pearson's R .918 .062 6.965 .000
c
Ordinal by Ordinal Spearman Correlation .923 .064 7.014 .000
N of Valid Cases 130

a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.

b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.
c. Based on normal approximation.

From the above analysis, the Spearman’s Rho correlation coefficient was 0.923. From the
possible solution set of , it follows then that there is a very high positive

66
correlation between customer satisfaction and service quality. In other words, the better the
service quality, the higher is the level of customer satisfaction (Newbold, 1991).

4.7 The Greatest Impact Service Quality Factors on Customer Satisfaction

Having seen that there was a strong linear association between Service Quality and Customer
Satisfaction, the fourth research objective sought to unearth the Service Quality factors with
the greatest impact on customer satisfaction in the context of Tel•One.

To address this objective, Multiple Regression Analysis was considered the most befitting
analysis(Bryman and Bell, 2007), in which case customer satisfaction was regressed against
the service quality factors. The regression model summary is shown in the Table 4.11 below.

Table 4.10: Regression Model Summary

Adjusted R Std. Error of the

Model R R Square Square Estimate
a
1 .915 .837 .853 .604

a. Predictors: (Constant), Assurance , Responsiveness, Empathy,

Reliability , Tangibles

From the above analysis, there was a very high regression correlation coefficient of 0.915
between the collective effects of the five factors affecting service quality on customer
satisfaction. This correlation coefficient validates the very high positive linear association
between service quality and customer satisfaction established in earlier correlation analyses
herein above.

However, with regards to the R2 statistic, from Table 4.8, it was found to be 0.837. It follows
then that these five factors collectively cause 83.7% variation in the degree of customer
satisfaction. What this means is that there are latent factors other than service quality that
contribute the unexplained 16.3%. In spite of these latent unexplained factors, 83.7% of
customer satisfaction can be explained of in terms of Service Quality.

The respective contributions of each of the factors affecting service quality were established
from the respective regression Beta (B) coefficients shown in the Table 4.12 below.From the
analysis, the corresponding p-values were all less than 0.05, signifying that all the service

67
quality factors, including the constant, were significant factors affecting customer
satisfaction. The constant signified the aggregate impact of the latent unexplained factors
other than the ones that had been used in this research.

Table 4.11: Multiple Regression Analysis - Coefficients

Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients

Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.

1 (Constant) .489 .308 2.889 .005

Tangibles .787 .094 .720 6.949 .024

Reliability .802 .080 .824 7.923 .012

Responsiveness .545 .080 .551 3.562 .017

Empathy .387 .096 .469 6.994 .003

Assurance .488 .080 .491 2.591 .000

a. Dependent Variable: Customer Satisfaction

The Customer Satisfaction Model in the context of Tel•One would thus be:

The greatest coefficient was that for the Reliability, which was seen to be 0.802. It follows
therefore that the reliability-factor had the greatest impact on customer satisfaction. This was
followed by Tangibles, with a beta coefficient of 0.787, and Responsiveness with a beta
coefficient of 0.545. The least impact service quality factors were Assurance and Empathy
with respective coefficients of 0.488 and 0.387.

In other words, the relative impact of each of the service quality factors on customer
satisfaction in order of decrease in impact, measured by the magnitude of the beta
coefficients include:
1 Reliability
2 Tangibles

68
 3 Responsiveness
4 Assurance
5 Empathy

What this means is for Tel•One to effect a significant boost in the satisfaction of their
customers, it need to concentrate more on the reliability of its services and products. It also
needs to place a significantly high investment in improving its tangibles, followed by being
responsive. However, investing most of its energies and resources towards improving its
assurance and empathy in lieu of reliability strategies and improving its tangibles, would in
fact result in a low-impact improvement in the satisfaction of its customers.

4.8 Conclusion

This chapter presented the findings of the research, appropriate analyses were done, and the
results were presented thematically answering the research objectives. The next chapter will
summarise the findings of the research, conclusions will be made based on the findings and
recommendations will be made, also basing on the findings of this research.

69
 CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.0 Introduction and Findings

The major aim of this study was to achieve the following objectives:-
1. To assess the status quo in relation to service delivery at Tel•One
2. To examine the factors influencing service quality in the context of Tel•One
3. To establish the relationship between service quality on customer satisfaction;
4. To establish the major factors affecting customer satisfaction in Tel•One.
5. To identify mechanisms to continuously improve the level of service qualityand
customer satisfaction within Tel•One.

5.1 Service Delivery at Tel•One

From the research, it was established that generally the quality of services and products of
Tel•One were rather low, with the respondents expressing concerns over the poor speed of
delivery, lack of reliability, poor technical quality, and above all the lack of value-for-money
for the services rendered.It was noted that services from Tel•One were rather unreliable and
that there was generally and that the organisation seemed to be rather unresponsive to issues
of customer complaints and satisfaction.

5.2 Factors Influencing Service Quality at Tel•One

Parasuraman et al. (1985) theorised the five major factors that generically define service
quality. It was one of the objectives of this research to validate this generalization in the
context of the telecommunications sector, with Tel•One being the case study. Factor analysis
was done on the 18 questionnaire items that had been extracted from the SERVQUAL model.
A total of five factors were extracted and were confirmed to be in sync with the theorised
themes. The magnitude of their impact was determined by means of the ANOVA analysis it
was found that the reliability and tangibles of the service provider was very important and
significant in building customer satisfaction in service contexts. The relative importance of
service quality dimensions were found to be different as earlier confirmed by Parasuraman et
al,. (1988) who argued that it differs with industry in different service contexts.

70
5.3 Relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction was explored and tested
by means of the Pearson Chi-Square analysis. The findings from the analysis revealed that
there customer satisfaction was dependent on the quality of service, and this hypothesis was
validated at the 95% level of significance. Further analysis by means of the Spearman’s Rho
Correlation Coefficient analysis established that there was a very strong positive correlation
between the two constructs, a finding that was consistent with previous studies carried out
before this study was commissioned, for instance Kotler and Keller (2006) and Newbold,
(1991) who established that service quality positively affects customer satisfaction.

5.4 Major factors affecting Customer Satisfaction in Tel•One

The fourth research objective sought to ascertain the major factors that affect customer
satisfaction, limited, but not limited to service quality factors. The best analysis used to
determine these factors was the multiple regression analysis. A very strong regression
coefficient of 0.915 was found and an R2of 0.837 implied that 83.7% of the variance of
customer satisfaction was attributable to service quality and that 16.3% was due to other
factors that were latent, but would need further literature review to identify the possibilities
and evaluate them in another research. However, the major factors that were seen to be
affecting customer satisfaction were, from the analysis of the beta coefficient magnitudes,
reliability, tangibles and responsiveness.

5.5 Conclusions of the Study

This study intended to probe the relationship between service quality and customer
satisfaction in the context of business organisations in Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe and Tel•One
was conveniently chosen to be the case study. In this dissertation, a case study survey using a
self-administered structured questionnaire and quantitative data analysis was used to assess
the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction in the context of Tel•One Private
Limited. It was concluded that despite respondents being dissatisfied due to poor service
quality from Tel•One as a service provider, it was noted that reliability, responsiveness,
prompt of service, behaviour of employees, availability of informative material, fulfilment of

71
promises, sincerity in solving customers’ problems, personal attention to customers, and
understanding the needs of the customer were key variables that were mentioned by
respondents to be below what they would expect from the service provider, hence a
dissatisfied customer base. In addition, the focus of this study was mainly state firms and it
was noted also that this area has rarely been addressed by both practitioners and academia.

It also goes without saying that the state of customer service quality in the context of Tel•One
is relatively very poor and as a result it was concluded in this study that customer satisfaction
is poor as a result. This conclusion is quite consistent with the findings of other researchers
who concluded that service quality is always a precursor of customer satisfaction (Bedi,
2010; Kassim and Abdullah, 2010; Kumar et al., 2010). It appears that customer satisfaction
in the context of Tel•One is severely being affected by quite a number of factors chief among
them is the slow speed in terms of service provision and the time they take to respond to
customer service issues. The literature reviewed in this research study highlighted a number
of salient points. It seems that customer satisfaction is only as strong as the quality of service
that is being provided by the organisation and this is the reason why customer satisfaction
within Tel•One is very poor.

5.3 Recommendations of the Study

Based on the findings of this study the following recommendations are made for the
improvement of quality service for the purposes of increasing customer satisfaction within
the context of Tel•One Private Limited.

The study provides empirical support that customer satisfaction in firms could be
significantly influenced by improving upon the customer’s perception of the reliability of the
service provider. Since reliability factor was seen to have the greatest impact on customer
satisfaction, it is recommended that Tel•One as a service provider should improve on
reliability through offering quicke response time to faults guaranteeing stated internet speeds
as well as maintaining high exchange and transmission uptime.This can further be improved
in future by deploying New Generation Networks such as Fixed Mobile Convergence.

It is also recommended that management of Tel•One Private should be guided by the

marketing strategies such as developing packages for low end mass market i.e. universities,

72
colleges and high density centres. This enhances the service assurance of its service offering
to its numerous customers across the country for the purposes of increasing service quality
perception by making sure that there is timely delivery of services and products to customers.
In addition to service assurance strategies, it is also recommended that there is need of
dependability on part of Tel•One especially in solving the customer’s complaints as this have
a direct bearing on customer satisfaction.

Since it was found that there was no sincerity on part of Tel•One in solving service quality
and customer satisfaction issues, it is recommended therefore that the management of
Tel•One Private Limited should be improve on its internal process such as shortest time in
sserving customers, simple form of service application and shortest period in installations of
new customers who applied for the service. There is also need to ensure that customers are
informed exactly when the services will be performed and ensure the technical employees are
able to attend to the customers’ need and problems promptly and as a result give the same
prompt customer services consistently. There is need to ensure that the technical employees
of Tel•One Private Limited are willing to help customers in emergency situations as a way of
improving customer satisfaction through the responsiveness of the service provider.

Creating and managing service quality is one of the main strategic issues in today’s
competitive business environment. In an abstract sense, service quality provides marketers
for Tel•One Private Limited with a strategic bridge from their past to their future (Keller,
2003). Thus, in order for Tel•One Private Limited to create strong customer loyalty
emanating from sustainable customer satisfaction, its marketing and operations managers
should continuously check that their product and service offering has the following
characteristics:
 meets the customer expectations,
 the service quality must be reliable
 the service quality messages must be consistent over time
There is need by Tel•One to necessitate the riddance of complacency and a resolved adoption
of competitive challenge and managing the service quality framework must be a high priority
for Tel•One Private and many other organisations in the world.

73
5.4 Limitations of the Research

The following limitations were encountered during the research of this paper:-
 Resistance in filling and returning the questionnaire by staff and management. It was
observed that most staff and management were reluctant in filling and returning the
questionnaire with the mind that the researcher wants to make and internal
investigation for reporting to Audit. At one point one staff indicated that the
researcher wants to Audit the staff.
 The research was a case study for Tel•One Private Limited therefore the findings
cannot be generalised to other entities.

5.4 Directions of Future Research

This study was a preliminary research to learn about service quality in a selected state firm –
that is Tel•One Private Limited. Future research on this domain must study the relationship
that exists between customer satisfaction and organisational performance; customer loyalty
and its impact on profitability (since it is an ultimate goal of the company); the role of
service quality on organisational reputation and the study must be done in a different location
using a different set of firms. In addition, a comparative study across Southern Africa is also
very important to try and verify the findings of this study in other zones of the African
continent. More empirical studies in different companies are suggested for future research.

74
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APPENDIX 1: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE

Questionnaire

The researcher, Lovemore Mutsvanga is a student with University of Zimbabwe studying for
Master of Strategic Marketing Degree. The research focuses on An Assessment of the
effectiveness of service quality on customer satisfaction in Business organisations in
Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe: A case of Tel•One Private Limited.Your response to the
following questions is greatly appreciated and will be treated with much confidence. Indicate
your response in the space provided.

SECTION A: DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

1. Gender

Male

Female

2. Age

<20 Years
20-29 Years
30-39 Years
40-49 Years
50-59 Years
>59 Years

3. Type of Respondent

Staff
Organisational Customer
Individual Customer

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 SECTION B: SERVICVE QUALITY ANALYSIS

For each of the following Statements, place a tick in the box that corresponds to how you
feel:
OVERVIEW
1. Services you have received from Tel•One are the best services ever SD D N A SA

2. Tel•One’s service delivery is done timeously SD D N A SA

3 Tel•One’s Services are very reliable SD D N A SA

4. Tel•One’s services meet your expectations and I am satisfied SD D N A SA

5. The technical quality of Tel•One is excellent SD D N A SA

6. Tel•One’s staff are very responsive SD D N A SA

7. There is value for money in Tel•One ’s services SD D N A SA

TANGIBLES

1. Tel•One is able to give you access to information about its product SD D N A SA

offerings
2. Tel•One has visually attractive offices, equipment, and materials SD D N A SA

3. Appearance of Tel•One ’s Staff is attractive and professional SD D N A SA

RELIABILITY

4. Tel•One is able to deliver services timely SD D N A SA

5. Tel•One is able to keep promises to its customers SD D N A SA

6. Tel•One is dependable and consistent in solving customers’ complaints SD D N A SA

7. Tel•One always insists on zero defects in its product offerings SD D N A SA

RESPONSIVENESS

8. Tel•One is able to tell its customers when services will be performed SD D N A SA

9. Tel•One is able to provide prompt services and attends to customers’ SD D N A SA

needs
10. Tel•One employees are willing to help customers in emergency situations SD D N A SA

EMPATHY

11. Tel•One ’s technical support staff is approachable and easy to contact SD D N A SA

12. Tel•One has ability to communicate effectively with their customers SD D N A SA

13. Tel•One has convenient operating times SD D N A SA

14. The Tel•One ’s staff always give me a personal service SD D N A SA

ASSURANCE

15. Tel•One is able to fix problems SD D N A SA

16. Employees have technological knowledge and skills in solving my SD D N A SA

problems
17. Tel•One has got ability to provide quality products SD D N A SA

18. Tel•One is innovative SD D N A SA

THANK YOU

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