Service Delivery at Fuel Service Stations: An Evaluation of Consumer Satisfaction in Gaborone, Botswana (Published)
The study sought to evaluate consumer satisfaction with regard to fuelling services in Gaborone, Botswana. The importance of four of the five operations performance objectives (Quality, Speed, Dependability and Flexibility) to the motorists was determined. The performance rating of various fuel service stations (FSSs) on the four operations objectives was determined. The aim was to establish if the FSSs were excelling in those operations objectives considered important by the consumer. Results showed that the order of importance of the four operations performance objectives was: Speed (71.9%), Quality (70.2%), Flexibility (59.6%), and Dependability (56.1%). The most important objective for FSSs to excel in is speed. However, FSSs still need to perform reasonably well in the other objectives as their ratings (all over 50%) indicate that they are also important to the customers. The performance ranking for the FSSs was Quality (93.0%), Dependability (91.2%), Speed (87.7%), and Flexibility (57.9%). The FSSs performed better in the Quality and Dependability objectives yet the Speed objective was the most important to the consumers. Significance testing using the Chi Square Test indicate that the strongest relationship between importance and performance exists for the Flexibility objective (Pearsons correlation-Asymp.Sig = .025) and is weakest for the Speed objective (Pearsons correlation-Asymp.Sig = .105). This indicates that FSSs were not excelling in the objective that is most important to the consumer- Speed. FSSs in Gaborone need to improve service delivery by increasing the speed of serving customers.
Keywords: Dependability, Flexibility, Operation, Performance Objective, Product, Quality, Service, Speed