IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijbpma/v3y2001i2-3-4p216-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Customer satisfaction measures in the public sector: what do they tell us?

Author

Listed:
  • Denise K. Conroy

Abstract

In attempting to devise customer satisfaction measures, there are a number of factors which can affect the interpretation of results - the nature of the customer, service provision, service quality and, for the public sector, the extent to which consumer sovereignty exists. It is the contention in this paper that valid and reliable measures of customer satisfaction with public service provision are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, as there are too many independent and intervening variables which compound the results. Resources may be better directed towards setting and maintaining high levels of standard of service. The paper addresses the difficulties outlined above and highlights the complex nature of a customer or service beneficiary who can be, at the same time, a taxpayer, voter, recipient of financial benefits, with expectations of the public sector and its delivery agent, yet cannot choose another provider.

Suggested Citation

  • Denise K. Conroy, 2001. "Customer satisfaction measures in the public sector: what do they tell us?," International Journal of Business Performance Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(2/3/4), pages 216-230.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijbpma:v:3:y:2001:i:2/3/4:p:216-230
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=100
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijbpma:v:3:y:2001:i:2/3/4:p:216-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=3 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.