Patient perceived service quality towards counter service in Hospital Sultan Ismail Johor Bahru / Masdita Md Dan and Hamizah Abdul Hamid

This dissertation analyses the patients' perceived service quality towards counter services in the Hospital Sultan Ismail Johor Bahru ("HSIJB"). This study look at the gap between the perceived expected service quality and the perception of service quality at the counters includes of Central Registration Point (CRP) and Inpatient Counter (BDM) in HSIJB. The variables in this study are tangibility, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy which act as independent variables and the expectations of service quality and perceptions of service quality act dependent variables. The gap between patients' expectations and their actual perception of service quality in HSIJB is a matter of great concern. If the problems at the counter service can be overcome, this will eventually lead to an improvement in the overall quality of service. Thus, with this as the background, the objectives of this study are to analyse the current situation of counter services in HSIJB. Besides that, this study helps to assess service dimension gap of customer service at HSIJB and with this understanding it helps us to develop the recommendations on how to improve the counter service quality. This survey has a sample size of 280 customers (patients) in the counter service at HSIJB. As a result from this study, we found that the expectation of the service quality is higher compared to the perception of the service quality at the counters of HSIJB. Finally, the study recommends improvements in the counter services by applying technology in self-registration counters and focus on human relations in the service rather than rushing to finish the registration queues.