A study on fisherman satisfaction toward service quality in Lembaga Kemajuan Ikan Malaysia (LKIM) Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia / Nurul Azwan Saruni

Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that companies must understand if they are to grow and remain competitive in the business environment. It is very important for companies to know how to measure these constructs from the customers’ perspective so as to understand their-needs and satisfy them. Service quality is considered to be very critical to any modern business because it contributes higher customer satisfaction, profitability, reduced cost, improved customer loyalty and retention. The main purpose of this study is to assess customer satisfaction and service quality using SERVQUAL model within LKIM working environment. Other purposes include how customers perceive service quality; identify service quality dimensions that contribute to higher satisfaction, factors hindering customer satisfaction and what should be done to improve customer satisfaction for LKIM customers. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to respondents using a convenience sampling technique for LKIM customers. The analysis carried found that, the overall service quality perceived by customers was not satisfactory; means customers expectations exceeded perceptions. Also analysis revealed that LKIM Customer Care, availability, handsets flexibility and air time charges are the critical factors that hinder satisfaction. As far as theory is concerned findings reveals that SERVQUAL model is not the best tool to use in measuring service quality for LKIM because the dimensions were negative gap.But the method still relevant to use in this time. This study contributes to the already existing studies examining service quality within LKIM using SERVQUAL model.