Assessment of Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Private Minbus Transports: In the Case of Western Part of South Wollo Zone Some Selected Districts

The aim of this research was to assess the service quality of minibus transport and customer satisfaction in Southern part of South Wollo in some selected districts. The questionnaire was adopted and modified from the past studies. The questionnaires were administered to passengers of four districts. Convenience sampling was used for this research. A total of 221 returned questionnaires was analyzed by using descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression analysis to test for the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction. The results showed that assurance β 0.951, produced the greatest influence on customer satisfaction followed by reliability 0.681. Empathy β 0.041 has the lowest positive and insignificant impact on customer satisfaction. This study indicates that service quality is important because it can lead to increased customer satisfaction. The results imply that private Minibus transport service provider should improve service quality provision to increase customer satisfaction.

to the rural and town transport sector service delivery can be a valuable area of focus for overall socio-economic development of the country and play a great role towards maximizing rural-urban mobility.
Primarily Private transportation vehicles currently operate in the western part of South Wollo district are Abdulla, dolphin and 5L. Private transportation business is an important element in day-to-day activities in Tenta, Legambo, Woreilu, and Mekanselam district. As the population and the amount of passengers increase, service should be expected to grow. However, passengers to and from the districts have some complaints against the private minibus service. Some of these complaints are poor customer service, overcrowding, and asking unfair transport price and the operators also insulting the passengers. All these problems and customer complaints are a reason for lack of customer satisfaction. It is from the problem that the researcher was initiated to study the private Minibus transport service quality and customer satisfaction in the study area. Limited research had been conducted in relation to railway, air and bus transport in the country, Ethiopia, but there is no research conducted in Minibus transport service and as well as South Wollo Administrative zone. This is the research gap that this paper intends to fill.

Objectives of the study:
Following are the objectives of the study  To understand the perception of customer on minibus transport quality service delivery on the bases of Service quality dimensions.  To assess the satisfaction of the customer from the service they received  To understand the impact of service quality dimension on customer satisfaction in private transport service

Literature
Service quality is the ability of the business to meet or exceed customer expectations. It is the degree of the difference between customer anticipation of service and perceived service provided by the service provider ( ParaSurama et-al (1985). There are five principal dimensions that customers use to evaluate service quality identified. These are: reliable-it is able to perform the promised service dependably and accurately; responsiveness-it is a willingness to help customers and provide promoted service; assurance-is the employee's knowledge and consideration and their ability to inspire trust and confidence; empathy-is helpful individualized attention given to customers; tangible-is appearance of physical equipment, facilities personnel and written materials. The dimension denotes how customers organize information about service quality in their mind. (Zeithaml, V. &Bitner,M., 2004) C.T. Amponsah and S. Adam, (2016), ordinarily, service quality refers to the assessment of how well a delivered service conforms to customers' expectation. Service quality as customer perception of how well a service meets or exceeds their expectations through the service that provided. In other words, the service quality is evaluated based on the customers' expectations and perceptions towards the service that they received. Customer expectation is what the customer expects, according to available resources and is influenced by cultural background, family lifestyle, personality, demographics, advertising, experience with similar products and information available online. Customer perception is totally subjective and is based on the customer's interaction with the product or service. Perception is derived from the customer's satisfaction of the specific product or service and the quality of service delivery. These service quality constructs are consistent with Parasuraman et al.'s (1990) view that service quality is an extrinsically-perceived attribution based on the customer's experience about the service that the customer perceives through the service encounter.
Service quality has defined a service as any act of performance that one can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in ownership of anything. Service quality is a term which describes a comparison of expectations with performance. Service quality is meeting the customer's expectations. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product. A service is an "economic activity offered by one party to another" (Mudenda&Guga (2017). Gronroos (2000) suggested further that services are a series of processes and procedures that leads to an outcome, which will give solutions to customer's problems, during partly simultaneous production and consumption processes.
Satisfaction is the consumer's fulfillment response, and the degree to which the level of fulfillment is pleasant or unpleasant. It is the evaluation of the perceived difference between expectations and the actual performance of the product/service as perceived through its consumption. Satisfaction is a person's feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product's perceived performance (or outcome) in relation to his or her expectation". Customer satisfaction and service quality are interrelated. The higher the service quality, the higher is the customer satisfaction. (C.T. Amponsah and S. Adam, (2016). The high quality relationship with customers is the main influence of a successful service provider "which determines customer satisfaction and loyalty (David NyongesaMurambi and Prof. Henry M. Bwisa 2014) European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1905(Paper) ISSN 2222-2839(Online) Vol.12, No.13, 2020 Dimension of service quality The ten determinant of service quality could be collapsed into five dimensions of service quality these are: • Reliability: dependability of service provider and accuracy of performance • Responsiveness: promptness and help fullness. • Assurance: knowledge and curtsey of employees and their ability to in spire trust and confidence. • Empathy: caring in devitalized attention the firm gives its customer • Tangible: including the physical components of the service e.g. seating lighting etc. customer uses these five dimensions to form their judgments service quality which are based on comparison between expected and perceived service. The gap between expected and perceived service is a measure of service quality. Satisfaction is either negative or positive (Kotler, P and Keller, K. L. 2009). In developing SERVQUAL, Parasuraman 1988 as cited by, Sokchan Ok and ThammanoonHengsadeeku 2018) ) recast the 10 determinants into five principal dimensions: Assistant examination prompted the finding that the five of ten measurements were corresponded as demonstrated as follows: (1) Tangibility: physical offices, hardware, and appearance of faculty; (2) Reliability: capacity to play out the guaranteed service constantly and precisely; (3) Responsiveness: readiness to help customers and give incite service; (4) Assurance: learning and obligingness of employees and their capacity to move trust and confidence; and (5) Empathy: minding individualized consideration the firm gives to its customers. On the other side, Cronin and Taylor (1994) argue that SERVPERF model is better than SERVQUAL in terms of explained variance in overall measure. In SERVPERF model, "expected service" component of SERVQUAL model is and instead "performance" component alone be used (Cronin and Taylor, 1992, as cited by KübraŞimşekOrkunDemirbağ,2017)

Research Methodology
This study used a descriptive survey research design. The target population was the users of private minibus transport service between Dessie and the western districts of South Wollo Administrative zone, Amhara regional State.
This route was chosen because of the higher mobility of people daily from the districts to Dessie and from Dessie city to the districts. The only transport option in the area, private minibus transport was used for the study. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data. There have three parts. Part one is about demographic information on respondents, such as gender, age, occupation and frequency of acquired service per year. Part two perceived service quality questionnaire has five separate sections for the five independent variables tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Each section has 4 or 5 questions. Part three consists of 1 question measuring the dependent variable customer satisfaction. 5point Likert scale is was used with 1 "strongly disagree" and 5 "strongly agree.The total numbers of passenger are increasing day to day and also more increase in some particular pick-season. Therefore, on average, 800 passengers to and from Dessie daily transported to selected districts. Target respondents were persons that are in the age range above 18years old who have the experience of using private minibus transport. Sampling techniques for this study was Convenience sampling technique. The sample size is determined using the Sloven formula; which states as follows, Where n=Sample size, N=Accessible population and e=Level of significance at 0.05, to select 267 customers from a total of 800 customers expected daily. The formal data collection was carried out by distributing the finalized questionnaires to the minibus passengers who were waiting at the bus station and minibus stops. After one week of collecting, 267 passengers, i.e. 67 from each route (Route Leg ambo, Tenta, Borena and Woreilu), participated in the survey.

Analysis of the study
This study was conducted through the returned questionnaire with 221 respondents who have experience in using European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1905(Paper) ISSN 2222-2839(Online) Vol.12, No.13, 2020 minibus transport services travelling from Dessie to the western part of South Wollo Administrative zone and vice versa. The questionnaire consisted of three sections as follows: 1) Demographic information: (gender, age, occupation and frequency of travel) 2) This section is measured the customer's perception that relate to 5 dimensions of SERVQUAL (Tangibles, Reliability, Assurance, Empathy, and Responsiveness). 3) This section also measures overall customer satisfaction with minibus quality transport service.
The reliability of the tools was also checked. The obtained values of Cronbach's alpha range, from 0.715 to 0.850, is higher than 0.6 (Hair et al., 2006). The preliminary data on the test yielded Tangibles 0.783, Reliability 0.715, Responsiveness 0.850, Assurance 0.779 and Empathy 0.760.This was above the range for the appropriateness of the tools.  (Table 1). The sample involved of 63.3% male and 36.7 % female customers, 56.1%, 39.8%, and 9% of the respondents ranges from 30-50 years, 18.29 years, and 51-65 years respectively. Regard occupation 41.6%, 34.4%, 12%, 9% and 9% of the respondents are merchants, civil servants, students, farmers and others respectively. The frequency of service used by customer within one year, 51.14%, 34.84% and14. 02%, of the sample comprised 5-8 times, 2-4 times and above 8 times. Hence, the personal profile of the respondents revealed that the majority users of minibus transport services are males,merchant, adults with travel frequency of 5-8 Times.

SERVQUAL's 5 Dimensions Results
This section shows descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation data of perception of the respondents depended on SERVQUAL's 5 dimensions. The questionnaires' results are sorted by dimension. The number 1-5 in the table represents the satisfaction rating, which shows as follows; 1) strongly disagree 2) Disagree 3) Average4) Agree and 5) strongly agree The above table 2 revels that the perception of customers and their satisfaction rating on a tangible dimension which shows as follows: 1) Excellent Minibus transport business has modern vehicles. The majority response for this item is disagree(46.2 %) 2) Minibus transport business physical facilities are visually appealing (Disagree 54, 3%) 3) Minibus transport business employees are well dressed and appear neat (Disagree 53.8 %); 4) Minibus transport has ample leg room, foot space and comfort seats for the passenger (Strongly Disagree 38%).Thus, through the results in table 2 indicates that almost customers rated on their service quality of tangible dimension are at dissatisfied. Regarding to the table above, the reliability dimension results show as follows: 1) When Minibus transport employees promises to do something by a certain time, it does so. The majority response for this item was (Disagree 48.9%) 2) When you have problems, Minibus transport business is sympathetic and supportive (Disagree 45.2%) 3) When you use Minibus transport business you feel dependable (Disagree53.4%) 4) Minibus transport business provides its services at the time it promises to do so (Strongly Disagree37, 6%) and 5) Minibus transport vehicles are never broken down on the road (Average 44.8 %). The result shows that the highest rating of reliability dimension that had been rated by passengers is disagree.  Table 4 presents to the satisfaction rating on responsive dimension which shows as follows: 1) Minibus transport business tell customers exactly when services will be performed. The response rate was (Disagree 43%); 2) you receive prompt service from Minibus transport business employees and they return the change promptly (Disagree 41.6%); 3) Employees of Minibus transport business are willing to help customers(Disagree 49.3%); 4) Minibus transport business employees are responding quickly to customer request. (Strongly disagree 31.2 %). European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1905(Paper) ISSN 2222-2839(Online) Vol.12, No.13, 2020 6 Therefore, with the results in table 4 shows that almost all customers rated on the service quality of responsive dimension are at disagree 4.2.4. Assurance  Table 5disclose to the satisfaction rating on assurance dimension which shows as follows: 1) You can trust employees of Minibus transport business the majority of the respondent answered (Disagree 46.2% ) ; 2) You feel safe in your transactions with Minibus transport business employee(Disagree 53.8%) ; 3) Employees of Minibus transport business have adequate knowledge and skill ( Disagree 54,8%) ; 4) Employees of Minibus transport business are polite (Strongly Disagree 38%), Therefore, with the results in table 5 indicates that almost customers rated on the service qualityof assurance dimension at "Disagree".  Table 6, the results reveal that as following: 1) Minibus transport business gives you individual attention the majority respond as (Disagree 48.4%);2) Minibus transport employee does not ask payment more than the price of transport (Disagree 46.2%); 3) Employees of Minibus transport business know what your needs are (Disagree 54.3%) 4) Minibus transport business have your best interests at heart. (Strongly disagree 35.3%);and 5) Minibus transport business has operating hours convenient to all their customers (Average 45.2%). As results, the highest rating of empathy dimension was at "disagree" that had been rated by almost customers. , the results reveal that as following: 1) Overall, how satisfied are you with private minibus transport service (Dissatisfied 48.4%). As results, the highest rating of customer satisfaction was at "dissatisfied" that had been rated by the majority of customers.  Vol.12, No.13, 2020 7 (Table 8) shows on the 5-point Likert scale the tangible item that the response to the (M= 2.21, SD=0.48). This indicates that the mean averages below 3 shows customers were not satisfied with the average items under tangibles. Regarding to the reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and customer satisfaction the result revealed that (M= 2.14, SD= 0.57), (M= 2.19,SD= 0.86), (M= 1.99,SD= 0.66), (M= 2.19,SD= 0.62) and (M=1.88,SD=.76) respectively. The result of descriptive statistics shows that customers were not satisfied under all service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. Thus, from the analyzed data of this study concludes that customer or those samples, respondents were not satisfied by the service delivery of minibus transport service in selected districts of the western part of South Wollo administrative zone. (2-tailed) **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Correlation Analysis
The above table 9 indicates the relationship between service quality dimensions (Tangibility, Reliability, Responsive, Assurance, and Empathy) and customer satisfaction, Pearson correlation was computed. The results of Pearson correlation on the relationship between service quality dimension and customer satisfaction are significant and positive relationship. Among the five dimensions of service quality and customer satisfaction, the relatively the highest correlation is between assurance and customer satisfaction (0.487) followed by tangibles (0.372), reliability (0.341), responsive (.117), and empathy (015). Relatively the weakest correlation is empathy and responsiveness with customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction, whereas; there is moderate significant and positive correlation with the other variables.

Regression Analysis
This study used the regression model to look at the effects of tangible, reliability, assurance, responsive and empathy on customer satisfaction. A multiple regression model is produced to customer satisfaction as the dependent variable and Tangible, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy as the independent variables reliability, assurance and responsiveness variables are positively and significantly influence the level of customer satisfaction. Hence, assurance, reliability, tangibility and responsiveness have relatively big impact with value of standardized coefficient β 0.951, 0.681, 0.281and.134on customer satisfaction followed by empathy with value of β 0.041. Empathy has the lowest positive and insignificant impact on customer satisfaction.

Discussion and Conclusion
Based on the study of the factors that influence customer satisfaction towards the quality of services provided by private minibus transport service in the western part of South Wollo zone, data gathered from the distribution of questionnaires have been analyzed using SPSS software. The results obtained from these statistical approaches indicate all independent variables have a significant relationship with the dependent variable. The result of descriptive statistics revealed that in all service quality dimensions customers are not satisfied. The results evidence that, independent variables; reliability, assurance, responsiveness and tangible had influenced customers' satisfaction towards the quality of services provided by provided by private minibus transport. In addition, based on the Reliability Test, the Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficients of all the independent variables (reliability, assurance, responsiveness, empathy and tangible) results were obtained. The result indicates that the Cornbach's Alpha was above the range for the appropriateness of the tools. The results in Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Assurance with the value of 0.487 is shown significantly. Based on the result, it indicates that assurance contributes the most that influenced customers' satisfaction towards the quality of services provided by private minibus transport. Beside of this, the result of regression analysis indicates that assurance and reliability have a relatively big impact on customer satisfaction. But, Empathy has the lowest positive and insignificant impact on customer satisfaction.

Recommendation
Finally, the relation between quality service provision and customer satisfaction is obviously observed in the results of this study. Hence, private minibus transport service providers should first focus on understanding customers' needs and their expectations before implementing the suitable service strategy to meet the customers' needs.
The private minibus transport service continues to find effective ways to improve its service quality in every dimension (tangible, reliability, assurance, empathy, and responsiveness), in order to maintain the customer's requirement and satisfaction.
The transport business organization should arrange training for service providers or operators about customer handling and customer relationship management.