The Effect of Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction towards ADSL Broadband Internet Service Provided by Ethiotelecom with Reference to Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Subscribers in Hawassa City, Ethiopia

Abstract

Customer service becomes the most imperative aspect of business accomplishment in most industries. However, the study of customer satisfaction never ends due to the reason of dynamic behavior of searching their satisfaction, and service quality can deliver a good measurement means to predict their satisfaction. Thus, the aim of this research was to examine the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction towards ADSL broadband internet service provided by Ethiotelecom with reference to SME subscribers in Hawassa City. To this end, modified SERVQUAL model has applied with additional important variable, Network quality. The study has conducted with a questionnaire survey method under descriptive and explanatory research design. To select representative sample, the probability sampling techniques, stratified sampling was applied. Altogether out of the 322 distributed questionnaire, 320 (99%) were used for analyzing the study. For the analysis, both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 24. Majorly, multiple linear regression models were applied to estimate the effect of each SERVQUAL dimension on customers’ satisfaction. The overall finding revealed that all factors had positive and statistically significant effect on customer satisfaction towards ADSL broadband internet services. Even though it has high effect in overall view, network quality is the most influential factor which can influence the overall satisfaction of the customers. This is evident to say that SME customers are demanding more improvements on the network quality aspects of broadband internet service than the other service quality dimensions. The finding also shows that the majority of respondents (63.4%) are dissatisfied. Thus, Ethiotelecom should work hard to improve its customer’s satisfaction. And the researcher expects that the findings of this research would be useful for Ethiotelecom in formulating appropriate strategies and addressing the area of attention for the network improvement and expansion of broadband internet service in the whole country.

Keywords:service quality, customer satisfaction, SERVQUAL, ADSL broad band internet service, network quality

DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/88-01

Publication date: January 31^st 2023