MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY IN THE PUBLIC-SECTOR - THE POTENTIAL FOR SERVQUAL

The use of a variety of measures of service quality in the private sec tor as critical indicators of both organizational performance and gene ral customer satisfaction is widely accepted and has given rise to con siderable empirical research. Organizations operating within the publi c sector - health care organizations, local government, police, emerge ncy services, government agencies-have also come to realize that custo mer service and quality are critical strategic issues in the late 1990 s. However, it is also widely recognized that such public sector organ izations face particular difficulties in measuring service quality. In this article, the authors discuss the major issues public sector orga nizations need to address in their search for art adequate measure of service quality, assess the potential of the SERVQUAL instrument for t he public sector and report on an application of the instrument to a p ublic library service.