ABSTRACT
Huduma Kenya seeks to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of Huduma Centre. One important area that defines how well and efficient the Centres deliver its services to customers is its queue management practices. To enhance service delivery, a proper queuing system is needed. Thus the main purpose of this study is to establish the relationship between queue management practices and customer satisfaction in the Huduma centers in Kenya. The specific objectives are to determine the relationship between customer arrivals, waiting line, service time and service facility layout and customer satisfaction in the Huduma Centre. The study focused on the customers of the Huduma Centre. The sample size of the population was determined by simple random sampling strategy. The target population is the customer of Huduma Centre in Nakuru County. The study targeted a population sample size of 384 customers. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire comprising of closed-ended questions that were administered by the researcher. The quantitative data was organized and processed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17. The presentation of the research was done using descriptive statistics by way of percentages, proportions and frequency distributions of responses to summarize the data. In order to test the hypothesis the inferential statistics such as the Pearson Product-Moment correlation and Regression analysis tests statistics were used in order to establish the relationship between queue management practices and customer satisfaction. For general reasons, this study used 5% significance level for all the tests statistics. The study established a significant and positive relationship between queue management practices and the customer satisfaction. The results of this study would assist policymakers to improve public services rendered in Huduma Centre in Kenya and help these Centres to employ best queue management practices in order to enhance success and economic growth.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
This study established the relationship between queue management practices and customer
satisfaction in the Huduma Centre. This part therefore consists of the background study of queuing, statement of problem, objective, scope, significance and limitations.
Background of the Study
The Public sector in Kenya has witnessed dramatic reforms contextualized within the new Constitution, promulgated in 2010 and took shape after the 2013 elections all in an effort to establish citizen service centres as primary service delivery channels in all the 47 Counties (Waiguru, 2013).Despite these entire spurious efforts, one phenomenon remains inevitable: queue. Queues are often employed in order to achieve discipline and serenity at facility centers. The word queue comes through French and the Latin Cauda meaning “tail.” The act of queuing is associated with waiting, which is an inevitable part of the day to day life (Hillier, 2012).
Unmanaged queues are detrimental to the gainful operation of service systems and results in a lot of other managerial hitches. Queue management has received increased attention in the last couple of years, due to the fact that swiftness of service has been shown to provide a firm with a competitive edge in the market (Chase, Aquilano, and Jacobs, 2001). The study of queues deals with quantifying the phenomenon of waiting in lines using descriptive measures of performance, such as average queue length, average waiting time in queue and average facility utilization (Hillier, 2012).
A queuing system consists of inputs, queue, and servers at facility centers. Generally, it consists of one or more servers for serving customers arriving in some manner and having some service requests. The customers represent transactions, jobs, users, or programs. They arrive at the service facility for service, waiting for service if there is a waiting chamber, and leave the system after being served (Kariuki and Mageto, 2015). Every so often the customer is lost for directions for receiving services. The arrival of these customers is not necessarily regular and so the time taken for service is not uniform. Queues build up during hours of demand and disappear during the lull period. Service rendered to customers almost always demand that they form queues. It is a normal phenomenon for people to spend a great deal of time in queues or in waiting lines.
Udayabhanu, Kekre, and Srinivasan, (2010) established that overcrowding in queuing systems has serious consequences so that it is never optimal to operate at 100% utilization levels. He developed an expression for the optimal utilization level for an M/D/1 queue and established its similarity to the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) model of the inventory literature. The model can be used to achieve an optimal mean arrival rate, or to appropriately adjust the attainable capacity so that the desired utilization level is achieved.
Brahma, (2013), stated that queuing theory employs mathematical models and performance measures to evaluate and absolutely improve the movement of customers through a queuing system. Queuing theory has been used widely by the service industries and has uncountable applications. Queuing theory has been used in the past to evaluate such things as the working environment, staff schedules, customer waiting time, customer waiting environment and productivity. Hence, queuing theory is appropriate to be applied in the management of these queues, since it is associated with queue or waiting line, where customers who cannot be served instantly have to queue and wait for service for a long time and time being a resource, ought to be managed effectively and efficiently since time is money.
Customer satisfaction has come to be viewed as a key business strategy of every business and a benchmark against which many organizations have set their standards. Sustaining prevailing customers for organizations is ever more important than the ability to capture new ones because customers are vital to any organization‟s success (Anubav, 2010). Without customers, organizations would have no profits, no resources and therefore no market niches that can enable them to compete in the global arena (Mburu, Zyl, and Cullen, 2013).
This study established the degree of implementation of Huduma Centres‟ queue management practices in terms of customer arrival, waiting line, service time and service facility. It also established the level of satisfaction of the customers in the Huduma Centres‟ queue management practices in areas mentioned. The study is beneficial to the customers because their waiting line and waiting time are very significant factors that enhance satisfaction to customers.
Huduma Centre
Huduma Kenya is a top project in Kenya‟s Vision 2030 flagship captured under the Mid Term plan for 2013 – 2017. It seeks to transform public service delivery by providing citizens‟ access to various public services and information from One Stop Shops (OSSs) citizen service centers called Huduma Centres and through integrated technology platforms provided in each and every county in Kenya.Ultimately, the government aimed at transforming the public service into a professional and customer-centered public service, (Public Service Compliance, 2014).
According to Kiragu, Kariuki, and Ikua, (2015), Huduma Kenya is a „one stop shop‟methodology in restructuring service delivery in the public sector of Kenya. The crucial part of the project is to have access to the remote server and running the entire operations over the thin client connecting to a session of all ministries under one roof. This means that one is able to get birth certificates, national identity cards, passports, registration of business names, and applications for marriage certificates, driving license, police abstracts, electricity payments and many other services in one place rather than moving from one office to another. Thus Huduma Kenya involves bringing services closer to the citizens,effectively and conveniently under one roof.
Kiragu et al., (2015), states that “So far, there are thirty Huduma centers already operational in Kenya, they include, Nairobi – GPO Nairobi, City Square- Haile Sellasie Avenue, Makadara, Machakos, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kakamega, Kisumu, Nyeri, Embu, Mombasa and others. Huduma Kenya Program incorporated online e-citizen web portal to provide integrated services offered by various government ministries, agencies and departments and a unified and integrated channel. Payments are done through Posta-pay or M-Payment for government services obtained in the Huduma centres”.
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Item Type: Kenyan Topic | Size: 57 pages | Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word | Delivery: Within 30Mins.
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