An Assessment of Villagers’ Satisfaction with the Quality of Construction-Related Services Based on the SERVQUAL Model

Abstract

Improving the quality of civil services offered to rural areas in order to empower them in terms of the rural development process depends on feedbacks received from the rural residents. Underestimating the viewpoints, demands and expectations of rural residents has brought about many challenges in the process of serving the villages. Therefore, identifying strengths and weaknesses of various aspects of service-rendering quality allows rural planners to achieve the objectives, to implement projects and to cope with the shortcomings. Accordingly, this study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the rural residents’ satisfaction with the quality of the construction-related services in terms of SERVQUAL model. As a descriptive-analytic study, it was conducted on 400 households in Lorestan province villages (southwestern of Iran) by a random sample. Analysis of the average significance and satisfaction in all aspects of SERVQUAL scale indicates a big gap between the expectations and perceptions of the rural residents about the construction-related services provided by the Housing Foundation in terms of aesthetics, reliability, confidence, accountability and empathy. However, in some dimensions of the mentioned five dimensions, some improvements have been reported in contrast to the villages’ condition in the past. However, ignoring the rural residents’ demands has widened the gap between their perception and expectations about the effective services.