Quality Of Service Delivery And Quality Management
The level of citizen satisfaction with the quality and standard of government services is measured by service quality in the public sector. It is a comparison of a citizen's expectations and the performance of a public servant.
SQ = P - E is the equation for service quality. Where;
• SQ stands for service quality.
• The individual's perceptions of a given service delivery are denoted by the letter P.
• E denotes a person's expectations for a specific service delivery.
Service quality is deemed low when customer expectations exceed their perceptions of received delivery. Service quality is high when perceptions exceed expectations. The services will be delivered in accordance with the Service Agreement. This entails the following:
• Providing services in a timely and efficient manner while maintaining the high level of care and foresight expected of a seasoned provider
• Acting in accordance with the highest professional ethics, principles, and standards that are applicable
• Demonstrating a commitment to ethical practises and behaviours, as well as putting these practises in place through proper training and monitoring.
FIVE DIMENSIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY
In 1988, a group of American authors created the gaps model, which is also known as the service quality model. It emphasises the most important aspects of high-quality service. After testing and retesting, the SERVQUAL authors discovered that some of the dimensions were auto correlated, and the total number of dimensions was reduced to five, namely reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness.
• These five dimensions are thought to represent service quality dimensions in a variety of industries and settings. Students of marketing frequently use the mnemonic RATER, which is an acronym formed from the first letter of each of the five dimensions.
1. Reliability: The ability to deliver on a promise with consistency and accuracy. It entails acquiring the necessary skills to provide the services.
2. Assurance: Employees' ability to convey trust and confidence to citizens, as well as their knowledge and courtesy.
3. Tangibles: The physical appearance of facilities, equipment, personnel, and communications materials. This will boost the organization's credibility even more.
4. Empathy: Providing customers with compassionate, knowledgeable, and personalised service.
5. Responsiveness: An eagerness to assist customers and provide prompt service. It also entails making yourself available to clients. This model can be used to identify the causes of poor service delivery in the Indian government.
• For example, in government offices, a lack of aesthetic sense and an unsanitary environment frequently results in a reduction in the 'tangibles' factor of service quality. Similarly, government officials' lack of empathy for people reduces the 'empathy' component.
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management strategy that dates back to the 1950s and has grown in popularity steadily since the early 1980s. Total quality refers to a company's culture, attitude, and organisation with the goal of providing customers with products and services that meet their needs. The Quality Council of India, which is part of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, has included some TQM components, as well as the RATER Model, in its training manual for government offices in order to improve service quality.
An organisation must focus on the following eight key elements to be successful in implementing TQM:
1. Morality
2. Reliability
3. Confidence
4. Education
5. Collaboration
6. Leadership
7. Appreciation
8. Communication
TQM is a term used to describe a philosophy that prioritises quality in leadership, design, planning, and improvement efforts. TQM relies on those eight key elements to accomplish this. According to their function, these elements can be divided into four groups. The following are the groups:
I. Establishment – Ethics, Integrity, and Trust are all part of it. Ethics, integrity, and trust are the cornerstones of TQM. It encourages openness, fairness, and sincerity, as well as everyone's participation. This is the key to maximising TQM's full potential.
II. Bricks for Construction – Bricks are laid to reach the roof of recognition, based on a strong foundation of trust, ethics, and integrity. It consists of three components: training, teamwork, and leadership. Employees' interpersonal skills, teamwork ability, problem-solving, decision-making, job management performance analysis and improvement, business economics, and technical skills are all ensured through training.
III. Mortar for Binding – Communication is one of them. Communication is the glue that holds everything together. Everything in the TQM house is connected by strong communication mortar, from the foundation to the roof. It serves as a vital link between all TQM components. The term "communication" refers to the sender and receiver sharing a common understanding of ideas.
IV. Roof – It consists of the following features: Recognition. Individuals and teams should be recognised for their contributions and accomplishments. The most important job of a supervisor is to detect and recognise contributors. When people are recognised, their self-esteem, productivity, quality, and the amount of effort they put into the task at hand can all change dramatically.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF SECOND ARC
Second ARC, in its twelfth report, 'Citizen Centric Administration - the Heart of Governance,' believes that making administration more citizen-centric is the best way to improve service quality. As a result, the commission has recommended that the Union and State governments make the Seven Step Model for Citizen Centricity mandatory for all government agencies.
The ARC Seven Step Model for Citizen Centricity
1. Define: all of the services you offer, as well as your clients in the broadest sense possible. It will aid in the development of an understanding of citizens' needs.
2. Establish: service-specific standards and norms. 'What cannot be measured never gets done,' as the saying goes. Obtaining feedback from clients on their expectations for each of the identified services would be a good place to start. It is critical that these goals are realistic and attainable. A mechanism for resolving complaints should be included in this exercise. These principles should then be incorporated into the Citizen's Charter.
3. Establish: the ability to meet the established standards. Traditional training would be part of capacity building, but it would also include instilling the right values, creating a customer-centric culture within the organisation, and increasing employee motivation and morale.
4. Perform in order to meet the standards. Internal mechanisms must be developed to ensure that each individual and unit within the organisation performs to the required level. Organizations would be able to guide individual performance toward organisational goals if they had a good performance management system.
5. Commitment: Keep track of how well you're doing in comparison to the goals you've set. Given that all commitments must be included in the Citizen's Charter, it would be preferable to have an automatic mechanism in place that alerts the public to any violations of committed standards.
6. Assessment: Use an independent mechanism to assess the impact. This assessment could take the form of a random survey, a citizens' report card, citizen feedback during periodic interactions, or even a professional assessment. An assessment of this nature would reveal whether the unit is citizen-centric or not. It would also point out areas where progress has been made as well as areas where more progress is needed. This would be used as an input in the system's ongoing evaluation.
7. Monitoring and evaluation: New services would have to be introduced in response to rising citizen expectations, standards would have to be revised based on monitoring and evaluation, and internal capability and systems would need to be upgraded on a regular basis.
SEVOTTAM MODEL
Sevottam is a public service delivery model developed by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). The government accepted the 2nd ARC's Seven Step Model for Citizen Centricity and directed all ministries to implement it in their operations. Under the name Sevottam, DARPG documented the Seven Step Model.
• Sevottam is a Hindi word that combines two Hindi words: 'Seva' (service) and 'Uttam' (excellence). The Sevottam Model is now widely recognised as a standard model for delivering services in citizen-centered governance.
Sevottam Framework's Three Modules: Sevottam focuses primarily on the following three key elements:
1. Consultative process: Develop a realistic Citizen's Charter and it concentrates on:
a. Implementation
b. Monitoring
c. Review
• These charters list an organization's services, as well as its deadlines and quality standards. Citizen charters give people the power to demand quality service and seek redress if it is not provided. As a result, the Citizen's / Client's Charter makes public services more citizen-centric by focusing on demand rather than supply.
2. Dispute Resolution Mechanism: Identification of services provided, service delivery processes, control, and delivery requirements. It concentrates on:
a. Receipt
b. Redress
c. Prevention
• This mechanism aids in the timely and systematic redress of citizen grievances.
3. Public Service Delivery Capability: A complaint-handling procedure that focuses on:
a. Customers
b. Employees
c. Infrastructure
• It uses management techniques such as information management systems and capability gap analysis to augment human and technological resources for better service delivery.
Seven targets of Sevottam:
1. Timeliness: The Citizens' Charter lists time standards for specific services.
2. The services and standards: These are established after extensive consultation with various stakeholders.
3. Efficiency: A single window system for service deliverables is being implemented to reduce assessees' time spent hopping from one desk to the next in order to receive services.
4. Responsiveness: a strong grievance redress system is required to listen to assesses grievances and promptly address them.
5. Courteous behaviour: The Citizens' Charter lays out the expectations for behaviour, particularly in situations where assesses are present, and pro-active feedback on service delivery is gathered to assess this.
6. Information: facilitation and help centres are targeted to meet information needs assessments.
7. Empathy: Assessors require public grievance officers to listen to them in their time of need.
Benefits of Sevottam implementation:
• Makes the government more accessible to citizens, accountable, and transparent.
• Enhances the efficiency and quality of service delivery.
• Improve the office's cleanliness and physical space.
• Reduces the number of complaints, as well as corruption and negligence.
• Immediately resolves the majority of complaints.
• Removes out-of-date activities, as well as waste of money and resources.