Service Quality and Client Satisfaction: Cases of Multiple Providers of Agricultural Extension Service in Bangladesh

Service quality is referred to a valuation of how good a delivered service meets the customer’s expectation. Upper management

Quality means the total features and characteristics of a product or service that has effects upon its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs (Davidson et al. 2006). All the challenges that managers need to face to are mentioned and defined above, the analysis of the relevance of these challenges and economic results will be addressed in the next paragraph.

Service quality - refers to difference between the level of service that is expected from consumers and the perception of the service that is actually received. (Caruana,

A significant part of all land-grant universities is Cooperative Extension (MSU, n.d). It is a partnership between the land-grant universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide for cooperative agricultural extension work. Today, the Extension Service provides research and non-formal education programs “traditional Extension” or “reaching out” to meet public needs. In Mississippi, county and regional extension offices are providing educational programs on local levels. Mississippi State University Extension Service has been working with farmers and agribusiness owners for over 100 years by providing practical and research-based education programs. The four major program areas covered

Source : Adapted from A. Parasuraman, Valerie Zeithaml, and Leonard Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing, 49 (Fall 1985)

The study employed independent t-test and chi-square test to make a comparison (to make sure the presence or absence of difference) between the participant and non-participant households. The mean values of continuous variables in the two categories were compared using independent t-test. The result of independent t-test pointed out the presence of a significant mean difference between the two categories in terms of age of household head, total household income, frequency of extension contact and distance to market. The result indicated that the mean age of participant households (44.73 years) was less than the non-participant households (48.59 years). The study also showed that those farmers who were participating in off-farm and non-farm activities had relatively better mean total income than non-participants. The mean value of total household income earned by those farmers who were engaged in off-farm and non-farm employment opportunities was Birr 17103.55, while it was birr 7628.77 for non-participant households. Furthermore, it also indicated that those households who were engaged in off-farm and non-farm employment income generating activities had less frequency of extension contact than those households who were not participants in off-farm and non-farm activities. The mean value of extension contact received by participant households was 12.35 contacts, while it was 17.38 for the non-participant household. Moreover, the finding of the study showed that the mean

This construct is the judgment and perception of consumers about the excellence and global superiority of a good or service, compared to other competitors. Unlike objective quality, which are meant to standardize parameters and full functioning (that leads to consumer satisfaction), perceived quality is an attitudinal element, linked to the perception of significance (Parasuraman et al., 1988) . Fullerton (2005) indicates that relationships are built with perceived quality as the foundation. This construct is even stronger when inserted in the service sector, where Kandampully (1998), Hougaard and Bjerre (2003) point out the superiority of the companies where quality is superior.

Service quality represents a fundamental aspect of delivery, which strongly influences consumer satisfaction and, as a result, loyalty. In today’s global market a customer’s service expectation has to be met and exceeded eventually in order to retain customers as well as achieve success. Perceived quality of a product or a service is becoming one of the major competitive factors in the business world and has led to the innovation of the ‘Quality Era’ (Peeler, 1996). In simple words, the comparison of customer expectations with service performance is service quality. On the other hand, customer satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable fulfilment response toward a good, service, benefit, or reward (Oliver, 1997). Both of these

The previous chapter reviewed the agricultural extension practices where extension plays an important role in facilitating changes in a farming community. The literature indicated that there are a lot of extension approaches due to change of ideas, purposes vary, and paradigm shift. It appears that, agricultural extension involves many different approaches and methodologies. And it is managed and delivered through a variety of institutional arrangements. It seems that no single approach best suit extension development in all circumstances.

must understand in order to remain competitive in business and hence grow. It is very

In LDC's where agriculture is the major sector of the economy., very little attention is paid for educating the farmers to the use of modern agricultural practices. Unless the farmers are provided agricultural education and training on the fields, they will not be able to raise the agricultural the outlook of the farmers.

of the respondents are either satisfied (46.5%) or very satisfied (6.9%) with extension service leaving a little less than half (46.5%) in no opinion and dissatisfied category. These findings echoes findings of another study by Akanda & Rokunuzzaman (2012) in Northern Bangladesh on 160 respondents, where 46.9% farmers were found satisfied to moderately satisfied in terms of getting agricultural information.

Commercialization of agriculture is possible by performing agribusiness activities. Entrepreneurial extension is now indispensable and has to perform different roles of promoting production, processing, value addition, trade and marketing. Agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various businesses involved in

4. 2009 RVHS Year 5 End of Year Exams Paper CSQ1: Challenges of the Agricultural Sector

Farmers do face lot of difficulties with the middlemen. The problems of our farmers to be understood and State Governments should give utmost priority as to how to protect our Agriculture. We can not ignore our Agriculture which provides livelihood to majority of Indians even now either directly or indirectly. Our State Government Agri Departments should function efficiently addressing the problems of the farmers from time to time. We need to maintain a modest Agri growth while focusing on the