Citizen Service Centres (KEP): Perceptions of Customers

Citizen swear out Centres (KEP) Perceptions of Customers1. Introduction1.1 Importance of the Re assay accord to the philosophic bases of trade node requisites satis featureion. As the consumer is the key for a firm, the elector is the r ally chemical element for a presidential term or party (Lock and Harri,1996).In this context the citizen voter wants satis situationion and probing his gladness from the helpers that ar offered to him is a electron lens through with(predicate) which government and popular fill inrs apprize gain a repair perspective on how citizens respond to the performance of prevalent aids, (Van Ryzin , 2004) and offers important findings for the insurance makers.Citizen satiscircumstanceion surveys ar frequently commitd by U.S. local governments and common tribunal researchers in outrank to measure the flavor of local government proceeds (Hatry et al., 1992 Miller and Kobayashi, 2000). A big number of U.S. cities enjoyment surveys on a regular basis (New York , San Francisco, Phoenix etc.),in order to analyze in a descriptive and uniform way , the level of perceived grapheme of go ,within a vicinity and over era (Van Ryzin et al., 2004).Recent studies pose comp bed citizen satisfaction with benchmarks that were developed from selective information collected across umteen localities (Miller and Miller 1991 Miller and Kobayashi 2000), and micturate rivet on the individual, jurisdictional, and city-specific determinants of citizen ratings of dish tonicity (De Hoog, Lowery, and Lyons 1990 Hero and Durand 1985),like taxes and expenditure ,and also on demographic and socio economical characteristics of respondents such(prenominal) as race (Schuman and Gruenberg, 1972).Other investigations have negotiated the citizen satisfaction from the police according to their ethnoracial characteristics (Brad W. S. 2005), or satisfaction from the education musical arrangement or from hospitals (Amyx,Bristow ,2001, Suda Anita D.,1998).The vastness of the public receiptss quality became popular in the United Kingdom at 1990s when the governmental parties put an speech pattern on the subject , yet even in our mean solar days the exigency for quality receiptss that meet client citizens needs and expectations, is more(prenominal) and more explicit .This need for quality public go is even expressed by the European Social Fund, as the implementation of the strategy and policies of the European perpetration at Member States ,is strongly related with the public service organizations, which some of them are responsible for (ESF,2009).And although, in the marketing research exist a number of well-developed shams of approaching node satisfaction, there has been little development of a model that would sort citizens satisfaction.As a pass on, it would be valuable to test such a model in the framework of Greek public service.1.2 The Research ObjectivesThe overall objective of this research i s to examine the Greek citizens experiences and expectations of service quality concerning the Citizen attend to Centres (KEP) -a Greek public service based on servqual model. From this overall objective a number of more specific aims clear be identifiedInvestigate consumer expectations towards the service offered from public services see citizen perceptions closely Citizen military service Centres(KEP)Asses the factors that play an important piece in the service quality of Citizen Service Centres (KEP)2. Literature Review2.1 Politics and the marketing judgmentIt has a great deal been argued that the application of marketing beams and instruments in politics is nonhing late (Perloff, 1999 Baines and Egan, 2001).In the last twenty-five years what have changed about the governmental marketing is not just the size of political marketing management but also the belief that political actors act and think in political terms. Political actors are them that they try to do marke ting management in a frame of integration of marketing instruments in a dogged marketing strategy (Newman, 1994a Dermody and Scullion, 2001).It is supposed that the selling of politicians and the selling of a increase is linked (OShaughnessy, 2001) and that commercial and political contexts are subjectively similar (Kotler, 1999). galore(postnominal) marketers believe that the tools and fancys of marketing sess be transferred directly to the political scope (Lock and Harris ,1996) .The applications of political marketing are apply as a tool of managing politics, developing policy (Nimmo, 1999), or even governing (OShaughnessy, 2003).The marketing pattern in commercial terms is based on the principle that all fraternity planning and operations ordain be client oriented. As such the philosophical basis of the marketing concept is that customer want satisfaction (OCass, 1996).When a political party or candidate applies this concept to the political help, they must be in a po sition to hold to and satisfy voters needs (Mauser, 1983 Newman and Sheth, 1987 Reid, 1988).For major(ip) mainstream parties, the overriding objective is to attract voters, get elections and hold power (Lock and Harris, 1996).In this extent k nowadaysing the stagecoach of satisfaction of citizens seems to be important.2.2 CitizenCitizen is every person of a resign that has the citizenship of it (New Encyclopaedia, 2006).According the take aim and the beat different criteria were used to define the citizen .The genealogical bar, which is the oldest, the legal criterion and the economic (taxation) criterion .According to the first, citizen is the son of citizen that hasnt lost his decents. This definition was used in the quaint cities in order to distinguish the mass from the public.According to the second criterion citizen is to each one one that is recognized like that from the honor. And finally, according to the last , citizen is each one that owns property or a quantit y of pricys and contributes to the governmental cypher (Encyclopaedia Papyrus Larousse Britannica, 1992).Citizens have some rights and obligations .Their rights are political such as the right to vote, to be member of the jury or public servant , and personal such as the right to live ,to have free people speech , to work, to live in freedom ,etc . ,that are protected from the claim and are given to everyone.Citizens obligations such as taxation are restrain in order to protect the privileges that are offered to citizens from the government and they emerge from the need of the States existence (New Encyclopaedia, 2006). One of the governmental works is the provision of goods and services. All the raw governments take part directly to the economy by providing goods and services , organising industrial enterprises I promoting economic activities .Providing sanitary, education, and benign insurance services , is one of the youthful give ins concerns (Heinz Eulau ,1992).2.3 Ci tizens as Customers, Customers as CitizensThe classic definition of customer is one who purchases or receives a product or service (Carlson, 1997).The concept of customer is often more complicated in the public celestial sphere. For example, the city of Coral Springs in Florida, refined the idea by considering two distinct categories of external customers. Moreover, a building permit applicant is a direct customer magical spell the applicants neighbors are among the indirect customers who will benefit if the decision helps to ensure a safer city and more remove land use and construction practices. save even with these refinements, citizen some hitchs has a broader meaning. Citizens enjoy rights and take on responsibilities that report well beyond those commonly recognized to customers (Popovich, 1999).Despite the passage of generations, the fact that government cannot succeed without the peoples trust and support, is a true even today.These essential elements of gracious soc iety shape the capacity and help determine the definite performance of government. Societys efforts to accomplish its highest priority and most hardheaded goals are potential to fall short in the absence of the peoples agreement in the functions of government. As the customer is the key for a firm, the citizen -voter is the central element for a government.2.4 human beings servicesA service is a non material product (education, health safety etc).The meaning of public services isnt constrained in the compass of Public and dministrative law .The public service is a known signification in the economy, as an appropriate tool of the states expansion in the br some otherly relations, for the preservation of stabilized provisions for the wel furthere state. Beyond the needs of the of practical policy, the come to of the political science with the expansions of the political philosophy is expressed , as the public service is characterized as the expansion of the state in its socia l activity . In other words , it is the way by which the state assembles the citizens in order to cover their direct needs .After the two demesne Wars this phenomenon is ob armed serviced in the European area .In Germany , this works as Anstalten (institutions) and the offentlichen Unternehmungen (public enterprises) . The administration (the welfare state) undertakes and guarantees benefits even for the preservation of life of human who live massively in big cities such as transportation ,cleanliness , water , electrical energy etc.he principles of function of the public services are machine-accessible with the needs and social aims that are tended to fulfil. Therefore, services are yieldd to everyone in the identical way in order to cover the needs, under conditions that change from time to time (Encyclopaedia Papyrus Larousse Britannica ,1992 ).According to the Europa Glossary that is being updated given the novel signing of the Treaty of Lisbon ,the concept of public serv ice is .At the same time the Europa Glossary defines thatcontinuity of servicequality credential of supplyequal accessaffordable pricessocial , cultural and environmental acceptabilityArticle 16 of the EC Treaty, introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, confirms the role of public services in the European Union. The EU policy on operators of public services is still shaped by the desire to change network public services and to widen the scope of competition on national markets, be this, in the areas of rail transport, postal services, energy or tele confabulations.2.5 Citizen Service Centres (KEP)The institution of KEP was founded in 2002, based on an idea of the substitute take care Mr Beno.The KEP were founded according to the article 31 of law 3013/2002 and were staffed with short term labour agreement workers, according to the processes of article 6 of law 2527/1997.According to the Ministry of inborn Affairs (2007), over 60.000 of citizens visit every day Citizen Service Cent res (KEP) for certified or not processes, ratifications of modifications, certifications of genuine signature and every kind of administrative information. The last three years 40 impertinent KEP were founded and now they are 1035 at their jibe.The centres are open Monday to Friday, 800 to 2000, and Saturday, 800 to 1400.At Citizen Service Centres (KEP) citizens can obtain information on what they need to do in order to manage their motions with the municipality* resign applications for the processing of matters that involve the City that the KEP is registered and state agencies in accordance with pronounce decisions loosed by the Interior Minister or other competent Minister(City of capital of Greece ,2007). few of the procedures (about 1.014 at total) that Citizens can carry out at Citizen Service Centres are the following The registration or transfer of registration of a passenger vehicle or pedal The egress of a have a bun in the oven surety pair The issuance of a cr iminal accede duplicate for general or legal use The issuance of a marital status certificate The issuance of a birth certificate duplicate for those registered with the City of Athens The application for a rent grant for the year 2006 to Workers Housing Organisation beneficiaries (former recipients) The issuance of a registry birth certificate duplicate for an adult or minor The issuance of a public transport pass for individuals with disabilities The application for the seasonal unemployment benefit in accordance with Article 22 of Law1836/89 OAED (Greek manpower betrothal Organisation) The issuance of a marital status certificate for individuals registered with the City of Athens (online) The application for a rent subsidy for the year 2006 to Workers Housing disposal beneficiaries (new recipients) The issuance of a marriage license duplicate The application for the OAED (Greek Manpower Employment Organization) family subsidy The issuance of a drivers license The issuance o f a Type A military status certificate (full) The renewal of a drivers license The issuance of a registry death certificate duplicate The application for change in passenger vehicle or motorcycle ownership The issuance of a permanent residence certificate The issuance of a judicial interdiction certificateSee Appendix 1Progressively KEP were transformed to Centres of Completed Transactions, bringing the Public judgeship more near to citizen. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (2007), citizens trust KEP and are in general satisfied from them. Nowadays they have permanent staff which possesses about 2588 positions.The number of personal billet that KEP handled the last years is presented at the table infraPERIODNUMBER OF AFFAIRSSERVED CITIZENS20063.042.5091.154.55420052.305.1951.527.51620041.643.3131.316.5052003423.759356.872Medium number of affairs per day from Monday to Friday 11.805Medium number of affairs per day (Saturday) 821According to the Ministry KEP are reco gnizable from about the 80% of citizens. Equally big are the visits to them that they exceed 60%, since they were enriched with new, more attractive for the citizen processes. But more interesting are the numbers game linked with the subject of satisfaction of citizens, which according to the ministry exceeds the 90%.The problems that the Public causa was facing when KEP were created were multiple. The most serious of them were the bad organization and the centralism of public services, neglect of confidence in the government owned services, lack of military rating, lack of meritocracy, debilitative of ASEP, fragmental, and consequently unsuccessful, efforts of application of Electronic Governing, absence of controls and sanctions and finally inflation of bureaucracy and corruptness. For this terra firma in 2007 a number of regulations of the article 15 of the law for Citizen Service Centres (KEP) were introduced, in order to fight the ticklishies and dysfunctions of citizen s service (Ministry of Internal Affairs, 2007).Some of the regulations were the following The foundation of the Direction of Organization and Operation of KEP in the usual Secretariat of Public Administration and Electronic Governing. The Direction was founded in order to guarantee the proper operation of KEP, but also their evolution in Centres of Completed Administrative Transactions, and the resolution of problems that emerges, because of their big number, the crowd of subjects and processes that they realize and the novel enlargement of their competences. The monitoring and the co-ordination of the operation of KEP is practiced , up today, at fragmentary way from the existing Direction of General Secretariat of Public Administration and Electronic Governing, fact which creates difficulties as far as it concerns the united foeman of problems. The regulation of subjects of mobility of permanent personnel. The employees will stay in the KEP of their homement, for at to the low est degree a five-year period, so that the association, which has been acquired in the particular KEP, not to get lost. The step-down and acceleration of processes The restriction of joint responsibilities among the Ministries. It is indicatively reported that Minister of Internal Affairs does not act jointly in more than 25 different regulatory actions The obligatory deadline of 50 days for the transaction of the affairs of citizens The payment of complete compensation in the citizen in case of stay put The self establish search of supporting documents from the service on behalf of the citizen. 208 certificates can be requested from the service without the citizens presence, for 18 of them the self appointed search is obligatory. Indicative is the progress that took place in the case of self appointed search of certificates of birth from KEP, where, while in 2005 they had 231.327 certificates and median(a) time of transaction the 8 days, in the end of 2006 the transaction rea ched 432.188 certificates, that is to say almost double, with medium time of transaction the 5 days. Same is the acceleration as far as it concerns the certificates of familial situation, where while in 2005 were publish 253.071 certificates, in 2006 until 2007, 373.219 certificates have been published The suppression of submission of supporting documents and their replacement with a personal declaration form for 7 cases The videoconference of administrative bodies The generalization of electronic communication and exchange of documents amongst the services. The network SIZEFKSIS ensures 50.000 digital certificates (under form of card) in civil servants equal in number. With this way is provided the possibility of electronic dissemination of document, with synchronic place of signature on this, with electronic way, without a problem of genuineness, after(prenominal) the distribution becomes from the above permitted employees with the use of digital certificate of (card). This e lectronic distribution involves big acceleration of process of publication and mission of document and contributes intimately in the fighting of bureaucracy. The application of a plan of restriction of state expenses and the enlarged public sector, by reforming the public services, so that they become more functional and effective The promotion of a regulatory reform, with the establishment of rules of good legislation as well as a system of evaluation of the results of legislative regulations in the competitiveness and the entrepreneurshipThe City of Athens operates a total of seven (7) Citizen Service Centres (KEP), one in each City District.Citizen Service Centres provide an online service for Athens citizens with regards the following* City of Athens municipal roll certificates* Permanent residence certificates* Certification TAP property salary payment (in cases where agreement exists on the number of square metres registered with the Public author Corporation and the contra ct of purchase)The Citizens Helpline 1595 provides information on documents required for all procedures process by Citizen Service Centres.2.6 Service marketingUsually marketing had been seen as having dual dimension.On the one hand, there is the ideal which supports that the existence of an organization in economical and social content is based on the satisfaction of customer needs and wants, and on the other hand there is the set of activities which serve this philosophy in order to be implemented (CromptonLamb,1986).The marketing of services is a sector with particular characteristics .The expenditure on services is exploitation in most industrialized economies. According to the European Commission , the persona share of gross domestic product attributable to the services sector rose from 38 per cent in 1970 to almost 50 pct by 1990.Crowell supports that what is significant about services is the relative dominance of nonphysical attributes in the make up of the service pro duct.Services as a special kind of product usually they do not result in ownership but they can be linked to a physical good require special treatment.According to Jobber, as many offerings whitethorn combine tangible and intangible characteristics the distinction between them is .For example, a marketing research study provides a physical good, which is the report that comes out, but also is the result of a number of service activities such as interviews with respondents, analysis of results, designing of the research, etc. Products such as a skirt or a pair of socks usually are not accompanied by a service so they can be characterised as pure goods, but also a visit to a doctor or psychotherapy can be regarded as a pure service as there is nothing tangible that the guest receives.2.6.1 THE NATURE OF SERVICESService characteristics can be summarised to the following four-spot intangibility, variability, perishability and inseparability.2.6.1.1 IntangibilityAs intangibility can b e characterised the fact that services cant be smelled, touched, tasted or seen. Service is a deed, performance or effort and not an object device or thing (Berry, 1980). In other words customer cant evaluate a service before buying it and sometimes cant evaluate it even after consuming it. For this reason the challenge for the service suppliers is to prove the quality of the service by communicating tangible benefits to consumers. Another characteristic of intangibility is the fact that the service cant be owned so customers pay for the use of product or the performance.2.6.1.2 VariabilityThe provision of service quality may vary depending to the person who provides it. In other words important factors are the capabilities the person has, his physical and mental situation (tiredness, attitude etc.) the location the service is provided .So, in order to control quality variation , methods such as evaluation systems , tight quality controls and service standardization methods are n eed (Jobber,2004).2.6.1.3 InseparabilityIn contrast with physical goods services cant be stored in order to be used later. Services are characterised by the synchronic production and consumption. Because of this characteristic service providers role is very important to the satisfaction of consumer, as many times he is supposed to be himself the company in the eyes of customer (Berry, 1980).For this reason the importance of service provider is an integral part of the satisfaction gained by the consumer. The behaviour of the service provider is also important for the experience that the customer has for the provided service .So, great importance must be given to the training and rewarding of the staff and its plectron (Aijo,1996).Another element that is connected to inseparability is the fact that the customer may experience the service in combination with other customers because of the nature of the service and the place it is offered. At this case marketing managers should take i nto consideration the role of customer interactions between them, but also the inter customer conflicts and nuisance (Barron et al., 1996).2.6.1.4 Perishability strange the physical goods, services cant be stored in order to be used in the future or at peak times. So service providers should take into consideration the combination of demand and supply and use methods such as multi-skilling of the staff in order to be used at peak seasons or part time employees, supply flexibility, derivative instrument pricing and reservation system in order to minimize time waiting (Jobber, 2004).Today one of the greater challenges that the sector of services has to face is the increasing competition in combination with the growing expectations of customers and the developing demands of customers as service improves (Joseph Walker, 1988).2.6.2 SERVICE MARKETING MIXModels had to explain the relationship between the market and the organisation in order to maximize the seconds performance (Gronrooss C, 1982).To certain extent managing services are more complicated than managing products, as products can be standardised. The standardisation of a service is far more difficult as there are more input factors i.e. process, people, physical manifest, to manage than with a product.The service marketing mix consists of the 7Ps model. These include except from the unsullied 4 Ps that stands for Product, Price, Place, Promotion, three more Ps which are People, passage and Physical evidence.2.6.2.1 PeoplePeople participate and deliver the service experience, the might and effectiveness, the availability and capability, the customer interaction and the internal marketing.Any provision of service includes as an essential part the use of appropriate staff and people. In order to gain an organisation competitive advantage it is important that it recruits the right staff that is well trained in the bringing of service. Usually consumers perceptions and judgements are affected by the emp loyees they interact with. Consumers wait from the staff to have the appropriate attitude, service knowledge and interpersonal skills that they are paying for. So many organisations train their staff to certain standards.Physical EvidencePhysical evidence concerns the place where the service is delivered, infrastructure, facilities, surroundings, essential evidence and peripheral evidence ,equipment and premises. It is an element of the service mix that contributes to the formation of the opinion of the consumer about the organization .So the judgments and the perceptions of the consumers are formed by the sight of the service provision .For example if you paseo in an office you expect a friendly environment cracking and tie.ProcessThe systems used to assist the organisation in delivering the service, constitute the process. So process refers to the operating process that takes the customer through ,from the initial contact till the service experience and evaluation , database man agement, service delivery, queuing systems, ordering ,standardization .The customer usually expects efficiency and quickness at the process of the service delivery and this fosters consumers loyalty and confidence in the organization.2.6.3 QualityQuality is important to business organisations and their consumers, because quality products or services can and will secure consumers business. In addition, linking quality with expensive spending is not absolute, as price will not determine always quality. The high or low quality of a product or service is usually determined, by how it make the consumer feel and whether consumer expectations were satisfied or exceeded (Kotler P. et al, 2008).Quality was very popular in the marketing literature, where the notion of satisfying the customer was a dominant model of quality of service provided and consumer satisfaction (Raftopoulos V., 2005).The US Strategic Planning prove in 1972 developed the concept of relative perceived quality (RPQ), t hat is the perception of quality as defined by customers, relative to the offerings of competitors. In other words quality is what a customer perceives it to be and this is a alive(p) and complex notion. 2.6.3.1 Public service qualityThe need for quality public services is also expressed by the European Commission through the European Social Fund in its program for 2007-2013.The reason is that the quality of public services affects the implementation of policies and the strategy design as public sector organizations are responsible for them at a big degree at the Member States ,e.g. government ministries , local authority departments and special agencies (ESF,2009).The fact of how important is the quality of public services and the need to be improved,became popular, in Britain, at 1990s when the Government gave clear on the subject, by the proposal of marriage of the Conservative Prime Minister John Major enclosed in his Citizens Charter White Paper (Prime Minister, 1991).The iss ue faced great consensus from the political parties as the same year both Liberal and Labour parties published their own citizen charter proposals. The citizen driven improvement of the quality of public services was a fact (Black et al., 1994).This policy which faced the citizen as user and needed the reporting of performance from the service providers was continued for a long period it was enriched with best value new policies and was popular as.According to this concept public services is better to be managed than administrated (Black et al.,2001).At the same time another reason that public service quality is important is that the needs and expectations of the users change and increase.Service quality and how to measure it developed to be a critical issue ,so during the 1990s performance measurement techniques developed as a result of such as government legislation ,regulatory activity by industry keepers and major policy initiatives, as Black St. et al. , characterize them, and not as a result of the needs of the service provider.Meanwhile , all the efforts of understanding and touchstone public service quality where characterized as weak and an increasing interest for quality improvement models techniques , certification and awards developed .So a number of new significances appeared such as total quality management and continuous improvement, process mapping techniques, Institution Standards and Charters.The revolution of the commercial service sector that took place the previous decades influenced also public sector organizations that faced the need to provide quality services that meet customer needs and expectations.As Wisniewski remarks, (Wisniewski, 2001). The notion of treating the customers has started to change as they dont receive passively uniform services without their vocalise or influence being considered (Skelcher, 1992). At the opposite side, the adoption of handed-down methods may lead to the delivery of a service distant from custome r needs.So organizations many times, after a more profound search, fall that the needs and values of customers are different from what they assume before searching (Farquhar C.R. ,1993).In order to discover customer perceptions and collect data concerning the attitudes o