Service Quality, a Correlation of Customer Expectation and Customer Perception of Services Received Responsiveness and Empathy in Shisong Hospital

Although Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is of the expectation that health services whether promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative or palliative, are of sufficient quality to be effective (WHO, 2010), there has been a common phenomenon in most health communities to find patients moving from one health service facility to another in search for better quality of services, which is defined by their expectation from the health institution and the perception after receiving the health services. Shisong hospital in Kumbo East Health District, Bui Division of the Northwest Region of Cameroon is no exception to these experiences, given that it competes with other health instructions in, around and away from Kumbo. While some patients perceive that the quality of services of Shisong hospital meet their expectations, some perceive that they are yet to receive a commensurate quality of services from Shisong hospital. It was important to find out if the ways employees of Shisong hospital respond and empathise with clients relate the expectations and perception of clients. And investigation was done by administering a unique close ended questionnaire to 425 clients who have used the services of Shisong hospital to test the relationship between their expectation and satisfaction with these two facets of service quality, Responsiveness and Empathy in this hospital through some sub derivatives. Correlation analysis showed that there is a moderate significant relationship between employee responsiveness with clients and customer satisfaction, and a strong significant relationship between employee empathy with clients and customer satisfaction. Based on responsiveness and empathy, service quality in Shisong hospital has been described as ‘satisfactory’. The study recommends that the hospital should improve on these facets of service quality (responsiveness and empathy), given that customer satisfaction falls below their expectations, especially by raising customer perception to be ‘very satisfactory’, in match with the common expectation that has been ‘very good’