Samenvatting

The library of The Hague consists of eighteen buildings, scattered throughout the city. The main building, located in the city center, attracted more than 1.1 million visitors and customers in 2016. The library is part of the municipality of The Hague and the main building is actually integrated within the city hall. Management wants the marketing department to implement a method, in which they can research service quality and customer satisfaction. It is considered a plus if this method allows for benchmarks, between different library establishments in the city and longitudinal. The means to explore and conduct research to find a method best suitable was performed to finalize the bachelors thesis.
The goal of the research was to deliver a consulting report which delivers an insight into service quality and customer satisfaction within the Central Library of The Hague. The main question was stated as: what is the current perception of adult members, regarding the service quality of the Central Library The Hague? Research was conducted among 7,092 members, using a quantitative approach with the LIBQUAL+™, which is specifically designed to measure service quality and customer satisfaction for libraries. A total of 715 respondents completed the survey, which was more than the minimum of 365 for statistic reliability. This model was designed after years of research and is based on the famous 1985 SERVQUAL-model, by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry. The model consists of three dimensions: affect of service, library as place and information control. The LIBQUAL+™ uses a standardized set of questions, which have been applied to more than 1,000 libraries worldwide and offers the ability to benchmark between different library establishments, longitudinal and to compare scores with the LIBQUAL+™ norm table, which is based on the worldwide scores. The model measures service quality from three different angles, in which two measure expectation and one the current perception. Research has shown that it is not reliable to measure expectations together with current perceptions in one survey, because the expectation will be deluded after the experience has taken place. Therefore only the perception aspect of LIBQUAL+™ was applied, in order to conduct a reliable and representative research.
The findings, which were processed using SPSS, suggest that affect of service and information control score above average, but library as place below. Four out of five items, which make up the library as place dimension, scored poorly. Customers were most dissatisfied with noise disturbance, unexciting decoration and the lack of group oriented workspaces. Furthermore, the only negative scoring item outside of the library as place dimension is the insight from employees on the needs of customers. This item belongs to the affect of service dimension. The lack of insight is especially perceived by younger library members, as results show. Respondents reported that they prefer an e-mail reminder when their book expiration date nears, instead of a letter.
Recommendations are made in order to improve the service quality and customer satisfaction. The library has to focus mainly on the library as place and the single item within affect of service. To improve the library as place there should be stricter rules on noise disturbance, which can be regulated by security. The library can create inspirational spaces by painting scientists and role models on the empty walls. In order to improve the insight for younger members there should be more younger librarians at work, possibly part-time students. Employees whose insights came up short can be trained, in order to be more sufficient. For information control, the IT department can setup e-mail reminders, instead of using letters. Also further research should be conducted to perform benchmarks, longitudinal comparisons and investigate the potential of customer loyalty, value, and segmentation.