Dear Editor
The response by the Ministry of Finance (‘Ministry regrets poor service at Student Loan Agency,’ SN, October 24) to my letter about service quality at the Student Loan Agency on the Turkeyen Campus of the University of Guyana (October 21), was much more than I expected. I thank the ministry not just for responding but more so because the actions taken suggest an inauguration of and indeed exemplify responsiveness to clients. We are quite unaccustomed to this, and it is refreshing to see the Ministry of Finance taking a lead in this direction. The new opening hours are much more considerate of the people being served and I am convinced that this will have a positive impact on perceptions of service quality at the facility and at the ministry as a whole.
While the opening hours will arrest certain situations, I am hopeful that other measures have been or will be taken to address other potential breakdowns. As I think of this issue, I am reminded of an old, yet relevant instrument designed to measure service quality. This is the Servqual instrument and more specifically to its performance component Servperf (Parasuraman, A, Zeithaml, V A & Berry, L L, 1988, 1994). I think that it would be great if organizations including, government ministries would begin (assuming that they have not begun) to use such instruments to learn about themselves and set about improving service on scientific grounds in addition to the intuitive approaches than can be adopted.
I wish to thank PRO, Wanita Huburn for her letter and for announcing the changes at the Loan Agency.
Yours faithfully
Troy Thomas
