Citizen's perception on public service quality: An investigation on east Anatolian metropolitan municipalities

The service sector, which is a rapidly growing and developing sector, has laid the groundwork for the increase in the importance given to the concept of service and the quality of these given services. The development of services and the increase in the quality of services have become as much of a concern to the service areas and states as they are concerned with service businesses. The quality of public services, which constitutes a branch of competition existing in the international arena, has become an important image element for the states. One of the most effective tools in the hands of the states which carry out the public services with various utilities is undoubtedly the municipalities. The perception of the public services that the municipalities offer represents the qualitiy of state services rather than the municipalities although municipalities are considered to be the closest to the citizen as a sevices tool. In this study, which was carried out in order to measure the quality of service of these institutions which are so important for the state, it was purposed to determine the service quality perception of the voters benefiting from the services of the three metropolitan municipalities serving in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. For each province, the number of statistically calculated minimum number of polls has been reached over the number of voters. In the first section of the five-section study, basic explanations about research were given. The public service quality is explained in the second section of the work. This section also describes the Servqual method, which is considered to be one of the most important tools used in the study and commonly used to measure the quality of service. The methods used in the meaning, principles, establishment and execution of public service in the department are also examined. In the third section, the metropolitan municipalities surveyed for public service quality are examined in terms of their services, structure and function. The fourth section, contains relevant analyzes of the research conducted. The results of analyzes were evaluated. Results of survey reveal the difference between the services provided by the metropolitan municipalities and the expectations of the citizens and the service provided. In the last section of the present study, suggestions for municipalities with the aim of increasing the quality of service were made.