Study of Citizen's Satisfaction about the Performance of Municipality Services Using Kano Model (Case Study: Minoodasht Municipality)

Introduction Today, social satisfaction measurement is one of the most important factors in the success of either private or state organizations so as to achieve their objectives and missions, because the recognition of the opinions and attitudes of people concerning features and functions of organizational activities and services is in direct relation with various strata of society as the most important and instrumental means in management, policy-making and planning for directors of the organizations. The lack of such recognition as well as ignorance of the principle that any planning should correspond to the realities of the society have caused failure in all the plans and policies taken and in addition to the waste of time and cost, the loss of public confidence and trust in organizations and their respective goals. The duty is to meet the common needs of the citizens who cannot individually cope with those needs by themselves. It is inevitable to be aware of the quality of municipality services as the most important urban management institution in smaller cities just because there is less supervision of metropolises on them. This study attempts to assess the rate of satisfaction with the municipality performance expressed by the citizens in Minoo Dasht (a city located in the eastern districts of Gholestan Province). This study aims to identify the important points and factors that can have a positive impact on the delivery of municipal services to the citizens by Minoo Dasht municipality. The main question raised by this study is the rate of Minoo Dasht citizens’ satisfaction with the common municipal services.     Methodology This is an applied research in purpose and descriptive-analytical in research method ; library-documentary studies as well as field studies have been carried out to collect data and information. Kano questionnaire appropriate for municipal services was designed. With the help of the Cochran scale we have determined the sample size and consequently handed out using the simple random sampling among 400 citizens in Minoo Dasht over 18 years old who had been living within the legal boundaries of Minoo Dasht at least for 5 years. The reliability of research questionnaire is 0.89 according to Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Kano questionnaire is the instrument to classify the needs. The questions in this questionnaire are designed as double-choice (positive or negative responses) in Likert scale that specifies the features of service provision. In this questionnaire, each need is classified as basic, functional and instrumental. Functional group of needs means if they exist, the citizen satisfaction is the result, while their lack would bring about citizen dissatisfaction. Basic group of needs accounts for the citizens’ expectations of the service provision. Therefore, the existence of those needs would bring about no particular satisfaction for the citizen, whereas its lack leads to remarkable dissatisfaction. In instrumental group of needs, its existence makes the citizen become highly satisfied because the citizen is surprised, whereas its lack leads to no particular dissatisfaction. After performing the steps in Kano model through the table of assessment and the identification of the type of each factor as basic, functional and instrumental, satisfaction quotient was calculated. The satisfaction quotient indicates how the features of the service can have impact on satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the citizens in case of delivery or the absence of the services.   Discussion and Results According to the extracted data, out of 400 questionnaires, 65%, equals to 260 are male subjects and 35% equals to 140 female subjects. The analysis of the questionnaire is based on the highest frequency, from among 20 factors to be assessed, the cases were classified 6 as basic, 7 as functional and 7 as instrumental. The main items of functional needs are participation requirements, removing the beggars, green spaces, blocking the passages, parking lot for vehicles, paving the streets and alleys, dealing with the complaints of the people, reconstruction of time-worn areas. Informing the municipality performance, urban furniture, spaces for sports, preserving cultural heritage, physical beauty and improvement, establishing cultural institutions, national and religious festivals are all categorized in instrumental needs. The highest dissatisfaction rate in basic needs is related to rubbish removal and protection against natural disasters with the quotient of -0.92. The satisfaction rate of the citizens with the functional needs is high concerning participation requirement with the dissatisfaction quotient of -0.85 and the removing beggars with the dissatisfaction quotient of -0.82. The satisfaction quotient of instrumental needs with all services delivered to the citizens is higher than 0.6, approximating +1. The dissatisfaction quotient in the services delivered in this group are lower than -0.5 and swaying away from -1.         Conclusions Municipalities as civil institutions provide the citizens with urban services. They will have successful performance when they manage to provide a context within which the citizens have the highest satisfaction. Therefore, Kano model was applied to study Minoo Dasht municipality performance and the satisfaction rate of the citizens in the three levels of ‘basic needs, functional needs and instrumental (emotional) needs’. According to research findings, the citizen satisfaction rate in basic needs with the satisfaction quotient of 0.32 is the lowest and in the functional needs with the satisfaction quotient of 0.64 and in the instrumental needs with the satisfaction quotient of 0.68 in midway level. Low quality of delivered services in the category of basic needs is the inherent duties of municipalities. It had a negative impact on the behavior of the citizens especially in participation in urban affairs (-0.85). Therefore, Minoo Dasht municipality has focused on satisfying its citizens’ secondary needs rather than removing their basic needs. It is suggested that with the classification of citizens’ need (especially in the case of basic needs) to make their satisfaction rate higher, there should be more attention to the citizens’ more real and rational needs and improvement in the content and quality of services.