Assessment of Service Quality and Customer Patronage of Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology Cooperative Society (OYSCATECH), Igboora
Customers frequently compare the quality of experience they receive when purchasing a product or using a service, resulting in satisfaction or dissatisfaction. This study examined the effect and relationship between service quality dimensions and customer patronage in Oyo State college of Agriculture and technology Cooperative Society (OYSCATECH), Igboora. The service quality dimensions used in the study include reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The study used a survey research design with a structured questionnaire as the major instrument to obtain primary data from 171 OYSCATECH Igboora customers. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics like frequency counts and percentages. The correlation and regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The correlation analysis results revealed a statistically significant and positive relationship between the service quality dimensions (reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) on customer patronage. The regression results revealed that tangibility and responsiveness had positive effect on customer patronage with co-efficient value of (β = 0.151, t = 2.272, p ≤ 0.000), responsiveness, (β = 0.430, t = 6.004, p ≤ 0.000) reliability, (β = 0.292, t = 4.239, p ≤ 0.000) assurance, (β = 0.100, t = 1.534, p ≤ 0.000) respectively while only empathy is with the co-efficient of -0.144 has negative effect on customer’s patronage. The study therefore recommends that the cooperative society's management should ensure that their employees improve on caring and providing individualised attention to members to increase their patronage as well as sustain and continue to offer dependable and accurate services to their members to serve them better and support their patronage.