Critical Elements of Customer Service Among Homestay Operator to Improve the Quality of Homestay Program in Malaysia

Abstract

Homestay program is a service industry; from people to people through people. It is aimed to increase the economic income of rural areas. However, the level of homestay program competitiveness is still low due to many studies reported about the quality of service offered by the homestay operator was not at the satisfactory level. Hence, the customer’s satisfaction is very important in order to make the homestay program become successful and improve the rural area economic income. There are many studies on the service quality in the homestay sector in Malaysia but not much research focusing on service delivery which also emphasizes the quality and customer satisfaction aspect. This study is to identify the critical elements that can improve the quality of customer service in Malaysian homestay program. Therefore, this study will measure the interrater reliability of each element which the researcher has gathered from qualitative method on previous study. Fleiss’ kappa statistical method will be used to measure the four constructs of customer service; human relation, skill, knowledge and attitude. This method will measure the nine experts’ consensus and verify the critical elements of customer service in homestay program in Malaysia. The findings of this study show that from 71 elements of four constructs only one element was disagreed by two experts. In conclusions, all the experts agreed with four constructs as they believed that the constructs will improve the quality of customer service. These constructs and elements may be the guidance for the homestay operator in Malaysia in order to improve the customer service quality and foster the competitiveness of the homestay in Malaysia.