As the courier service market becomes more competitive and the business environment changes, courier providers are being forced to become more customer-oriented and to establish long-term relationships with their clients. Courier companies presently place a strong emphasis on the quality of their services, as well as on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customer satisfaction serves as a fundamental assessment of a company's service delivery system, whereas customer satisfaction is a “post-consumption” experience that evaluates perceived quality with expected quality. When a provider creates a benefit for consumers, it increases the likelihood that they will continue and even increase their use of the provider's courier services. Today's courier service providers are looking for ideas on how to increase customer loyalty and increase sales. Reduced marketing expenditures, more sales, and lower operating costs all contribute to the improved profit.
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Delivery and pickup of goods such as parcels and/or documents are critical operations for any courier service, and they are carried out efficiently. The following are some of the difficult qualities associated with this operation: To begin, the delivery network is constantly changing; second, there is real-time customer demand for pickup during delivery; and third, there is a growing trend for courier companies to provide micro-logistics services, which include deliveries of high-value goods in small packages, such as make up eye shadow palette packages, to their customers. However, these later services are not always of the “next day” variety; rather, delivery may be completed within a predetermined time frame (Nurul Izzah, 2016).
The concept of a courier service is a business, usually a private corporation, that specializes in the delivery of packages and vital documents (Jules, 2018). Courier services can either specialize on a specific form of shipping inside a given location or can ship to various locations at the same time. Whereas when it comes to shipping, a postal service is a firm that is typically run by governments. When it comes to delivery of packages and essential papers, postal services are a good option. However, many organizations prefer to use them to transmit non-urgent, everyday messages to business partners and customers. According to (Jules, 2018), delivery services such as postal service are straightforward and reasonably priced; customers only pay for shipping fees, whilst courier services offer fast and dependable delivery services, and at an additional cost.
The problem statement is based upon personal and citizens observation; one of the many reasons for locals to prefer runners or private couriers is due to the poor stagnant government postal services. Furthermore, the conceptualization is to discover customer preference in picking runners. It is needed to determine the choice based on several aspects, mainly: product or quality of the service, price, timeliness, reliability, flexibility, personal contact, and satisfaction level of customers.
The aims of this research are to conduct a study on existing local runners (couriers) in Brunei to further analyze what makes them a trusted service and a preferable option among locals and to identify the impact from their service. The overall objectives of this research are divided into definitive objectives as follows: (1) to conduct a survey to obtain perspectives and outlooks from customers concerning their experience with local runners; (2) to do extensive investigations on local runners by conducting an interview with the local runners; (3) to identify and compare different factors of local runners to analyze what makes their services an ideal practice; (4) to measure the customer satisfaction quality and experiences with local runners.
However, the SERVQUAL hypothesis model that was developed for this research is depicted in Figure 1. As a result, the following hypotheses are presented.
H1: Intentions to use will affect the influence of the local runner.
H2: Attitude will affect the influence of the local runner.
H3: Product quality will affect the influence of the local runner.
H4: Personal contact will affect the influence of the local runner.
H5: Price will affect the influence of the local runner.
H6: Reliability will affect the influence of the local runner.
H7: Flexibility will affect the influence of the local runner.
Figure 1. SERVQUAL Hypothesis Model