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School of Education and Social Development, University Malaysia Sabah
Interpersonal communication is fundamental for front desk service in an organisation that shows its image and reputation to the customer. Therefore this research is to observe and to compare the practice of customer service communication around the counter, the customer while waiting, customer service, the attendant’s response towards customer’s complaint or problems and the customer satisfaction. This research also focuses on the communication quality and trend analysis of the similarities and the differences of the government service counter and non-government service counter. Eight organisations; four government organisations and four non-government organisations, are observed as the samples of the research. The data for this research is collected with the observations and interviews. The observations data is collected through three areas; outer space, insider space and integrated space, while for the interviews, thinking aloud method is used with the Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA). The research shows that the customer service communication at the non- government organisations had achieved good quality in all the research aspects. Meanwhile, at the government organisation, two out of four customer service counters recorded significant to customer satisfaction. On the other hand, respondents were complaining; three at the government organisation and two at the non-government organisation, about the counter atmosphere, the customer service facilities and the non- verbal communication. Observing through the inter-personal, intra-personal, the service aspect, friendliness and the listening skills, non-government service counter served better. The academic based customer service counter shows the trend below scale three; while the non-government service counters were significant in terms of atmosphere, presentation and the commitment to the customer. Therefore, this research suggests the customer service focuses on the human relationship through the friendliness communication; direct meaning, motivational meaning, humanization al meaning and collective wisdom.
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