The Effect of Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction at Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia

Enhancement of service delivery quality is crucial for any organization not only to realize the vision and mission but also to remain competitors in any business. To this end, this study aims to assess the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction at the federal attorney general of Ethiopia. In order to achieve this goal, a total of 110 representative customers selected based on a multi-stage sampling procedure. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression model techniques were applied to analyze the collected primary data using a structured questionnaire. The finding shows that all five service quality dimensions (empathy, assurance, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibility) are highly correlated with customer satisfaction. The result of the model shows that frequency of service delivery, empathy, tangibility, and assurance services have a positive and statistically significant effect on the enhancement of service quality delivery and hence lead to attainments of overall customer satisfaction. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended the attorneys to provide special attention for enhancing empathy, tangibility, and assurance services through designing practical enhancement short and long term plans.


Introduction
The service quality has a direct effect on customer satisfaction at Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia. There is an essentially important link between organizational quality service and customer satisfaction and thus both of them are responsible for the performance level of an organization and as an important element to be present for better organizational development [1].
Customer satisfaction is the degree of contradiction between customer perception of service performance and their normative expectation of service. Customers are the backbone of the organization existence, if the organization perform good and satisfied the customers they will be a loyal customer and it let the organization continue to do the business successfully. Excellent service increase customer retention [8]. These days globalize and broad less market, responsiveness, quality, and productivity are essential for the survival and growth of any organization. These factors depend mainly on the attraction and retention of customers. Hence, the level of customer satisfaction significantly affects the organization's performance and survival [5].
Service quality is defined as the result of the comparison made by customers about what they feel service firms should offer, and perceptions of the performance of firms providing services [1]. Service quality is the prerequisite for customer satisfaction in the organization. It related to customers' evaluation of a product or service in terms of whether that product or service has met their needs and expectations [10]. Customer satisfaction in the broader sense defined as consumers feeling and happiness after a complete meeting of one's expectations which could be realized by maintaining the service quality of the organization.
An organization can achieve its mission, vision, and objectives among others through delivering the required Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia services and fulfilling the needs of customers. Hence, customer satisfaction might be realized from service delivery. There is a great deal of research work has been found recently concerning service quality and its effect on customer satisfaction particularly at the commercial bank of Ethiopia and other private banks of Ethiopia in various time on the role of e-banking service on customer satisfaction such as [4,3] and [7]. In addition, there are also a few studies were done at various institutions such as Ethiopian Airlines and other government ministers such as [8]. Despite such studies, this study carried out on government organization as oppose to business firms are few where the service delivery and its effect on Customers might not be influenced by similar factors with business firms. However, to my knowledge no study has specifically assessed systematically the effect of perceived service quality on customer's satisfaction of Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia. Besides, there is insufficient research-based information to what extent the existing implemented BSC (Balanced Score Cared) method at various departments of attorney is successful in attaining their objectives. Therefore, this study tries to bridge the existing empirical gap by providing a reliable and valid finding and its associated impacts on customer satisfaction based on service quality delivery at various departments of the attorneys. To this end, this study assesses the effect of perceived service quality on customer satisfaction at Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia.

Description of Study Area
The Federal Attorney-General aims to see all institution that ensures react of the rule and win public and state beliefs with the participation of the people in 2024/25. The Attorney's the mission is working as principal advisor and representative of the federal government regarding the law; undertake legal reform studies, drafting laws, dissemination and enforcing criminal laws, ensuring the implementation of federal laws enacted by the federal government and consistency of their implementation relations regarding the law, follow up the implementation of nation human the rights action plan, offering the relevant legal aid for citizens who do not have the financial capacity and need special attention enforcing civil interest of the federal government and the public, supervise and administer advocates licensing, enhancing the participation of the supervise and administer advocates licensing, enhancing the participation of the society and stakeholders, ensuring rule of law by respecting and enforcing the constitution and constitutional order (www.fag.org.etc).

Research Design
A Research design is the set of procedures used in carrying out the research which could be either a longitudinal and cross-sectional research design. This research applied crosssectional research design using due to the requiring of cross-sectional data that can be collected at single point of time from both employees and customers of the Federal Attorney general of Ethiopia.

Data Sources
Primary data was collected from customers of the Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia. While secondary data was obtained from different kinds of the literature of related previous studies and from various governments official documents which includes various publications of Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia. Regarding the data type, these studies used a combination of both quantitative and quantitative data. These data were gathered from the customers and employees of the Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia by requesting information on various aspects and its associated benefits to customers.

Techniques of Data Collection
In this research, both primarily and secondary data collection techniques was used to produce the required data and information. This section provides a brief overview of the different primary and secondary data collection techniques: A, Primary Data Collection: Primary data were collected from the costumers of the Federal Attorney-General employee using a structured questionnaire which has two parts. The first part contains the demographic and socioeconomic details like sex, age, educational qualification, frequency of services received and the second part contains service quality dimensions such as tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy services with their detailed specific questions.
B, Structured Questionnaire: A structured questionnaire in both close and open-ended format was prepared and submitted to the research supervisor to check the validity and reality of the questionnaires. The questionnaires first were prepared in English and then translated with due care into Amharic language. Undertaking a translation into the local language is needed since it facilitated communication and understanding with the respondents.
C, Personal Observation: Personal observation by the researcher was also helped as one means of generating primary data in this study. The researcher was carried out personal observation through careful observation, listening, and recording of the facts pertaining to different issues.

Sampling Size and Procedures
The researcher applied multi-stages sampling techniques. In the first stage, one main branch of the Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia was selected purposively and four outlet branches from a total of ten were selected randomly. In the second stage, 30 customers from the main branch and 20 customers from each selected 4 outlet branches of Federal Attorney General selected randomly. The selected branches of the attorney general are Bole, Gulele, Nifas-silke and Kaliti branches of Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia. In general, a total of 110 representative customers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire for this study.

Methods of Data Analysis
To analyze the data both descriptive statistics and inferential statistical methods were applied. Simple descriptive statistics such as percentage, ratio, frequencies, mean, Pearson correlation coefficient, and the results were presented in tables, figures, and charts. While, inferential statistics such as correlation, t-test, the chi-square test was used. Besides, the reliability of the instrument was tested by the use of Cronbach's Alpha Test.
Service quality delivery is a prerequisite for attaining customer satisfaction. Base on the literature review done above by [1] and [9] the relationship between service quality dimension variables and its effect on customer satisfaction shown below in the conceptual framework of the study. In this study, multiple regression analysis was used to identify the types of factor related to service quality dimensions influencing customer satisfaction. Five service quality dimensions are taken as independent variables whereas, customer satisfaction is dependent variable. Multiple regression model was used to describe the relationship between independent variables (tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) and dependent variables (customer satisfaction). The specification of the multiple regression model is given by; Where Y is perceived customer satisfaction X 1 is tangibility X 2 is reliability X 3 is responsiveness X 4 is assurance X 5 is empathy Β 0 is intercept of customer satisfaction, its mechanical interpretation is the average value of Customer Satisfaction when the stated independent variables are set equal to zero. 5 are the coefficients of service quality dimensions which measure a unit change of variables have effect on β coefficients unit on customer satisfaction, for respective independent variables. ε is error term

Reliability and Validity of Instrument
The content validity of the instrument was carried out by referring to wide ranges of literature and experts' feedback. On the other hand, the reliability of the instrument was tested by the use of Cronbach's Alpha Test.

Ethical Consideration
Respondents are assured that the information they provide is confidential and used for academic purposes only. Moreover, statements conform to the prohibition of including any identity details or personal references in the questionnaire. This was to avoid any biased response or unauthentic data provided by respondents and to make participants certain that he/she cannot be traced; this would offer them enough room to express their ideas and point out their responses freely and safely. The data gathered in the process of the study was kept confidential and would not be used for any personal interest and the whole process of the study was controlled to be within acceptable professional ethics.

Reliability Analysis Result
After identifying the factors that affect overall customer satisfaction related to service delivery for the study, a scale to measure each factor was selected and overall scale reliability was checked by Cronbach's alpha reliability test. In table 1 below, the item of factor considered and the scale selected is having a Cronbach's Alpha value of 0.874 which indicates that the responses are reliable and the response can be used to generalize the items considered for this study.

Service Quality Dimensions
In line with this five service quality dimension variables detail results are discussed below: In line with this five service quality dimension variables detail results are discussed below: Tangibility of services: The first identified variables were tangibility which incorporates the latest office types of equipment, neat and disciplined employees, clean & provides adequate space, well-organized staffs and their relation with the customer, adequate and convenience support facilities such as receptionist, gust chairs & compliance box. Accordingly, in table 2 below about 39 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.17 agreed that the attorney employees use latest office pieces of equipment; whereas, around 24.5 percent of the respondents with the mean value of 3.82 replied that the attorney did not use the latest office types of equipment. Apart from these, respondents were also asked about the attributes of employees; accordingly, 45.5 percent of the sample respondents with a mean value of 3.37 agreed that the employees are neat and disciplined. Similarly, 38.5 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.37 confirmed that the room is clean & provides adequate space. Apparently, more than 30.9 percent with a mean value of 3.27 of the respondents confirmed that in the attorney general employees was a well-organized staff. In addition, respondents were also asked about availabilities, the attorney general has adequate support facilities such as receptionist, gust chairs & compliance box. Accordingly, 35.5 percent of the sample respondents with a mean value of 3.24 agreed that the attorney has adequate support facilities. Similarly, 56.4 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 4.06 confirmed that employees established effective relationships with customer.
The result in table 2 below, tangibility of service parameters were generalized with five questions, and the overall the summarized result revealed that 40.98 percent of them select Agree, 22.88 percent select strongly agree, 15.62 percent select disagree, and the rest 12.73 and 7.88 percent of the respondents select neutral and strongly disagree. Apparently, the variable tangibility of services of attorney had a mean score of 3.51 with a standard deviation of 1.16 which shows that the mean score approached to agree on level; meaning that customers were happy the overall the tangibility of service delivery at the federal attorney general of Ethiopia. Reliability of services: it concerns about the employees' ability, follow, apply, and consistently implement the rules and regulations while providing service delivery of the attorney general. According, table 3 shows 53.6 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.87 agreed that employees of the attorney carried-out their service through following the rules & regulations. About 53% of the respondents with a mean value of 3.86 agreed that employees are consistently applied rules & regulations on delivering various services. Similarly, 50 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.94 agreed on employees provided services with good respect or sincerely to the customers. In addition, 52.7 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.89 agreed that staff provided services sincerely to customers. Likewise, 53.6 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.86 agreed that the staff provided accurate information to customers. On the other hand, 55.5 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 4.2 replied neutral response on the dependability or immediate response of handling services related problems. On the contrary, 53.6 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.93 confirmed that the staffs have a positive contribution to my business success. Based on Table 3 result above, reliability of services parameters was generalized with five questions, and the overall summarized result attested that 40.65 percent of select agree, 20.30 percent select strongly agree, 20.17 percent select neutral, and the rest 9.72 and 3.17 percent of the respondents selected disagree and strongly disagree, respectively. Apparently, the variable tangibility of services of an attorney had a mean score of 3.94 with a standard deviation of 1.44 which shows that the mean score approached to agree level meaning customers were happy on the overall reliability of service delivery at federal attorney general of Ethiopia.
Responsiveness: The responsiveness of service was measured using the provision of diversified services, the willingness of employee's prompt service delivery, meticulous service provision, and responsiveness of the customers towards the problems faced by customers. In this regard table 4 below, 44.4 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.96 agreed that the employees of attorney are happy & willing to serve the customer. Likewise, 51.8 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.99 replied that the attorney provides diversified service to the customers. Apparently, more than half of the respondents 56.4 with a mean value of 3.83 agreed on prompt service delivery of attorney employees. Similarly, about 55 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 4.34 agreed on employees of attorney are delivering services meticulously. In addition, 45.5 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.71 confirmed that the staffs are responsive to the problems faced by customers. Based on Table 5 result above, responsiveness of service parameters were generalized with five questions, and the overall summarized result attested that more half 50.2 percent of select agree, 25.3 percent select strongly agree, 14.36 percent select neutral, and the rest 6.18 and 3.28 percent of the respondents selected disagree and strongly disagree, respectively. Therefore, the variable responsiveness of services of an attorney had a mean score of 3.97 with a standard deviation of 1.57 which shows that the mean score approached to agree level meaning customers were agreed on the overall responsiveness of service delivery at federal attorney general of Ethiopia.

Assurance of Services
The assurance of services was measured using attributes of employees which includes employee has the required skill, trustworthy, safe service delivery, and confidence creation on the part of customers. In this regard table 5 below, 59.1 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.94 agreed that the employees of attorney have the required skill and knowledge. Likewise, 49.1 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 4.09 replied that the attorney employees are trustworthy in delivering service to the customers. And also, about 47.1 percent of the respondent with a mean value of 3.83 agreed employees makes customers feel safe in their transactions. Similarly, about 55 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 4.34 agreed on employees make the customers' to be confident with the attorney.
Based on Table 5 result below, assurance of services, parameters were generalized with five questions, and the overall the summarized result shows that more half 53 percent of the respondents select agree, 24.3 percent selected strongly agree, 17.05 percent select neutral, and the rest 5 and 0.62 percent of the respondents selected disagree and strongly disagree, respectively. Therefore, the overall assurance of services at attorney general of Ethiopia had a mean score of 40.05 with a standard deviation of 1.60 shows that the mean score follows on agree level meaning customers were agreed on the overall assurance of services delivery at federal attorney general of Ethiopia.

Empathy of Services
The empathy of services was measured using employees' abilities to understand customers' needs, treating customer with great respect and honor, providing attention to individual attention to customers and providing professional advice for your business. In this regard table 7 below, 47.5 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.75 agreed that the employees of the attorney understand customers' specific needs. Likewise, 51.8 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.91 replied that the attorney employees are treat customers with great respect and honor while delivering service to the customers. And also, about 58.2 percent of the respondent with a mean value of 3.99 agreed employees provided adequate attention to customers. Similarly, about 58.2 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.99 agreed on employees of the attorneys have provided professional advice for my business.
Based on Table 6 result below, overall empathy of services, parameters were generalized with five questions and summarized the result shows that more half 53 percent of the respondents select agree, 23.65 percent select strongly agree, 12.28 percent select neutral, and the rest 4.5 and 3.15 percent of the respondents selected disagree and strongly disagree, respectively. Therefore, the overall empathy of services at attorney general of Ethiopia had a mean score of 3.87 with a standard deviation of 0.96 shows that the mean score approaches to agree level meaning customers were on average agreed on the overall empathy of services delivery at federal attorney general of Ethiopia.

Perceived Customer Satisfaction on Overall Services Delivery
The perceived customer satisfaction on overall services delivery was measured by assessing the complete range of services, overall performances of the employees, professional competences on service delivery, and respectful behavior of employees. Accordingly, table 7 below, 49.1 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.76 agreed that the employees of the attorney provided a range of services with great zeal. Likewise, 52.7 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.71 satisfied with the performance of attorney employees while delivering service to the customers. And also, about 43.6 percent of the respondent with a mean value of 3.8 satisfied being a client of attorney's employees. Similarly, about 45.5 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.76 agreed on employees of the attorneys have professional competences. In addition, about 35.5 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 4.12 satisfied for quick service delivery by the employees of the attorneys. And also, about 58.2 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.86 agreed on employees of attorney are delivering services with a respectful manner. In addition, 49.1 percent of the respondents with a mean value of 3.73 agreed to recommend their friends or colleagues for similar service that they received from the federal attorney general of Ethiopia.
Further, table 7 below overall perceived customer satisfaction on services delivery were assessed with five questions and the result revealed that 47.67 percent of the respondents select agree, 21.69 percent select strongly agree, 17.93 percent select neutral, and the rest 8.57 and 4.14 percent of the respondents selected disagree and strongly disagree, respectively. Therefore, the overall perceived customer satisfactions on service delivery at attorney general of Ethiopia had a mean 3.82 with a standard deviation of 1.46 shows that the mean score approaches to agree level meaning customers were satisfied with service delivery and hence they have satisfied at federal attorney general of Ethiopia.

Correlation between Customer Satisfactions with Service Quality Dimensions
The degree and magnitude of relationship between determinants of variables and customer's satisfaction measured using Pearson correlation coefficient. Accordingly, the result on table 8 person correlation coefficient shows that a positive relationship was found between the level of customer satisfaction with all other determinant variables at statistical significant at 1% level which indicates that tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy services have direct implication for enhancing the service quality and hence for customer satisfaction at the attorney. Further, table 8 shows that a positive value of 0.543, 0.529 and 0.492 with a person correlation coefficient and statistically significant at 1% shows that the relationship between customers satisfaction with tangibility, reliability, and responsiveness services are found to be moderate, respectively. On the other hand, the person correlation coefficient with a positive value of 0.795 and 0.795 correlations are statistically significant at 1% level which indicates that the relationship between assurance and empathy services with customer satisfaction is found to be strong. The result of this study is consistent with [2,3,7] and [8] finding on their respective similar studies.

Multiple Linear Regression Model Results
Multicollinearity is one of the assumptions that should be fulfilled to have a proper parameter estimate of OLS regression coefficients, Multicollinearity is a problem that happens when the independent variables have a linear relationship with each other. In order to test this assumption Variance inflating factor (VIF) test was used after running the regression. The interpretation is done as if there is any variable that has a VIF value greater than 10 it is the indication of the existence of collinearity among explanatory variables. Hence, the result shows all variables have less than 10 which indicate that there is no problem of Multicollinearity.
Heteroskedasticity is one of the assumptions that must be fulfilled to have proper signs and estimates of parameters. It is the error variance that should have constant variance and the test of Heteroskedasticity performed using Breusch-Pagan or Cook-Weisberg test methods. The result chi-square 16.35 with p-value is statistical significance at a 1 percent level of significance shows that there is a problem of Heteroskedasticity. Hence, an appropriate correction was made using robust statistics to remove the problem.
Normality of the error term is one of the assumptions that must be fulfilled to have proper signs and estimates of parameters of a multiple linear regression model. It is the error term that must be normality distributed and the test of normality using kernel density estimated plots. The result shown below in figure 1 indicates the error term is normality distributed.  Based on table 9 model result, the empathy of services have a positive and significant effect on perceived customer satisfaction on overall service delivery at a 1% statistical significance level. The positive coefficient of empathy services shows that as empathy of services increases by one unit keeping other variables constant, the level of customer satisfaction increases by 0.552 units. The result implies that empathy of services which includes employees' abilities to understand customers' needs, treating the customer with great respect and honor, providing attention to individual attention to customers and providing professional advice for your business have a direct relationship with customer's satisfaction on oval service delivery. The result of this study is consistent with [2,3,7] and [8] finding on their respective similar studies conducted at various institutions.
Assurance of services have a positive and significant effect on perceived customer satisfaction on overall service delivery at a 5% statistical significance level. The positive coefficient of assurance services shows that as an assurance of services increases by one unit keeping other variables constant, the level of customer satisfaction increases by 0.318 units. The result implies that assurance of services which include attributes of employees which includes employee has the required skill, trustworthy, safe service delivery and confidence creation on the part of customers have direct relation with customer's satisfaction on oval service delivery. The result of this study is consistent with [2] and [7] finding on their similar studies at Abay bank and commercial bank of Ethiopia, respectively.
Tangibility of services have a positive and significant effect on perceived customer satisfaction on overall service delivery at a 1% statistical significance level. The positive coefficient of tangibility services shows that as empathy of services increases by one unit keeping other variables constant, the level of customer satisfaction increases by 0.552 units. The result implies that tangibility of services which include employees' ability, follow, apply and consistently implement the rules and regulations while providing service delivery have direct relation with customer's satisfaction on oval service delivery. The result of this study is consistent with the similar studies by [2] at Abay bank and by [8] at Ethiopian airlines cargo terminal.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The intention of the study was to analyze and assess major factors affecting customer satisfaction at the federal attorney general of Ethiopia. Particularly, the intention of the research was to identify the factors that affect customer satisfaction, assess to what extent various factors influence perceived customer satisfaction and understanding the role of service providers in enhancing customer satisfaction. In order to answer the stated objectives a cross-sectional research design applied and data were collected using multi-stage sampling techniques from 110 representative customers at various branches of Federal Attorney General Ethiopia. The results of descriptive statistics and person correlation shows that tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy services have a positive effect on enhancing the service quality of the attorney and hence directly related to the enhancements of customer satisfaction. Moreover, the result of multiple linear regression model result attests that out of five service quality factors considered, empathy, tangibility and assurance services have a positive effect on perceived overall customer satisfaction at Federal Attorney General of Ethiopia. Based on the conclusion presented above, the following recommendations are forwarded by the researcher in order to improve service quality delivery at the federal attorney general of Ethiopia: Empathy services have contributed a lot to service quality and positively affected customer satisfaction. This is mainly because employees of attorney usually understand customers' needs, treating customers with respect and honor, providing great attention to customers, and working professionally. Therefore, the attorney's management should pay particular attention to the empathy services and should come up with a practical enhancement short and long term plans.
Assurance service has positively affected the service quality delivery and hence leads to enhance the satisfaction of the customer by attorneys in recent times. An assurances service includes attributes of employees such as the skills, trustworthiness, ability to safe service delivery and building self-confidence of customers on the services of attorneys. Therefore, the attorney's management should work towards improving its existing assurance services and encourage employees' attributes through providing short on job term training to various directorate offices.
Tangibility is a service that requires a special attention as it's positively contributed for enhancements of service quality delivery and to satisfy customers. Tangibility services such as the provision of the latest office types of equipment clean & adequate of space for service delivery, neat and disciplined employees, well-organized staffs, adequate and convenience support facilities such as receptionist, gust chairs & compliance box in the organization. To this end, the attorney's management should critically assess periodically the availabilities and accessibilities of tangibility services and introduce improvements over time.