Coercion versus Choice: Citizen Evaluations of Public Service Quality across Methods of Consumption

Abstract

Treating all respondents to citizen satisfaction surveys as “customers” risks misinterpreting the findings and misguiding managerial decision making. Citizen evaluations of the quality of public services are likely to vary based on whether citizens have a direct or indirect relationship to the service. Furthermore, citizens are likely to rate services differently based on whether they consume the services as a result of coercion or choice, although the quality of the interaction shapes the impact of the type of interaction. Based on a series of empirical analyses, this paper demonstrates that recipients who have superior‐quality interactions with providers are likely to report high ratings for elective services, whereas citizens who have poor‐quality interactions are likely to report low ratings for coercive services. In this way, the quality of the interaction influences citizens’ predispositions to rate services high or low based on whether they consume the service by choice or coercion.

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