Measuring Customer Satisfaction on Software-Based Products and Services: A Requirements Engineering Perspective

Overall customer satisfaction is the most critical quality measure for all bespoke and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software systems deployed in user environments. This study measured the satisfaction of users of a student administration software which was acquired and reconfigured by the IT department at an African university. As a student administration software, the product has all the necessary functionalities. However, most users of the software struggle to effectively and confidently use the software on their own without assistance from the IT department of the university. Although the software is required for capturing and processing students’ academic records by all academic staff, it appears there is a general feeling of boredom by many staff toward the software usage at this university. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the level of satisfaction of users of the software and if there is any correlation between satisfaction of use and user participation in the requirements engineering or reconfiguration process of the software. The study was conducted purely as a private academic initiative undertaken in order to investigate the perceived complaints among the users of the software and to propose professional solution to the problem. The study observed all the necessary steps required for conducting a scientific survey study of this nature including ethical considerations of confidentiality of information obtained from participants, optional user participation in the study (as indicated on the survey instrument), and proper acknowledgment of all literature sources referenced in the present study. The study employed a quantitative approach with a sample of 40 participants who were randomly selected from four different faculty units of the university. The Qualification Weighted Customer Opinion with Safeguard (QWCOS) model was used as initial external measurement (EM) of customer satisfaction. A Flexible Qualification Weighted Customer Opinion with Safeguard (FQWCOS) model was also applied to measure EM. Both results of EM were compared. In all, results from the study suggest that 85% of the sample were not very satisfied with the software, 62.5% will not recommend the software to others, and over 80% of the users did not participate during the requirements reconfiguration of the software before its deployment. There is a significant relationship between participating in requirements configuration and user satisfaction. Furthermore, both QWCOS and FQWCOS yield the same EM values. To improve customer satisfaction on software products and services, a 2D4E framework based on requirements and reconfiguration engineering (RRE) and total quality management (TQM) is proposed in this study.