Satisfaction with town services: Do user experience and satisfaction count?

Public service agencies at the local and municipal levels are slowly becoming aware of the importance of understanding their customers' needs. Yet few researchers have looked at customer satisfaction with local public services. This study examines customer satisfaction with 18 different public services in a town in Atlantic Canada. The findings indicate that despite their monopolistic nature, consumer satisfaction with local public services in Canada may be fairly high and vary with the nature of services involved, The present findings also support a taxonomy of town services employed in the research. The theoretical and practical implications of the taxonomy are outlined.