| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄應用科技大學 === 工業工程與管理系 === 99 === The two main tasks of Customs are "convenient Customs clearance" and "smuggling prevention". With the changing times, the role of our Customs in the overall economic development has changed from the earlier financial functions to economic functions, and in recent years it has taken on customer services as its characteristics. In response to the trends of international trade, Customs continues to promote the trade policy of convenient Customs clearance, with the overall goals of simplifying Customs procedures and eliminating administrative barriers to trade, thus providing services of high quality.
In international trade, Customs brokers act as matchmaker and connector between shippers and Customs. Take Customs clearance for example: Customs brokers must process all relevant Customs information for the owners of import and export cargo, and act as the go-between for the communication, handling and coordination of clearance progress information with other parties involved, such as Customs, the transport industry, and the storage industry. During Customs inspection, the consignee of imported cargo authorizes Customs brokers to accompany Customs personnel for joint inspection in the inspection area, and the Customs brokers are also responsible for the assistance with the relocation of cargo contents, carton opening and unpacking. In order to understand the efficiency of Customs clearance services, this study used the Kaohsiung Customs Office as the subject of an empirical analysis, investigated and evaluated the overall satisfaction of Customs brokers regarding the Customs’ inspection of import and export cargo. This study also explored the differences between the service quality expected by Customs brokers and the service provided by the Customs personnel.
This study was based on the Parasuraman , Zeithaml and Berry gap model framework, and used the SERVQUAL scale to measure the "gap five" and "gap one" of Customs cargo inspection and clearance service quality. Business intelligence tool, the SPSS statistic software, was used to analyze the valid questionnaires. The analyzed results were further used in interviews with Customs inspection officers to explore the reasons for gaps two to four.
Research results show that: First, what Customs brokers are most concerned about is whether there are smooth communications and effective administrative remedies for cases under objection. Second, the complicated and busy inspection work has given the Customs inspection officers a general impression that their output has sufficiently met the service quality that businesses would expect, thus leading to an underestimation of businesses expectation. Third, there is a significant positive relationship between the Customs brokers’ perception of the service quality of Customs inspection and clearance operations, and the overall satisfaction of Customs brokers. Fourth, in the evaluation of overall satisfaction, most Customs brokers reported either average or satisfactory results （41.7％）, and a small number of respondents reported very satisfied results. This study also discovered through interviews with Customs inspection officers that, the role of Customs is to execute border restrictions, and there are too many operations related to its authority and responsibilities, which leads to the misunderstanding of businesses that the regulation requiring accompanying documents regarding rights and authorities during clearance is the result of the Customs being “difficult”. Therefore, when faced with the dilemma between “operating according to law” and “civilian convenience”, Customs must always choose the former.
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