The milk industry in the Eastern Cape is very competitive and milk suppliers must use all means, including packaging, to influence buying behaviour. The aim of the study was to investigate customer preferences with regard to milk packaging in the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) area. The purpose was to develop a better understanding of customer preferences so that packaging could be designed to satisfy customer expectations and needs. The research design was based on a quantitative approach (non-experimental) and the study was descriptive in nature. The measuring instrument was a self-developed questionnaire, which was developed based on the literature study and previous empirical studies conducted by Adam and Ali (2014a) and Ahmed, Pumar and Amin (2014). The sample consisted of 199 adult shoppers in the Nelson Mandela Bay area, selected through snowball and quota sampling. Data was collected with the help of fieldworkers, coded into Microsoft Excel and processed with statistical software. Descriptive statistics and canonical correlation analysis were used to identify customer preferences and relationships between the different dimensions of milk packaging. The results revealed that size, materials, convenience in handing and product information (expiry date) were important. Colour and design were not regarded as important by the target group.

This study sought to understand the application of the BSC as a tool that facilitates customer satisfaction in local government service delivery. The main thrust was on its application in South African metropolitan municipalities with a view of establishing means of improving its adoption for better customer-focused performance measurement. This area has not received much attention, yet local government performance is in an unacceptable state. The study employed a secondary data analysis approach and findings from the study reflect widespread usage of the BSC but without proper consideration of factors influencing its successful application. Findings of this study reinforce previous study results that there is poor communication with regards to how the BSC must be applied. Its application is also faced with the challenge of lack of training on the use and application of the BSC. However, the tool has significantly transformed and shaped the functioning of South Africa’s two best performing metropolitan municipalities and altered their performance in a favourable manner. Through the BSC approach, the City of Cape Town and the City of Johannesburg have moved towards improving their relations with the customers they serve. The BSC allows the municipalities to take into consideration the non-financial assets that were previously not considered valuable in organisations. Accommodating the views of customers has gained much traction in these municipalities and measures have been put in place to ensure real time data enables managers to make decisions that attempt to address people’s needs and expectations. Conclusively, the study recommends strong improvement in training and communication of the objectives and goals of a PMS within an organisation. Strong emphasis should also be placed on listening to what the customers say and expect from service delivery. This will strengthen the use and value of CSS and CBP and help improve performance and the achievement of the NDP goals of 2030 through local government. This study sought to understand the application of the BSC as a tool that facilitates customer satisfaction in local government service delivery. The main thrust was on its application in South African metropolitan municipalities with a view of establishing means of improving its adoption for better customer-focused performance measurement. This area has not received much attention, yet local government performance is in an unacceptable state. The study employed a secondary data analysis approach and findings from the study reflect widespread usage of the BSC but without proper consideration of factors influencing its successful application. Findings of this study reinforce previous study results that there is poor communication with regards to how the BSC must be applied. Its application is also faced with the challenge of lack of training on the use and application of the BSC. However, the tool has significantly transformed and shaped the functioning of South Africa’s two best performing metropolitan municipalities and altered their performance in a favourable manner. Through the BSC approach, the City of Cape Town and the City of Johannesburg have moved towards improving their relations with the customers they serve. The BSC allows the municipalities to take into consideration the non-financial assets that were previously not considered valuable in organisations. Accommodating the views of customers has gained much traction in these municipalities and measures have been put in place to ensure real time data enables managers to make decisions that attempt to address people’s needs and expectations. Conclusively, the study recommends strong improvement in training and communication of the objectives and goals of a PMS within an organisation. Strong emphasis should also be placed on listening to what the customers say and expect from service delivery. This will strengthen the use and value of CSS and CBP and help improve performance and the achievement of the NDP goals of 2030 through local government..

Thesis (MTech (Quality))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009 / The Catalytic Converter Industry (CCI), forms part of the component supply chain in the motor industry. The CCI is made up of a plethora of different suppliers, however for the purpose of this study, the focus will be on three of the five main suppliers, namely the ‘monolith substrate manufacturers’, the ‘coaters’, and the ‘canners’. The latter suppliers supply directly to the car manufacturers, also commonly referred to as the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), and are known as first tier suppliers. Some OEM’s exercise control over the entire supply chain. The control is exercised through various ‘customer requirements’ and ‘customer specific requirements’. Customer specific requirements influence the Quality Management System (QMS) of a supplier. Most OEM’s require that strategic suppliers must be ISO/TS 16949:2002 certified. ISO/TS16949:2002 refers to an internationally recognised specification, specifically adopted for the motor industry, and dictates the certification requirements that an organisation’s QMS must adhere to. The specification also makes provision for additional requirements that could be specified by the customer. In this instance, the customer is the OEM, in terms of which additional requirements can be specified over and above the certification requirements. For organisations manufacturing generic components for the various motor manufacturers, customer specific requirements add to the complexity of activities related to quality management systems. Applying an array of methods to minimise the risk of sending defective products to the customer by building each customer’s specific requirements into the quality management system, can lead to confusion and make work difficult to execute. To mitigate the complexity, the quality management systems should be simplified to ensure that the quality management system is entrenched and adds value to the organisations’ activities.

Thesis (MTech (Tourism and Hospitality Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010 / Within the hospitality industry, where revenues are driven by guest satisfaction, service is a key to success. Internal communication plays a role that should be examined on how its performance affects guest satisfaction within hospitality. The purpose of this study is to determine if internal communication plays a role in guest satisfaction within hospitality establishments in Cape Town. The study found that sources (such as newsletters, magazines, books, journals and peers) emphasised importance of internal communication in hospitality organizations. This internal communication serves as a nerve centre of an organization. If one does not have a functioning internal communication system, one may lose guests. In addition, advanced internal communication solution forms a backbone of a wide range of guest services, and increases the guests’ motivation to stay. Cape Town, where hospitality and tourism is increasingly competitive and diverse, human resource management becomes more problematic. There should be channels of internal communication, which transmit messages across the organization’s structure. The guest’s review demonstrated that growth of hospitality organisation will be determined by its ability to deliver superior guest value and importance of understanding guest needs and expectation. The reason for growing emphasis on guest satisfaction is that satisfied guests lead to a stronger competitive positioning, resulting ultimately in loyal guests, increased market profitability. Management teams in Cape Town and hotel industry sectors are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that their services are guest-focused and that continuous performance improvement is being delivered. Internal communication research generates principles and strategies, which improve managerial performance, as internal communication acumen is essential to render success in a wide range of activities. Language proficiency, as well as what a manager says, and what a manager does, contributes to individual effectiveness. Furthermore, words and actions should be consistent and aligned so that they have maximum impact. Selected research findings regarding verbal internal communication and non-verbal internal communication as well as electronically are presented to demonstrate how wise internal communication choices can further managerial goals. In addition to using words effectively, managers in all functional areas can also increase their effect and improve their performance by applying results of research that are focused on internal communication. A self-administered questionnaire was compiled to collect data, and the study was based on 10 selected hotels within Cape Town and a great value is given to Cape Town business centre where most of tourism businesses held. Information was supplied by senior and junior managers from 4-5 star hotels and the final report combined results from the question about the role that internal communication plays in guest satisfaction within hospitality establishments in Cape Town by using an SPSS Program, while recommendations are also based on these findings. At this period of twenty one century, the technology is challenging organisational internal communication, it take major part in marketing and marketing research. The management are busy straggling with internal communication which they will never know exactly how much they perform without guest concert. They run to the Internet to research what the guests comment about their satisfaction of service they received. The guest reviews about hotel service industry emphasized the quality of service received within the hotel organization even if most of the hotels in Cape Town were too expensive as guest review recommended.

M.Comm. / Gegewe die agtergrond en die probleemstelling kan die studie soos volg geformuleer word: Die primere doelwit van die studie is om die gaping tussen die persepsie van supermarkbestuurders oor die diens wat gelewer word in hulle ondernemings en die persepsie van hul klante oor die diens wat werklik gelewer is, te ondersoek. Daarbenewens sou die studie ook bepaalde sekondere doelwitte he: 1.3.1. Om die belangrikheid van bestuursdeelname by die lewering van kwaliteit diens aan te dui. 1.3.2. Om aan te dui hoe belangrik goeie klantediens vir die algehele beeld en bemarking van die ondememing is. 1.3.3. Om vas te stel of bestuur die behoeftes van die klant in ag neem by die daarstel van 'n klantediensbeleid. 1.3.4. Om te bepaal of bestuur werklik bewus is van water kwaliteit klantediens in sy ondememing gelewer word. 1.3.5 Om te bepaal wat die verwagtinge is wat die klant koester met betrekking tot klantediens.

D.Comm. (Leadership in Performance and Change) / The National Department of Tourism (NDT), in the National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS), highlighted the need for research on tourist service satisfaction. According to the Global Competitiveness Programme (GCP), most of the dissatisfied tourists are business travelers. There are gaps in the literature with reference to the operationalisation of, and relationship between, service quality scores and retention scores in the business tourism industry. The contextualisation and conceptualisation of the proposed SQSC will be supported by a discussion on service quality, the Balanced ScoreCard (BSC), and the relationship between service quality and the BSC. The proposed mediating role of Business Tourist Satisfaction (hereafter mostly referred to as Satisfaction) will be highlighted, while evidence will be provided that Business Tourist Retention (hereafter mostly referred to as Retention) can be a criterion variable in this measurement. It is also apparent that using specific market segmentation variables will enable business tourism managers to build business tourist retention strategies.

In today’s competitive arena, organisations need strategically to shift their focus from primarily concentrating on new customer acquisitions and rather to realise the importance of improving customer defections, thus looking at strategically retaining the existing customer base. Customer retention to all intents and purposes reflects the core of any service offering organisation and drives the competitiveness and viability of the business. Customer retention is a concern for all sector organisations including the medical aid schemes industry. It has been proven that retaining customers is less costly than attracting new ones and through a satisfied customer a business can elevate its competitiveness in the market. The significance of the study hinges on the importance of each business having comprehensive knowledge of why customers remain loyal patrons or why they choose to defect. It is important to note that the financial resources and time the business expends on improving service to the customer become futile if not matched by the high performance of the internal business units’ strategies. Having an understanding of customer movement will assist the organisation in properly addressing such issues and employing strategic processes that will enable the business to improve its retention strategies and curb defections. The primary objective of the current study was to investigate the impact internal service quality and customer relationship management have on customer retention. The study employed the SERVQUAL model as a measuring tool in establishing the relationship. The study investigated how customer retention (the dependent variable) is influenced by the different elements of internal service quality, namely assurance, empathy, service reliability, responsiveness, tangibles and elationship management, which represented the independent variables. The sample comprised eighty-one (81) out of a possible 130 AA Medical Scheme participants through the organisation’s four national offices. The empirical results showed that of all the variables relationship management, responsiveness and the tangibles have a positive impact on customer retention in medical aid schemes.

The purpose of this thesis is to test, via a GPSS simulation, a heuristic developed by B.A. Rosenbaum. The heuristic determines the level of service a customer receives in a multi-echelon inventory system. The system consists of one central Distribution Centre (DC) which is the source of supply for eight Regional Distribution Centres (RDC's), which themselves are the source of supply for customer demand. Service is defined to be the fraction of demand met from on-hand stock at the location where the order is placed. Two distinct sets of tests on the heuristic are performed in this thesis. First, a wide range of parameter values are used in the simulations to test the sensitivity of the assumptions essential in the development of the heuristic. Second, the robustness of the heuristic is examined when different assumptions are substituted in the inventory system analysed. The analysis indicates the heuristic performs fairly well under various conditions. In particular, increasing the order size or reducing the number of warehouses in the system yield calculated values predictive of the simulated results. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Due to the success of apparel online shopping, many researchers in consumer behavior hope to extend the existing consumer behavior theories into the electronic commerce area to assist apparel marketers to develop effective marketing strategies to understand, attract, and maintain their consumers (Goldsmith & McGregor, 1999). Many apparel researchers have investigated Consumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction (CS/D) with online shopping (Hou, 2005; Jiang & Rosenbloom, 2005; Kim, Kim & Lennon, 2006; Lee, 2004). However, most of these studies focused on CS/D with apparel websites or e-service quality, rather than CS/D with the products purchased online. In apparel online shopping, consumers cannot examine the textures, hand, or color of the fabric or try on the garment. Because of the intangibility of apparel products on the website, consumers may use extrinsic cues, such as brand image, to judge if the brand is worthy of the price and to make an inference of the product quality (O'Neal, 1992). Previous studies about brand image mainly discussed about how brand image influences consumers' perception and evaluation of product quality (d''Astous & Saint-Louis, 2005; Dodds, Monroe & Grewal, 1991) and the impact of brand image to consumers' purchase intention (Ataman & Ulengin, 2003; Li, 2004; Park & Stoel, 2005). No research has examined how brand image influences consumers'' expectations at purchase and the perceptions of product performance at the product-receiving stage, and the role of brand image in CS/D after receiving products, especially in the realm of apparel online shopping. Therefore, a study investigating the roles of brand image and product performance in CS/D with apparel online shopping is essential. The purpose of the study was to examine the factors related to CS/D with the purchased product and with the brand in apparel online shopping at the product-receiving stage. The four objectives of the study were to examine (a) the relationships between consumers'' individual differences (i.e., brand sensitivity, brand familiarity, brand self-congruity and demographics) and perceived brand image at the purchase stage, (b)the influence of consumers'' perceived brand image at purchase on their expectation for product performance and on perceived product performance, (c) antecedences of CS/D with the product and CS/D with the brand, and (d) antecedences of product return intention and repurchase intention. A model of CS/D with the purchased apparel product and with the brand in an online shopping context was proposed as the framework of this study. Different from the two stages (i.e., purchase stage, product-consumption stage) usually proposed in the studies of offline shopping, an extra product-receiving stage was included between purchase and product-consumption stages to illustrate the process of CS/D after consumer receive the product that they ordered online. Fifteen hypotheses were developed according to the relationships proposed in the framework. A 2 X 2 between-subjects factorial experimental design was developed to conduct this study. The treatment variables were brand image and product performance. Two levels of brand image at the purchase stage (i.e., higher, lower) were manipulated by two brand names and logos. Two levels of product performance at the product-receiving stage (i.e., higher,lower) were manipulated by two sweatshirts with different levels of quality. A website was developed to simulate the apparel online shopping process, and a questionnaire was developed to measure the variables included in this study. A structural equation model was developed to examine the proposed relationships and hypotheses. Results in this study showed that both brand image and product performance significantly influenced CS/D with product and CS/D with the brand. Product performance was the most important factor on consumers'' satisfaction with the product that they ordered online. Brand image at purchase played a direct role in CS/D with the brand but an indirect role in CS/D with the product. Brand image at purchase positively influenced product performance expectation; product performance expectation positively influenced the perception of product performance; and then, perceived product performance affected satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the product. Visible attribute (i.e.,style, color) expectancy disconfirmation was also found to be an antecedence of CS/D with the product. If perceived product performance of style and color was better than what they expected, participants tended to be more satisfied with the product. CS/D with the product was found to be a significant antecedence of CS/D with the brand. CS/D with the product was found to be the direct factor influencing product return intention, and perceived brand image at the product-receiving stage and CS/D with the brand were antecedents of repurchase intention. In conclusion, this study suggests that brand image and product performance were significant factors on CS/D with the purchased product and with the brand at the product-receiving stage in apparel online shopping. This study is beneficial to consumer behavior researchers and apparel e-tailers by identifying the roles of brand image and product performance in apparel online shopping. Based on the results, marketing strategies in apparel online shopping were provided. / Master of Science

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (February 23, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 122-138)