The Master's thesis focuses on customer satisfaction and its relationship to profitability, which is becoming an increasingly more relevant topic of daily discussion among the managers across all industries. The search for an optimal strategy that would lead to a consequent increase of both could be compared to a search for the "holy grail" or to an invention of the "perpetuum mobile" of business. The overall goal of my thesis is to design a strategy that would have the abovementioned attributes and would lead to an increase of profitability and customer satisfaction for the Hilti Czech republic and its after-market service. The theoretical part reviews the general academic literature connected with the topic. The practical part focuses on the company Hilti AG - a global premium provider of building construction tools and consumables in B2B segment, and examines especially its after-market service department. The first section of the practical part analyses the outcomes of the qualitative expert in-depth interviews with managers across different business units and departments and with real customers. The second part of the practical part proposes concrete steps that will lead to an increase of profitability and customer satisfaction.

This thesis is divided into three chapters, the first two are theoretical and the third one is practical. The first chapter deals with the characteristics of logistics services, the second one is dedicated to the customer service and its measurement and the last one focuses on a case study of selected IT company. The main goal is to map the current state of logistics services and supply chain processes of the spare parts of the IT company Fujitsu Ltd., reveal its weaknesses and shortcomings and propose possible improvements.

The thesis deals with an evaluation of supply chain management and other processes involved in customer requirements management of a selected company. The aim of the thesis is to describe and evaluate processes of all the company´s sections involved. The first part presents basic terminology, followed by theoretical part dealing with presentation of the company. Individual sections are described and set processes are evaluated. In case of deficiencies, corrective measures are proposed. The last chapter includes a SWOT analysis.

Efficiency in the manufacturing industry is not a new phenomenon; Toyota andMotorola were to companies that early found a way to eliminate waste by inventing theefficiency models Lean and Six Sigma. For Sweden’s economy, the manufacturingindustry plays an important role in which the forestry industry accounts for around70,000 employees. The forestry industry is very capital intensive as a result of being amanufacturing industry with expensive machines and property, thereby it is important tohave an efficient production. To maximize the output from the machines it is a non-stopbusiness and sales needs to meet the production capacity. The efficiency focus inproduction based on such change programs that Toyota and Motorola created have in some cases been implemented in service organizations. It is until today not researched ifmanufacturing companies have been able to apply these change programs throughouttheir entire organization to create higher efficiency. This study will focus on if changeprograms have, or can be implemented in a customer service organization in a Swedishglobal manufacturing company within the forestry industry.To understand what has been done previously, a thorough investigation has beenconducted on previous research regarding change programs and how they have beenapplied in service organizations, this resulted in three highlighted change programs;Lean, TQM and Six Sigma. The literature review also includes sales, since higherorganizational efficiency can be reached if customer service performs sales activities.This has proven to lead to higher revenue for the company and increased the customers’satisfaction. The empirical findings originate from a qualitative study where I haveinterviewed employees in customer service and managers within sales and customerservice at my partner company, which is a Swedish global manufacturing companywithin the forestry industry. The interviews have given an in-depth knowledge on thecontext how they are working with efficiency, quality and sales within their customerservice units.The result show that it is important to have the fundamental platform settled before anyimplementations of sales can be done in customer service as time is a big hinder to beable to perform more tasks. Both previous research and the empirical findings highlightthe importance to understand your customers’ expectations and needs. My partnercompany in this study have implemented a good way to receive feedback and work withthis by conducting a customer satisfaction survey. The fundamental platform ispresented in a customer service management model in the practical contribution, chapter8.2.2. When the implementation of sales is to take place, top-management commitmentis needed to make the implementation successful and encourage the employees to fulfilthe changes to reach the desired result.

Internationally, governments have recognised the constraints facing their citizens with regards to access to affordable, quality healthcare services. This development is evident in South Africa where the majority of the population have limited access to affordable, quality healthcare due to the healthcare inequality between the insured and uninsured. To address this lack of access to quality healthcare, medical experts recommend a focus on patient-centred primary healthcare as opposed to the current system of provider-centred healthcare. This research aims, through the development of a patient-centred framework, to assist in advising healthcare systems for the delivery for patientcentred primary healthcare. In order to develop a holistic view, all stakeholders involved in the delivery of healthcare were considered in answering the main research question. The study comprised of 43 interviews in total, of which 28 interviews were with uninsured patients who use healthcare facilities in South Africa and 15 medical expert interviews. This information was then consolidated into a framework, and further refined through the literature collected, to form a holistic service quality framework that allows for the delivery of patient-centred primary healthcare. The holistic service quality framework acts as a mechanism to ensure that the delivery of patient-centred primary healthcare has a positive impact on patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction can be improved or increased through the levers, available to the providers, identified in the framework. This allows healthcare systems to improve the service quality of the healthcare delivered / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

The aim of this Master´s thesis is to analyze a company e-commerce, to take a think about what it has brought to the company and withal suggest some instruments for increasing the salability and improve the communication between individual distribution channels so they would be more motivated for cooperation within this company. The thesis is divided into several chapters where we can find general knowledge about the commerce via the Internet, single kind of the e-commerce and also the legal aspects connected with that. The analytic part will introduce us the concrete knowledge about the company and marketing possibilities on the Internet for that company.

Franchised small businesses will not survive their first 5 years if they cannot implement marketing strategies that appeal to their customers. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the marketing strategies that successful franchise small business leaders used to retain customers. The population comprised 4 business leaders at franchise small businesses in North Carolina. Competitive advantage theory and blue ocean theory grounded this study. Data were collected using semistructured face-to-face interviews and review of company marketing materials. Data were thematically analyzed, and 6 themes emerged: personalization of customer service, market segmentation, innovative advertising, networking, brand identity, and loyalty programs. Market segmentation and innovative advertising are fundamental strategies for retaining customers within the target market, whereas personalization of customer service can help build positive relationships with customers. These findings could improve customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, which might increase the number of successful small businesses in the United States. The implications for positive social change include the potential for business leaders to develop effective marketing strategies to retain customers, which may benefit customers through an increase in job opportunities in the local business community.

Promoting informal workplace learning to improve workplace learning and performance within a competitive business environment presents a challenge for customer service training managers within a large corporation. The purpose of the study was to determine which attributes of informal workplace learning experiences contributed to meaningful professional development and improved performance. Constructivism and experiential learning provided the theoretical foundations for this study. Conceptually, learning is mediated by the meaning learners attribute to it. The primary research question concerned how customer service training associates perceived informal workplace learning experiences as having meaningful impact on their overall professional development and work performance. An embedded single case study design was used for the study. Data were collected through the use of semi structured interviews of 6 customer service training associates who were selected through maximum variation sampling. Thematic analysis was applied to transcribed interview data. The following were foundational to improvements in learning and performance: (a) participating in work-based projects, (b) receiving feedback through coaching and peer collaboration, (c) associating learning with achieving desired project and professional development objectives, and (d) structuring work activities and support so as to facilitate learning. The study demonstrated that informal workplace learning is grounded in the purposeful integration of certain essential elements. Study results advance social change by contributing to improved learning and performance thus benefitting individual trainers and the customer service organization.

Employees who want to leave their companies may exhibit low morale and commitment to organizations, which may affect the way employees interact with customers. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between employees' affective, continuance, and normative commitment to their organizations and their turnover intentions. The target population consisted of individuals with 2 or more years of call center experience who resided in the United States. Meyer, Allen, and Smith's 3-component model of commitment provided the study's theoretical framework. A purposive sampling of participants, which included a targeted audience and individuals who accessed the survey from Facebook and LinkedIn, returned 81 usable surveys. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. The overall regression model showed a statistically significant relationship between the 3 forms of commitment and turnover intentions, although normative commitment had the strongest relationship with turnover intentions. Study results provide additional evidence showing that employees' affective, continuance, and normative commitment to their organizations relate to their turnover intentions. These results may contribute to positive social change by helping leaders to better understand the relationship between employees' organizational affective, continuance, and normative commitment and turnover intentions. With this knowledge, leaders may be able to decrease turnover and turnover-related costs and increase firm performance. The money saved from turnover costs can be used to develop employees, invest in the company culture, or contribute to community-related programs.

Chatbots are increasing in popularity, both as a valuable tool for commercial purposes but also as an area of academic research. It has been successfully applied in multiple application areas such as healthcare, education, customer service and work support. Despite the successful use and application of chatbots research has identified two main user experience challenges: technical- and hedonistic limitations. Users also have a hard time understanding what level of competence and functionality they can expect from a chatbot. To combat these challenges, further research is needed to understand the user adoption and perception of chatbots. This study aims to research both the experiences and usage of customer service chatbots but also explore what preferences customers have when it comes to interacting with customer service chatbots or human customer service representatives in e-commerce. The theoretical technology acceptance model called Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was applied for this study. A quantitative study comparing customer service chatbots versus human customer service representatives was performed by conducting a questionnaire. The results from the questionnaire indicated that the participants of the study in general rated human customer service representatives higher in most question categories. The results indicate that the participants would prefer to interact with human service representatives over customer service chatbots which indicates that there is still opposition and challenges surrounding the adoption of customer service chatbots in e-commerce.