Magistro darbe išanalizuota organizacijos kultūros esmė, jos ryšys su aptarnavimo kultūra. Išanalizuoti įvairių autorių aprašyti organizacijos kultūrą veikiantys veiksniai ir faktoriai, nuo kurių priklauso klientų aptarnavimo kultūra. Nustatyta, kad klientų aptarnavimo kultūros pagrindinis veiksnys yra žmogiškasis faktorius. Atlikta personalo motyvavimo, kvalifikacijos kėlimo, vadovo ir darbuotojų asmeninio požiūrio įtaka klientų aptarnavimo gerinimui. Ištirta klientų aptarnavimo kultūros būklė Šiaulių apskrities valstybinėje mokesčių inspekcijoje darbuotojų ir klientų požiūriu. Numatytos klientų aptarnavimo kultūros gerinimo kryptis Šiaulių apskrities valstybinėje mokesčių inspekcijoje. Patvirtinama autorės suformuluota mokslinio tyrimo hipotezė, kad klientai apie organizacijos kultūrą sprendžia remdamiesi jų aptarnavimo kultūros lygiu. / Organizational culture and its relations with service culture are analyzed in the master’s work. Accentuated described by various authors organizational culture influencing factors that affect customer service culture. It was determined that the main customer service affecting factor is human factor. It was established personnel motivation, training in-service, executive and staff personal approach impact to customer service improvement. In Siauliai Country State Tax Inspectorate customer service culture was analyzed from customers and personnel point of view and also was prepared suggestions how customer service culture could be improved in this organization. In master’s work the author hypothesized that customers make decisions about organizational culture according to the level of their service culture. This hypothesis was confirmed.

The aim of this paper is to look into the essence of customer-contact employees’ empowerment and its outputs as well as interrelationships with service complexity in the Lithuanian service companies. Its goals are to analyze theoretical aspects of service companies’ customer-contact employees’ empowerment and its outputs – job satisfaction and service quality, to identify interrelationships between service complexity and employee empowerment, to evaluate how interrelate customer-contact employees’ empowerment with job satisfaction and service quality as well as identify interrelationships between empowerment adequacy for service complexity and job satisfaction in Lithuanian service companies. The results of research disclosed that empowerment is interrelated both with job satisfaction and service quality.

Bakalauro baigiamajame darbe analizuojamas UAB „Drogas“ darbuotojų ir vartotojų požiūris į klientų aptarnavimo kokybę kaip į paslaugos kokybės įvertinimo būdą. Teorinėje darbo dalyje pateikiama paslaugos samprata bei paslaugų kokybės vertinimo modeliai, paremti Ch.Gronroos (1990) požiūriu, kad paslaugų kokybė gali būti vertinama dviem aspektais - techniniu bei funkciniu. Pateikiama klientų aptarnavimo samprata, personalo savybių svarba, klientų aptarnavimo kokybė atskiruose pardavimo proceso etapuose, vadovo požiūris į klientų aptarnavimą ir klientų aptarnavimo standarto įtaka kokybės gerinimui. Empirinėje darbo dalyje pristatoma tiriama organizacija - UAB „Drogas“, pagrindžiamas tyrimo instrumentas ir atliekama požiūrio į klientų aptarnavimo kokybę analizė, remiantis „Drogas“ parduotuvių Šiauliuose, Radviliškyje ir Panevėžyje darbuotojų ir vartotojų vertinimais. / Bachelor final work analyzes the UAB ''Drogas" of workers and consumers attitude to customer service as the service quality estimation method. The theoretical part of the service concept and service quality evaluation model based on Ch.Gronroos (1990) view that service quality can be seen in two aspects - technical and functional. Contains the concept of customer service, personnel the importance of features, customer service quality in different stages of the sales process of a manual approach to customer service and customer service standard power quality improvement. The empirical part presents the studied organization - "Drogas", based on the studies performed and the instrument approach to customer service quality analysis, based on the "Drogas" stores in Šiauliai and Panevežys, Radviliškis workers and consumers evaluations.

Syfte - Att undersöka hur en kundsegmenteringsprocess kan utformas samt vilka variabler man bör iaktta för att kunna erbjuda en lämplig kundservicenivå. För att uppnå detta syfte skall följande frågeställningar besvaras: 1. Vilka variabler bör ingå i en kundsegmentering? 2. Hur kan en kundsegmenteringsprocess utformas? Metod - En generell kundsegmenteringsprocess utformades. Processen har utvecklats genom kvalitativ forskning baserad på litteraturstudier samt intervjuer i en fallstudie. Under litteraturstudien granskades teorier i ämnet för att besvara frågeställningarna. Detta jämfördes senare med empirin som samlats under fallstudien. Resultat - Den utformade processen innehåller sju dimensioner med tillhörande variabler. Under studien har variablerna utvärderats för att ta reda på hur de påverkar situationen. Endast de variabler som hade ett stort inflytande på situationen togs med i processen. Studien visade att det finns olika strategier för att utföra en kundsegmentering. Vid utformning av en kundsegmenteringsprocess är det viktigt att veta vilka variabler som passar organisationens bransch samt hur de påverkar resultatet. Omfång och Avgränsningar - Rapporten är begränsad till att utforma ett förslag på en kundsegmenteringsprocess. Processen kommer därför inte att tillämpas på fallföretaget under fallstudien. Processen kan fortfarande generaliseras och användas av företag med liknade egenskaper. Ytterligare forskning skulle kunna sträva efter att inkludera andra variabler som passar in på fler branscher. Implikationer - Den utformade processen hjälper till vid beslutssituationer avseende kundsegmentering. Genom att balansera de variabler som föreslagits möjliggör dem en grund för olika kundserviceerbjudanden. Dessa variabler beaktar den eftersträvade generaliseringen. Bidrag och Rekommendationer - Kundsegmenteringsprocessen som presenteras i denna rapport är, såvitt författarna vet, den första i sitt slag med sin layout. Variablerna kan även användas i andra segmenteringsprocesser vilket visar en hög grad av generalisering. Vad som är unikt med den designade processen i denna rapport är att den innehåller en mix av två väl beprövade teorier inom kundsegmentering nämligen, Kotler’s (2009) Bottom-Up-Approach och Weinstein’s (2004) B2B Market Segmentation. / Purpose – To examine how the process of customer segmentation can be designed, and which variables to consider to offer an appropriate customer service. To achieve this purpose the following questions will be answered: 1. Which variables should be included in customer segmentation? 2. How can a customer segmentation process be designed? Method – A general process was designed. The process has been developed through qualitative research based on literature review and interviews conducted in a case study. During the literature review the authors sought for theories on the subject in order to answer the research questions. This was later compared to the empirical evidence collected from the case study. Findings – The designed process contains seven dimensions with related variables. During the study the variables were evaluated concerning their impact on the situation. Only variables that had a high influence on the situation were implemented in the process. The study showed that that there are various approaches towards performing customer segmentation. When designing a customer segmentation process, it is of high importance to know which variables suit the organizations line of business and how they affect the outcome. Research limitations – The thesis is restricted into designing a customer segmentation process, the process will therefore not be applied on the case company during the case study. The process can still be generalized and usable for companies with similar distribution setup. Further research could strive to include other variables. Implications – The designed process assists in the decision-making situation regarding customer segmentation. By balancing the variables it enables a basis for customer service offering. These variables take the requested generalization in consideration. Originality/value – The customer segmentation process presented in this thesis is, as far as the authors know, the first in its kind with its layout. The variables could be used in other segmentation processes as well which show a high grade of generalization. What is unique with the designed process in this thesis is that it contains a mixture of two well proven customer segmentation theories namely, Kotler’s (2009) Bottom-Up-Approach and Weinstein’s (2004) B2B Market Segmentation.

Smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, with the result that customers prefer to carry out at least some customer services using an app on a mobile device. Among app users, smooth transfer to a live agent is seen as an important feature and this means that the company contact center need a solution to handle this as well as increasing numbers of interactions. The question this thesis tries to answer is "how can smartphone end user apps be included in the context of the company contact center"? To answer this question research was conducted regarding the possibilities of an Android smartphone, with the results of this research being used to define a use case, a state flow diagram and create a demonstration app. The thesis showed that it is possible to have an app as an online channel for customer service interactions. New possibilities in comparison to traditional telephony include that customer data such as topic, authentication, location and multimedia can be sent to the contact center before an actual interaction is started.

Research question How does the customers´ perceived service quality change when an industry becomes privatized? Purpose The purpose of our study is to examine how the customers´ perceived service quality change after a privatization of an industry. We have investigated if the pharmaceutical industry´s state-owned and privately-owned enterprises deliver different levels of perceived service quality. Methodology This study is of a quantitative approach where empirical data is collected through a questionnaire which is handed out to 120 respondents. Findings There are no statistically proven difference in perceived service quality between state-owned and privately-owned enterprises. Conclusion                         State-owned and privately-owned enterprises are similar in sense of delivering customer service quality in a deregulated and competitive marketplace. Implications Our study contributes to the understanding of privatization. Privatization is a well-debated measure, and citizens of almost any society shares different opinions about its effect on our well-being, and the result from this study gives an understanding how privatization actually affects the society in sense of the service quality provided.

For decades, researchers have seen employee empowerment as the means to achieving a more committed workforce that would deliver better outcomes. The prior conceptual and descriptive research focused on structural empowerment, or workplace mechanisms for generating empowerment, and psychological empowerment, the felt empowerment. Responding to calls for intervention studies, this research experimentally tests the effects of structural empowerment changes, through different degrees of decision-making authority and access to customer-relationship information, on psychological empowerment and subsequent work-related outcomes. Using a virtual contact center simulation, crowdsourced workers responded to customer requests. Greater decision authority and access to customer-relationship information resulted in higher levels of psychological empowerment which in turn resulted in task satisfaction and task attractiveness outcomes among the crowdsourced customer service workers.

This study is about helping managers identify and enhance the idiosyncratic firm resources required for delivering superior perceived use value to customers. Specifically, the research has focused on the organisational knowledge required for routinised service delivery, and has operationalised this organisational knowledge as activities. Project 1 was a comparative study involving observation and interviews in two similar but differentially performing financial services organisations in order to identify the activities involved in service delivery and the differences between the two operations. Project 2 identified customers’ perceptions of value through customer interviews, and then mapped the links between these and the service delivery activities identified in Project 1. Project 3 involved a clinical inquiry intervention aiming to encourage and leverage the firm specific resource of inter-team coordination to enhance the delivery of customer value. The research has confirmed the role of firm specific resources as a source of competitive advantage, and has demonstrated a link with customers’ dimensions of perceived use value. In this study, effective inter-team coordination is identified as the firm specific strategic resource that appears to enable effective service delivery as perceived by customers, through the sharing of knowledge and interpretations, and the development of service process innovation. Many of these coordination activities are discretionary rather than prescribed, with implications for management practice. From this research, a framework has been developed for considering and managing firm specific sources of advantage at the detailed operational level. This is a micro level approach that makes specific links between the customer experience and internal activities, through identifying internal and external competitiveness factors, mapping the ‘inside-outside’ connections, and achieving alignment between internal activities and customer perceptions of value.

The continued growth of service industries and the development of the experience economy has highlighted the need for employees to have extensive social and interpersonal skills. The need for employee interpersonal skills is further emphasised by the extensive interaction between employees and customers, during the provision of customer service, in full service hotels. Despite the heterogeneous nature of the customer service environment, management expect that a consistent level of service will be maintained, while customers desire a unique experience that meets or exceeds their individual expectations. To ensure that both the needs of the organisation and customers are consistently met, management control of employee actions and behaviours is required.The aim of this study was to identify how hotel organisations and managers control employee interpersonal interactions with customers. The research also sought to identify the interpersonal and emotional capabilities employers require from employees to meet the needs of customers and present the desired corporate image. A qualitative, case study, research methodology was applied to understand the expectations of managers, the issues concerning managing employee interactions with customers, perceptions of employee capabilities, and beliefs about current management control strategies in a hotel environment. The research was conducted at four hotel properties belonging to one international hotel group. The data gathering methods included semi-structured interviews, documentation review and field notes.The research concluded that effective alignment of employee and management goal congruence first requires the alignment of managers' goals to the organisation. To ensure management's expectations, customers' expectations and employee actions and behaviours are aligned, management must also have a sound understanding of the organisation's brand and desired image. Cultural and social control mechanisms were found to be important, as they provided a consistent method of aligning employees' behaviour with the goals and expectations of management. The development of social cohesion and norms, through serial and investiture socialisation mechanisms, also helped to create self-managing teams that reinforced the goals of management. The study suggests that, due to the increasing diversity of the stakeholders' views and goals, some of the traditional management perspectives of hospitality may need to change to meet the needs of contemporary employees.

This thesis presents a study of hospitality employees in Australia. It explores how hospitality employees learn to appropriately express emotion as per certain norms that exist within their workplace. This study focuses on customer service employees and their interactions with customers and their co-workers.