M. Tech. Tourism and Hospitality Management / Consumers are beginning to recognize their own footprint on the planet and are becoming both more understanding in their ability to find new travel opportunities and more conscious of the effects their travel will have on the places and people they visit. Therefore, more responsible service providers have seen an increase in this new - and fastest growing - tourism segment. Satisfying consumer demand is certainly not a nice to have; it is a need for survival of the business. So, creating a sustainable future zoo it is evident that adopting a service centric approach has the potential to enhance visitors experience and thus the long term success of the zoo. The goal of the study is to adopt a service centric approach that would enhance vision experience and thus ensure the long term success of the zoo. The finding of this study could assist Pretoria zoo to identify the trends of zoo visitors and helped the zoo to improve their facilities and service to meet the satisfaction of zoo visitors, and ensured the long term success of the zoo.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

This capstone project was conducted to evaluate trainer trainee satisfaction and acceptability from social validation questionnaires for SafeCare provider training s conducted by the National SafeCare Training and Research Center. Data were collected from 82 training participants from 2007 to 2009. SafeCare is an evidence-based parenting skills program created for at-risk and maltreating parents. The National SafeCare Training and Research Center utilizes a trainer-training model to teach professionals at the community-level. Trainees are instructed in four SafeCare modules: health, home safety, parent-child and parent-infant interactions. Social validation questionnaires are administered to evaluate process and procedures, outcome measures, staff performance, and training methods. Overall, SafeCare provider training was reported as valuable across all three social validation questionnaires. Trainees also reported a strong agreement for utilizing the skills learned during training in their future field work. Training staff performance received high satisfaction ratings as well.

Thesis (M.Tech.: Marketing)-Dept. of Marketing, Durban University of Technology, 2008. xiii, 135 leaves. / South Africa will host the Soccer World Cup in 2010. About 2.7 million local spectators and 400,000 visitors need to be transferred to and from the 10 host cities in 43 days. This is a huge challenge to the intercity bus transport industry, because the current transport system may not meet the demand for one of the world’s largest sporting event. The purpose of this study is to identify the current barriers to good service quality in the intercity bus transport industry. It focuses on the measurement of service quality and communication. In this research, the literature survey defined the service quality “gap” in this industry, identified the role of effective communication in the service delivery system, measured the variables affecting current service delivery using the SERVQUAL instrument, and prioritized the importance of the factors influencing service delivery in this industry. A questionnaire with 25 questions was designed to collect data. This study used convenience sampling to select 400 passengers as a sample, viz. 348 South Africans and 52 foreigners at the Durban bus station, since Durban is one of the ten host cities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The data was analysed using SPSS. The results of this research pointed to the importance of external communication in the industry. Specific recommendations are made to improve the productivity, reduce vacancy rate and maximize the benefits to this industry in 2010 and beyond.

Dissertation submitted in compliance with the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology: Business Administration, 2008. / The aim of the study was to identify causes of churning, to find ways of managing it and to diagnose customers‟ communication needs. Furthermore the research tested the impact of messaging services on customer retention and whether these services could compensate for the declining revenue or become new cash cows for service providers. The units of analyses were young people of ages ranging from 15 to 24. This group was chosen because it was found, during the study, that they used new services more often than any other age group. The initial plan, however, was to interview the entire population of cellphone users. Stratified random sampling was used to randomly select the units of analysis. Interviews were conducted at the homes of respondents, in the streets and at a shopping centre. Causes of customer churning were found to be billing by service providers that confused customers and „better phone deals offered by the competitors‟ resulting in some of the respondents switching providers. Other aspects about which respondents complained and which therefore could cause churning are „poor network quality‟, „confusing pricing structure‟ and „long waiting on customer care line‟. The respondents indicated that their communication needs could be satisfied by services that are easy to use, a helpful customer care agent and being able to retain a number when switching a service provider. Therefore churning could be managed by removing or reducing the causes of it and attracting the customers by meeting their communications needs, which are, improving customer care service and designing services that are easy to use. The research was inconclusive on the messaging services. Of the three new messaging services that were studied, only one was extremely popular, while the other two were hardly used. Instant messaging was the second most used service to voice and SMS and it was also ranked second, in order of importance. The other two messaging services, mobile email and MMS, received low rankings from the respondents. In addition more than a quarter (27%) of the respondents had never used mobile email. The implications of these findings are that service providers should improve their customer care service and design services that are easy to use.

South Africa's re-integration into the global economy and the international political arena has brought about an active growth of business locally and internationally. Local companies are expanding into new markets and regions which require them to follow internationally acceptable and approved waste disposal policies in their production of goods and services. To achieve compliance, it is necessary that companies have the appropriate support and backup from waste disposal companies. Also, increasing pressure from environmental groups and government agencies makes it a prerequisite that a company's waste is properly disposed of in the most efficient, lawful and economical way. This research dissertation is aimed at identifying the key factors that impact on the levels of service in the waste industry and an attempt at evaluating the effects of the service levels to determine what actions are necessary to improve the levels of service in the waste industry. As a result, this research was carried out amongst producers of waste in certain areas of KwaZulu-Natal. Various techniques were evaluated in researching how to measure service quality. The most reliable measuring instrument to gauge service quality was found to be the SERVQUAL system. This measuring instrument was evaluated and then modified to suit the particular needs of the waste industry. The SERVQUAL system is a multi-item scale for measuring consumers perceptions of service quality. A sample of 75 companies was selected and senior management was interviewed. Based on the statistical analysis, the discrepancy between service expectations and service delivery in the waste industry is wide. Urgent attention needs to be focused on service delivery, especially reliability, assurance and responsiveness by waste disposal companies. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

The field of Logistics Management increasingly becomes a more critical field of activity in almost every industry. Diminishing margins, rising costs and every increasing client expectations demand a strong focus on client retention in order to reap the full benefits from efficient client-supplier relationships. This dissertation delivers the tools to improve the client retention rate at Kuehne & Nagel, South Africa, by measuring the present clients perception of service levels experienced. The survey furthermore takes into account how important clients rate different service criteria and how Kuehne & Nagel's performance compares to the perceived performance of competitor firms. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This study aimed at investigating perceptions of different stakeholders, which were the community, administration (staff) and councillors on service delivery by Mpofana Municipality. This research provided recommendations that would assist in terms of accelerating service delivery, which is noted as the most fundamental responsibility of all municipalities in South Africa as the fulfillment of the constitutional mandate. The study provided recommendations that will assist in terms of accelerating service delivery, not only in urban areas but in rural areas as well. The study focused on Mpofana Municipality using the Servqual model to measure perceptions in terms of service delivery, i.e. what is expected compared with perceptions of service experienced. The overall SERVQUAL score of the councillors and the staff revealed that the perceptions were equal to the expectations. The results showed that the SERVQUAL calculated from the responses of the staff and councillors were very similar and the gap between their perceptions and expectations was minimal. These results confirmed that staff and councillors hold similar expectations and perceptions in relation to customers. The results of the staff and the councillors were very similar because they were internal respondents associating themselves with the Mpofana municipality. The results showed that the community's expectations about the service which they received from Mpofana Municipality did not match their perceptions. This presents a great challenge to the councillors, as well as to the management of the municipality. The Mpofana Municipality is expected to provide excellent service to its customers all the time. What customers/clienUcommunity wanted and what they got from an institution did not match. This was not a satisfactory indication of the quality of service that the Mpofana municipality was displaying. These SERVQUAL scores also indicated that there were definite areas needing attention e.g. reliability, responsiveness and assurance. Service delivery could be improved if both councillors and staff were to align their expectations to those of the community and design services to the specifications and expectations of the customers. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

This research presents a consumer evaluation of the delivery and aspects of services provided at three community run mental health centres. The purpose of this research is to describe the satisfaction levels of consumers with mental health service delivery in Durban, with a view to using this information to improve the services in future for quality assurance. The current investigation takes a look at how a comprehensive community mental health centre is perceived by its consumers. The subjects totalling one hundred and eleven clients who were attending psychiatric community health clinics during the study period. Using client self report questionnaires, the study investigates clients' perceptions of several aspects of their clinical care in community mental health service. In addition to assessing the clients' level of overall satisfaction and degree of acceptability of the services to the clients, the researcher was also interested in determining the expectation of consumers and how the clients perceived the effectiveness of health care service delivery. Additional information provided was the clients' views of the quality and outcome oftherapy. As further measures of the clinic's effectiveness and client satisfaction, questions relative to other help seeking actions, future behaviour in similar situations and recommendations ofthe clinic to others were asked. In addition to asking a wide variety of satisfaction-related questions, sociodemographic detail (i.e. age, gender, race, educational level, employment status, length of visits to the clinic) were asked. Most participants were unemployed men. Analysis of findings indicated that most participants were satisfied with the health service provided. Recommendations were, however, further made for improving quality of care and towards additional studies in other settings to include appropriate proportions of all racial groups in South Africa. / Thesis (M.Cur.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This study of 79 male and 139 female university students investigated organizational recovery efforts following customer dissatisfaction. Rather than exploring recovery efforts that occur following a service failure, this study examined proactive versus reactive recovery efforts to determine implications for customer service. The purpose of this study was to determine ways in which to prevent a dissatisfying consumer experience from concluding as a complete service failure. This research extended the previous investigations of service recovery by Webster and Sundaram (1998) and Smith, Bolton, and Wagner (1999).A 4 x 3 factorial design employed four service recovery efforts and three service industries. Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty served as the primary dependent variables. Results supported the hypothesis that the use of communication before a dissatisfying service event concludes increases both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The results also provided evidence that customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are positively correlated. Combination recovery efforts and implications are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services