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The name of the thesis: Specifics of consumer protection in the field of energy industry The thesis deals with the specific consumer protection in the field of energy industry - in the market with electricity, gas, and thermal energy. The goal of the thesis is a detailed analysis of the legal regulation of the most important consumers' rights and related obligations of the license holders and eventual problems of consumers occurring in the market with energy commodities, followed by an analysis of relevant jurisdiction. The first part is focused on the definition of primary participants entering the energetic market where the attention is focused on the customer - consumer and energy supplier. The second part defines relevant customers' rights, besides the right to connection to the power system it also closely analyses especially the so-called some measures to protect a customer, as regulated in Section 11a of the Energy Act, including the right of withdrawal, termination of contract, right of withdrawal when the price is increased or other contract conditions are changed. It is followed by an analysis of some obligations of license holders. Besides the obligation of information, the so-called institute of continuation of licensed activity execution, the institute of obligation beyond the license...

This research project explores a number of issues related to the topic of Total Customer Engagement Value, specifically looking to ascertain whether encouraging engagement amongst consumers can be costly to a firm, whether Word of Mouth activity distributed through high engagement channels may be relatively ineffective, whether the acquirement and utilisation of information from these channels can damage an organisation and whether the rewarding of customers for engagement behaviours can lead to resentment on behalf of their lower engaged counterparts. A quantitative study was undertaken wherein the following was measured amongst consumers of Internet Service Providers: Total Customer Engagement Value, Personal Values, the level of technological-savviness of individuals who seek out information from respondents, the stated likelihood of switching to an alternative service provider, measurements related to service expectations, and perceptions related to the preferential treatment of other customers. The study did find that there are a number of potential issues regarding the asserted benefits of customer engagement. It was illustrated that in some instances lesserengaged customers may be more desirable to a firm. Word of Mouth may remain isolated to a group of similar individuals, and thus limit the supposed effectiveness of the spread of information via social media. Focussing on Highly-Engaged individuals as a source of information was also shown to be potentially dangerous, as they differed in four of their personal values. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychological Sciences / Patrick A. Knight / A significant body of academic work has amassed supporting the importance of employee engagement in the workplace and its ability to influence business outcomes. However, much of this research has been concentrated in high-contact occupations in which the relationship between the employee and the customer is prolonged and involved (e.g., financial consulting, nursing, etc.). The current study utilized movie theatre environments to determine if the ability of employee engagement to influence service delivery and business outcomes persists in low-contact service environments. This research found that even in settings characterized by brief and perfunctory employee-customer interactions, employee engagement at the business unit level significantly influenced service delivery as measured by the resulting overall guest satisfaction. Furthermore, this relationship was fully mediated by guest satisfaction with friendliness of employees, speed of service and cleanliness of the environment which previous research has found to be the primary drivers of overall guest satisfaction within this environment. Partial support was found for the ability of employee engagement to significantly predict reductions in employee turnover as well as reductions in operational inefficiency and negligence. No support was found linking employee engagement to the productivity/profitability of the business unit. Given these research findings which provide additional support for the importance of having an engaged workforce, we examined how employee satisfaction with various aspects of the company and occupational environment correlate to the employee’s level of engagement. We further segment these correlations by demographic groups to better understand the relationships and more effectively target future initiatives geared toward the improvement of employee engagement.

M.Com. (Marketing Management) / Despite the extensive research undertaken in the subject area of services marketing, not much research has been conducted in the internal marketing area, specifically in the South African context. This study attempted to address this subject and focused on seven internal marketing mix elements (internal product, internal price, internal promotion, internal distribution, internal people, internal process and internal physical evidence) and their influence on the satisfaction of graduate development employees within retail banks in South Africa. Further to this, the link between employee satisfaction and affective commitment was explored due to its impact on employee productivity. The growth of the service sector worldwide has led to services being considered as one of the most important sectors in the world. The contribution of the South African service sector to GDP was 68.1% in 2012, where the financial services sector in South Africa has already overtaken the manufacturing sector as the largest contributor to GDP. The financial service sector contributed 22% in 2008. Given the homogeneity within the retail banking industry, there is very little differentiating the banks, and imitation of any innovation is inevitable. For this reason a market-driven strategy that enables retail banks to deliver superior quality is essential as service quality is the only real differentiator and key to building a competitive advantage. Given its employees who create the service experience, the employee as the internal customer becomes the organisation’s most valuable asset. For this reason, retail banks in South Africa have been placing an increased focus on recruiting at the graduate level leading to the establishment of Graduate Development Programmes (GDPs). These banking GDPs are specifically designed to help graduates succeed in complex environments and to build the talent pipeline by providing an in-depth training programme. However one of the biggest challenges faced by banks is the satisfaction and retention of their GDP employees. Banks generally experience high attrition rates amongst this group of employees mainly due to job dissatisfaction which impacts service quality provided to external customers, and which increases the organisation’s costs. An internal marketing programme aimed at employees could enhance employee satisfaction which in turn could enhance employee levels of affective commitment resulting in higher retention rates. Satisfied employees will go the extra mile to serve external customers and in this manner service quality can be improved. In order to investigate the influence of the internal marketing mix on employee satisfaction and test the relationship between employee satisfaction and affective commitment, an empirical investigation was conducted. The primary research objective of the study was to investigate the influence of the internal marketing mix on employee satisfaction from GDP employees’ perspective in order to enhance their satisfaction at retail banks with graduate development programmes in South Africa. In addition to this, the relationship between satisfaction and affective commitment was explored. A census approach was applied to the study using a person administered and an electronic survey method. All retail banks with graduate development programmes were invited to participate in the study of which three agreed to participate. Of the 360 graduates, 64 employees agreed to participate in the study. Regression analysis was used to test the relationships proposed in the study. The internal promotion and internal physical evidence scales were discarded due to poor construct validity, internal distribution emerged as a two-factor solution and was split into collaborative culture and organisational structure, and the internal price element was not regarded as statistically significant. From the study, the internal marketing mix elements that influenced employee satisfaction to come to fore included internal product, collaborative culture, organisational structure, internal people and internal process. The outcome of the regression analysis showed that employee satisfaction is influenced by internal product, collaborative culture, organisational structure, internal people and internal process. In addition to this, it was concluded that employee satisfaction influences affective commitment. Based on these outcomes, recommendations were made to retail banks for the implementation of a formal internal marketing mix through for example the implementation of the internal people element. Retail banks would be able to ensure that supervisors are easily accessible and providing constant ongoing feedback, a benefit which was identified as the most important contributor to GDP job satisfaction.

The social construction of client service impacts on the everyday lives of all community members. This qualitative study was conducted to establish how frontline employees construct their client service in the police environment. Front-line employees, such as police officers and civilians working for the police, were interviewed in seven focus group discussions, and afterwards during in-depth interviews on a one-on-one basis. Data was also collected by studying unsolicited organisational documents such as policies and internal correspondence. I contributed by writing an essay on my personal experiences while working for the police service. Grounded theory was applied to analyse data through open, axial and selective coding. Twenty-one themes emerged from the data during open coding. Data was put back together again to find alternative links in the data. Eight main themes that could be tied to "dissatisfaction in the organisation" emerged from the data by applying this axial-coding process. Finding the single story line that could drape all themes saw the emergence of the core category. This process of selective coding identified the core category as being "dissatisfaction with internal processes in the organisation". A literature review covered topics such as motivation, commitment, policy, organisational culture, resistance to change and willingness. This process facilitated the development of my version or interpretation of a Process Satisfaction Model (PSM) which has been explicated in terms of the conditional matrix. The "goodness" of the study was evaluated in terms of reflexivity, peer debriefing, audit trail, credibility and dependability, authenticity, transferability and member checking. The main contribution of the study is to the social science in terms of theory and methodology and organisational human resource and management practice. Practical value was added to mainly policy formulation, implementation and accountability and education, training and development (ETD) practice. The study was concluded by reflecting on the researcher’s experience of the study during the course of the research. / Prof. Willem J. Schurink Prof. Karel Stanz

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In the literature today, there is an apparent absence of generally accepted models for how to achieve customer loyalty within the car retail sector.  Researchers have proposed that it is less expensive to serve long-term customers than newly acquired customers (Reishheld, 1994; Mittal & Lassar, 1998; Zineldin, 2006). However, the overall experience of satisfaction will play a crucial role for companies’ ability to build a long-term relationship with its customers (Gee, et al. 2008). Upon this gap, we decided to build a framework where we propose that the delivery within “sales and service” plays a crucial role for the perceived customer satisfactions associated with the retailer. In the study, we first investigated the circumstances within “sales and service” domains that leads to customer satisfaction and secondly, we examined whether fulfilled customer satisfaction in the “sales and service” domain leads to a long-term customer relationship for the car retailers. In accordance with the purpose of gaining knowledge on long-term customer relationship building within the car retail sector, we developed further knowledge that is applicable for car retailers as well as for the industrial wisdom within the automotive industry.   In the study, we applied the deductive approach. Hypotheses was generated based on existing literature, and were developed into a proposed framework, see figure 2.  We tested these hypotheses by applying a qualitative study to confirm or refute them.  The study follows a qualitative research approach, by way of reason that we wanted to gain deep insight into how all the interviewees experience and their treatments within the car retail context; the study was conducted based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews from ten participants.   Our study concludes that there is a general trend within the empirical findings that is mostly confirmed by the existing literature, that can provide a model which leads to perceived customer satisfaction within sales and service for a specific car retailer. The circumstances from “sales and service” that leads to customer satisfaction within the car retail sector are when the retailers: Work hard to achieve a personified relationship at all levels of the customer interaction, focusing on products offering and services according to the customers’ current needs, while delivering in a professional way according to their profession and always staying honest with the customer.     The results further reveal that 60 per cent of the interviewees are willing to stay in a long-term customer relationship with the retailer that can best fulfil the expectations set out above.   Although recent research shows that customer loyalty is decreasing (Laurell & Parment, 2015), our findings reveal that customers continue to believe in long-term customer relationship with the car retailers. As such, managers should put in places processes and measures that can achieve greater customer satisfaction throughout the “sales and service” period.

Class of 2005 Abstract / Objectives: To determine the impact of tightly controlled inventory reduction on customer satisfaction and partial fill costs. Methods: The project was a cross-sectional study employing two survey instruments and a time in motion analysis to determine the number of “we-owes” filled by pharmacies due to inventory reduction, the costs that arise from such reductions, and the impact on customer satisfaction. The first survey instrument was sent to four pharmacies in the Fry’s Food and Drug chain. The survey assessed number of “we-owes” per pharmacy and reasons for having them. The second survey consisted of several statements concerning customer satisfaction. The participants were asked to rate their agreement with each statement using a response scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A time-in-motion analysis was performed at two pharmacies averaging 350 prescriptions per day to record the amount of labor involved in filling “we-owes". Results: Medium to high volume Fry’s pharmacy fills an average of forty “we owes” each week. The average yearly costs for filling the “we owes” ranges from $171,579 to $568,796 per year depending on the job status of people filling the “we owes.” The main reason for these partially filled prescriptions was the minimum order point was incorrect accounted for 53.8% of the “we owes Almost half of customers owed medication felt it was not inconvenient them to pick the remainder of their prescription and that over half have had this happen more than once. Implications: The costs of tight inventory control need to be compared with the savings obtained from maintaining marginal inventories.

Please read the abstract (Synopsis) in the section, 00front of this document / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Marketing Management / MCom / Unrestricted