Architecture Design for deploying or improving a tool or application is a vital step which should be neither ignored nor avoided. The architecture will provide the framework and instructions on how the tool needs to be created in order to comply with the stakeholders’ most important requirements. Utilizing data collected from the different stakeholders involved in the use of an existing tool, an effective architecture structure will be created to improve the tool and satisfy the users’ needs to achieve the desired goals in it. Through the use of an effective architecture design, a toolkit will be created to improve an existing Management Tool to provide a desired outcome. We have learned that having an architecture established prior to starting a development project or in the early lifecycle stages will positively influence the project’s outcome, timely deliverables and financial impact associated with it. It is crucial to consider all aspects surrounding a process or software design, such as stakeholder requirements, internal and external customer feedback, and any particular feature that will guarantee a reliable structure and deployment process. / text

Many companies around the world have implemented Six Sigma as a problem solving methodology especially useful for dealing with recurring problems in business processes. Since the 1980s when it was developed at Motorola, many companies have tried to implement Six Sigma to fit their own company’s culture and goals. This thesis presents a longitudinal case study describing the evolution of ‘Six Sigma Management’ at Siemens in Sweden. The success of the programme was to a large degree built on previous failures, confirming Juran’s old saying ‘Failure is a gold mine’. From the case study, success factors for implementing Six Sigma at Siemens are identified and compared to those given in the literature. Some of the most critical success factors identified at Siemens had not been mentioned as such in the literature before. The main conclusion of the study is that, in order to succeed and get sustainable results from a Six Sigma programme, Six Sigma should be integrated with Process Management, instead of just running Six Sigma as a separate initiative in an organisation. Furthermore, the thesis includes papers presenting methods and tools to be used in a Six Sigma programme or in Six Sigma projects. They deal with: how to identify suitable Six Sigma projects, how to select which Six Sigma methodology to use, how to find hidden misunderstandings between people from different knowledge domains, and how to simulate the impact of improvements to iterative processes. All these methods and tools have been developed and tested at Siemens. This has been an action research project, where the author has been employed by the company under investigation for eleven years and has actively influenced the changes in the company based on knowledge gained at the company as well as on research studies conducted at universities. In action research the change initiative under investigation is conducted and analysed in a single context. The readers are invited to draw their own conclusions on the applicability of the results to their own specific cases. In addition to this, some conclusions derived using analytical generalisation, applicable to a more general case, are presented in the thesis. / <p>Defended att Chalmers University of Technolgy in 2007.</p>

Given that companies such as Proctor & Gamble are saying that they expect to get more than half of their ideas from outside the organization, there is a surprising lack of published research on how to encourage more of those ideas to reach organizations. Within the service climate, a focus on customer orientation and customer engagement has been linked to helping organizations remain competitive. Encompassing all of the non-transactional customer behaviours that can affect an organization, discussions of customer engagement often include things such as word of mouth, advocacy, and co-creation, yet they often do not mention customer feedback. Word of mouth can only extend an organization’s promotional budget, whereas customer feedback, another piece of the customer engagement puzzle, has the power to impact innovation and improvements within an organization. As such, this study contributes to the understanding of the antecedents of customer feedback. A model is put forth combining the technology acceptance model, knowledge management, customer complaint behaviour, and the theory of planned behaviour, showing that the intention to provide feedback is affected by customer characteristics (attitude towards feedback, subjective norms), perceptions of the feedback process (perceived ease of feedback process, perceived usefulness of feedback), and organization perceptions (customer orientation and affective commitment). Altruism, gender, and perceived rewards associated with the feedback process did not affect the intention to provide feedback. / 2013-07

Most Software Startups fail to establish a working business model. One of the main reasons is that they fail to validate their hypothesis and neglect to learn from their customers. Therefore, Software Startups are supposed to continuously adjust their direction to achieve product-market fit. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of customer feedback in the context of Software Startups during the decision to pivot. Thus, the central research question of this thesis is: What role does customer feedback play when a Software Startup decides to pivot? By living up to the values of a pragmatic research philosophy this qualitative study used nine semi-structured interviews with experts from the relevant field. Afterwards, these insights have been placed into the four stages of the Early Stage Software Startup Development Model (ESSSDM) funnel. This study showed that customer feedback plays a crucial role when a Software Startup decides to pivot. However, the interviewees revealed that it is essential how customer feedback is perceived and used for the product development. Furthermore, customer feedback was not perceived as the only crucial triggering factor, but an element of a broader set.

The dissertation is focused on customer engagement which is defined as a certain activity when a company creates convenient possibilities and opportunities actively in order to involve customers who will be willing to express themselves to chosen companies' matters. It is obvious that it depends on the customers, whether they will participate or not. Both the company and the customer must be able to identify certain value that they obtain for them through their activity. The main goal of the thesis was creating a proposal in the form of a methodology, how to implement the chosen way of customer engagement with regard to the marketing management of retail companies. For purposes of the dissertation, the chosen way of customer engagement was obtaining customer feedback. During research interviews with entrepreneurs and managers, it was found out that it is just customer feedback that is one of the important topics in retail. In order to fulfil the main goal, the basis was a transposition of both theoretical pieces of knowledge and newly gained findings from own empirical research, concerning customer engagement within entrepreneurial subject's management. There were three partial goals that present a sequence of steps how to fulfil the mentioned main goal: (A) to identify particular ways of customer engagement in retail, (B) to find out how the chosen way of customer engagement is used in business practice in retail, and (C) to determine links between marketing management and the chosen way of customer engagement. There were used data from entrepreneurial subjects in retail and from customers as well. The result of fulfilling the main goal is the created methodology, how to work with customer feedback. It has three main sections: obtaining, processing and using of customer feedback. It is possible to consider the created methodology as a set of recommended directions for use how to develop and deepen relationships with customers. It is also an answer to the behaviour of contemporary customers who are not only passive receivers but they are active creators and influencers of actions around them.

Abstract The aim of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of customer satisfaction surveys and spontaneous customer feedback procedure in a university hospital laboratory. Questionnaires containing closed-ended statements and an open-ended question were used in the customer satisfaction surveys targeted at the clinical units of the university hospital and regional health centres. Customer feedback documents including the subject matters of the reports, the investigations carried out and the actions taken were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The highest dissatisfaction rates in the clinical units were recorded for computerised test requesting and reporting, turnaround times of tests, missing test results and the schedule of phlebotomy rounds. In addition, additional instructions were needed. The most common causes of dissatisfaction among regional health centres were related to electronic data transfer of laboratory test requests and reports between health centres and the university hospital laboratory, need of additional instructions for handling of samples and preparation patients for laboratory tests, problems with decentralised phlebotomy services to hospital outpatients, and unawareness of the schedule of some less common laboratory tests. Further clarifications with selected customers were needed to specify the causes of dissatisfaction. Erroneous, delayed and lacking test results were the most common errors or defects revealed in the investigations of the spontaneous customer feedback reports from both the clinical units and the external customers. The most common underlying causes of errors were unintended errors and non-compliance with operating instructions. Systematic errors were found in one-sixth of the cases. Corrective actions were carried out in three-fourths of the cases. Satisfaction survey can be used as a screening tool to identify topics of dissatisfaction. However, further clarifications are often needed to find out the customer-specific causes of dissatisfaction and to undertake targeted corrective actions. Every reported case of customer feedback should be investigated to find out possible errors and their underlying causes so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken.

Software product development companies are increasingly striving to become data-driven. The access to customer feedback and product data has been, with products increasingly becoming connected to the Internet, demonetized. Systematically collecting the feedback and efficiently using it in product development, however, are challenges that large-scale software development companies face today when being faced by large amounts of available data. In this thesis, we explore the collection, use and impact of customer feedback on software product development. We base our work on a 2-year longitudinal multiple-case study research with case companies in the software-intensive domain, and complement it with a systematic review of the literature. In our work, we identify and confirm that large-software companies today collect vast amounts of feedback data, however, struggle to effectively use it. And due to this situation, there is a risk of prioritizing the development of features that may not deliver value to customers. Our contribution to this problem is threefold. First, we present a comprehensive and systematic review of activities and techniques used to collect customer feedback and product data in software product development. Next, we show that the impact of customer feedback evolves over time, but due to the lack of sharing of the collected data, companies do not fully benefit from this feedback. Finally, we provide an improvement framework for practitioners and researchers to use the collected feedback data in order to differentiate between different feature types and to model feature value during the lifecycle. With our contributions, we aim to bring software companies one step closer to data-driven decision making in software product development.

The purpose of this research is to understand the impacts of positive feedback from customers and managers and the extrinsic rewards and intrinsic rewards on job satisfaction. Furthermore, this research will examine how employees in the hospitality industry react to positive feedback and to explore whether this positive feedback has practical applications to help increase employee satisfaction. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, 339 valid surveys from respondents with experience working in the hospitality industry were returned. The results indicated that positive feedback from customers as well as summarized positive customer feedback delivered by managers have positive relationships with intrinsic reward, extrinsic reward, and job satisfaction. The findings suggested that positive feedback does influence employees’ Job satisfaction. And this study will provide suggestions on improving employees’ positive perception by applying positive feedback to increasing employees’ satisfaction and further development.

The customer’s role as a co-creator of value is an essential element in the service-dominant (S-D) logic, highlighting the importance for firms to develop relationships with customers through dialogue. By providing feedback customers become co-developers, and help create a competitive advantage. Moreover, the Internet offers an abundance of digital channels for dialogue. Payne et al (2008) have developed a framework for value co-creation, which in this paper is adapted to communication in digital channels, focusing on a company perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate how companies in the Swedish telecommunication industry use digital channels, including social media, for value co-creation with customers. To enable this a case study is conducted with three network operators. The data collection consists of several interviews. Findings indicate that the companies are indeed customer-centric in their offerings, and that communication and feedback in digital channels are of strategic importance. Furthermore, changes in technology, industry logics and customer preferences offer opportunities as well as challenges. Another challenge lies in finding suitable metrics and in knowledge management. The concept of lead users is presented as a potential resource. It is concluded that communication in digital channels enhances the features of the S-D logic.

Firms in the service industry have experienced a 15-30% drop in customer satisfaction ratings and an estimated $10 billion annually due to the unpredictable tendencies of one of the most significant and fastest growing consumer segments in the marketplace, Generation Y customers. The distinctive behavior of this sizeable generational cohort may be reshaping the business landscape of the 21st century regarding how consumers will relate to service providers in the future. Using the theory of customer satisfaction management system, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the customer satisfaction strategies that business leaders in southern Nigeria use to retain Generation Y customers. The participants included business leaders who have successfully retained Generation Y customers by applying customer satisfaction business strategies in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria. The data were collected through semistructured one-on-one interviews with 3 business leaders from different sectors of the service industry. To enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the interpretations, methodological triangulation of the data sources and member checking were used. The process of data analysis included word frequency analysis, coding of related phrases, identification of patterns, and generation of themes around the codes. The themes that emerged from the study were (a) positive brand image creation, (b) social media as an enabler, and (c) quality service and timely delivery. This study may create awareness for business leaders on how to satisfy and retain Generation Y customers. This awareness has the potential of promoting positive social change among business leaders because of the significant contribution profitable businesses bring to the societies and communities.