Thesis (MBA.) --University of Limpopo, 2017 / The research was qualitative, where groups of restaurants managers/owners were interviewed in the three Polokwane Malls namely Limpopo Mall, Savannah Mall and Mall of the North. The purpose of the interviews was to find out what customers complain about in restaurants. To find how the customers in restaurants lodge their complaints; how the businesses deal with complaints; how customers bring forth their complaints in different ways; and to identify which groups complain the most. Further, to find out how restaurant owners handle customer complaints and to whom customers lodge those complaints, and the ways which restaurants use to respond to the customers’ complaints. The research results show that restaurant customers complain mostly verbally to the managers. Females are the ones complaining more than their male counterparts. Levels of education make no difference to how customers complain. Waiters need to render quality service as product knowledge is not the only product customers prefer; they actually value service more. The study recommends that restaurants need to pay careful attention to services such as a clean eating area to avoid complaints as most complaints come about this area; verbal and nonverbal skills of employees should be developed in order to avoid complaints from customers. Managers should be equipped to handle customers’ complaints as they are the people to whom such complaints are addressed and waiters/waitress should be made aware that customers are important and their complaints are always valued in the business in order to improve service

Consumerfinance serves as the source of financial stability and uplifts the economicand social status of the household. This research is based on qualitative studyand up to some extent on quantitative base too. The major objective of thisstudy is to gain insights of consumer financing in Pakistan from a consumerperspective. At the same time, the study investigates and analyzes the defined rulesand regulations for banks and for consumers during the time of obtaining theloans from banks and well as from other financial institutions. Interestingly,during the process of investigation, the study encounters a lot of constraintsand dissatisfaction perceived by tits customers. Hence the report seeks outthose issues and challenges that are hindering to meet customer demand forsound consumer finance. The report is duly influenced by the Central Bank(State Bank of Pakistan), which is responsible and obliged to secure theinterests of the consumers.

<p>This report is all about quality improvement work with focusing on nonconformities routines. The purpose is to improve the process of nonconformity routines and to identify the most important issues and causes behind nonconformity routines in order to have good quality of the products and satisfied customer to achieve continuous improvement. This project is conducted at a case study at the case company GMV Sweden AB producing lifts and their components. The problem in the case company is how the case company is handling nonconformity routines which consist currently of two streams one for problems in production which leads to internal nonconformities and another is handling customer complaints. The author visits the case company to collect essential information for this work and performs face-to-face user interviews, Q&A via email. The knowledge gained on different quality tools in author's education on Terotechnology department forms the basis of this research. The author plans to solve the problem by analyzing, mapping the existing processes and using different quality tools. The author analysis is based on theoretical and empirical facts, also different quality tools like process mapping, cause effect diagram, flowchart has been used to identify the problem and relevant suggestions have been proposed to improve their current situation. In the results and conclusions the author has explain the various improvement techniques and suggestions to handle internal nonconformities and customer complaints. The author believes by implementing the suggested improved model company can address their quality issues, which will improve the productivity to a greater extent and enable them to achieve their goal of continuous improvement.</p>

This report is all about quality improvement work with focusing on nonconformities routines. The purpose is to improve the process of nonconformity routines and to identify the most important issues and causes behind nonconformity routines in order to have good quality of the products and satisfied customer to achieve continuous improvement. This project is conducted at a case study at the case company GMV Sweden AB producing lifts and their components. The problem in the case company is how the case company is handling nonconformity routines which consist currently of two streams one for problems in production which leads to internal nonconformities and another is handling customer complaints. The author visits the case company to collect essential information for this work and performs face-to-face user interviews, Q&amp;A via email. The knowledge gained on different quality tools in author's education on Terotechnology department forms the basis of this research. The author plans to solve the problem by analyzing, mapping the existing processes and using different quality tools. The author analysis is based on theoretical and empirical facts, also different quality tools like process mapping, cause effect diagram, flowchart has been used to identify the problem and relevant suggestions have been proposed to improve their current situation. In the results and conclusions the author has explain the various improvement techniques and suggestions to handle internal nonconformities and customer complaints. The author believes by implementing the suggested improved model company can address their quality issues, which will improve the productivity to a greater extent and enable them to achieve their goal of continuous improvement.

Service quality and customer satisfaction are becoming increasingly important in today‟s business environment which is characterised by fierce competition between the service providers. In this regard it is very imperative that companies assess themselves by measuring service quality. Consequently, areas of the service with low service quality would be identified and improved. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the effectiveness of SERVQUAL in measuring service quality and reveals the positive impact technology has on customer satisfaction in public transportation. To do this, we developed a questionnaire within the framework of the SERVQUAL dimensions of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangible. With a scale of 1 to 7, respondents of our questionnaire who are users and customers of the public bus companies; Karlstad city bus which we labelled business level 1(B1) and intercity buses like Swebus and Värmland Trafik which we labelled business level 2 (B2) were able to evaluate the service quality of these companies by grading them. Based on the results of our research in which we asked respondents to mention some of the areas of the service process in which they had encountered unfavourable service experiences, we were able to determine the areas of the service process from which the customer complaints came from. We compared these results with the customer complaints received by the management of the public Bus Company and noticed that they were similar. Majority emerged from areas of the service process whereby the customer came in contact with the employees or the service failure could be directly associated with the employee. After comparing these complaints with the results of questions in our questionnaire developed within the framework of the SERVQUAL dimensions, we noticed that those questions with larger GAP 5 implying lower service quality were actually a reflection of the areas of the service process from which customer complaints came from. In this regard, we were able to conclude that SERVQUAL was effective in measuring the service quality in public transportation. In addition, we ranked the questions in the questionnaire and noticed that those areas of the service process whereby the employees and the customers interact (come in contact) or whose service failure can be directly associated with an employee had low grades and ranked below the mean and median of all the questions in the various dimensions, whereas those areas of the service process where technology is used or customers had the opportunity to make use of Self Service Technology ranked above the mean and median. This was a clear indication that technology is a service quality driver and positively impacted customer satisfaction in public transportation.

Bakgrund: När det kommer till servicesammanhang, där det sker en hög grad av mänsklig interaktion, är det oundvikligt att fel begås eller att kunden blir missnöjd, vilket kan resultera i att kunden framför klagomål. Tidigare studier belyser att det är viktigt att kundklagomål tas väl hand om, för att inte riskera ett dåligt rykte eller att kunder går förlorade. Forskning beträffande kundklagomål och klagomålshantering utifrån ett företagsperspektiv, anses vara begränsad. Vidare inom ramen ur ett företagsperspektiv som berör medarbetare inom området, handlar studier främst om medarbetares anpassning, beteende och hantering vid olika situationer. En avsaknad finns inom forskningen kring hur medarbetarteam hanterar kundklagomål.  Syfte: Syftet med föreliggande studie är att belysa klagomålshantering utifrån medarbetarteams perspektiv.  Metod: Studien bygger på en abduktiv ansats, och genom en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi har fokusgruppsintervjuer genomförts, med tre medarbetarteam inom svensk sporthandel. Den insamlade empirin analyseras utifrån återkommande aspekter av klagomålshantering, funna i tidigare forskning.  Slutsatser: Studien finner att medarbetarteam ser kundklagomål som vanligt förekommande, i synnerhet reklamationer, och att det är något som skall lösas för kunden. Trots förekomsten av kundklagomål bekräftades en avsaknad kring utbildning, riktlinjer och policys. Studien styrker att medarbetarteam främst efterlängtade riktlinjer och policys, då de i hög grad får stå på egna ben för att hantera kundklagomål. Även utbildning var något de önskade, trots att de indikerat till att utbildning inom området hade kunnat vara svårt att genomföra, med tanke på att kunder och situationer är unika. Studien finner avslutningsvis, att intern återhämtning är viktig efter hantering av kundklagomål, då medarbetarteam bekräftade att de är i behov av att tillsammans ventilera och reflektera, efter att ha handskats med kundklagomål. / Background: When it comes to service contexts, where there is a high degree of human interaction, it's inevitable that mistakes are made or that the customer becomes dissatisfied. The consequence may be that the customer submits a complaint. Previous studies highlight the importance of taking good care of customer complaints, in order not to risk a bad reputation or that the company loses customers. Research regarding customer complaints and handling complaints is limited from a company perspective. Furthermore, within the framework of a company perspective that affects employees in the area, studies are mainly about employee’s adaptation, behaviour and handling of customer complaints in different situations. There is a lack of research on how employee teams handle customer complaints.  Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to light up handling complaints from the perspecitve of employee teams. Method: This study is based on an abductive approach, and through a qualitative research strategy, focus groups interviews have been conducted with three employee teams, in Swedish sports trade. The collected empirical evidence has been analysed, based on recurring aspects of handling complaints, found in previous research.  Conclusion: This study finds that employee teams see customer complaints as common, especially reclaims, and that is something that must be resolved for the customer. Despite the presence of customer complaints, a lack of education, guidelines and policies is confirmed. The study proves that the employee teams want guidelines and policies, due the fact that they stand on their own feet to handle customer complaints. Education was also something they wanted, even though they indicated that education in the area could have been difficult to implement, given the fact that customers and situations are unique. The study finally finds the importance of internal recovery, after handling customer complaints, as the employee teams confirmed that they need briefing and reflecting together, after dealing with customer complaints.

Almedahls have for some time started to receive more customer complaints about uneven roller blind fabrics or so-called waves over fabric. The waves are a major problem for Almedahls customers since they make it hard to cut the fabric into roller blinds. The company believes that the waves appear due to different process parameters within their finishing line but the company do not yet know how or where. The thesis project strives to find an explanation to what waves over fabric are, why they appear and how they can be reduced. The documentation that Almedahls have made of the problem so far, including photographs and customer complaints reports, was examined. Orders produced from four selected grey-weaves during the last three years was examined and compared to received customer complaints and standard operations lists. No clear relationship was found and weaves with longer process lines did not seem to cause more waves to appear. However, addition of an extra colouring to the standard operations appeared to be more frequently occurring when a standard operations list had been changed.Waves over fabric were at an early stage related to the mechanical properties of the weaves as the weaves are exposed to stresses and strains during the entire production line. In Almedahls’ finishing line the web and the beam tensions and the levelling mechanisms in the stenter frames appeared to be the parameters which especially apply stresses and strains. Tensile tests were performed to examine the mechanical properties of a few of Almedahls grey-weaves and half processed weave. The test results showed that a strain between 11-27 % can be applied before the test samples start to deform while calculations of the amount of strain applied by the stenter frames showed to be much less, between 2.5-3.5 %. The difference in size between the test samples and the weaves must be considered when comparing these results. The small, repeated strains applied by the finishing line may eventually lead to permanent deformation of the weaves and appear as waves. The combination of the web and the beam tensions can also result in a stretch in the bias-direction of the weave which cause deformation in the middle of the weave where waves most often appear.The thermal properties of the same weaves were also tested through DSC, Differential Scanning Calorimetry, tests. The test results showed that the polyester material in the weaves does not melt or deform at the temperatures Almedahls use in their processes. The shrinkage of the grey-weaves during the de-sizing processes was also considered through width measurements. The conclusion was that the structure of the grey-weave influences how much the weave will shrink and the dimension change of the weave may influence the appearance of waves and needs more investigation. / Program: Magisterutbildning i textilteknologi

Almedahls have for some time started to receive more customer complaints about uneven roller blind fabrics or so-called waves over fabric. The waves are a major problem for Almedahls customers since they make it hard to cut the fabric into roller blinds. The company believes that the waves appear due to different process parameters within their finishing line but the company do not yet know how or where. The thesis project strives to find an explanation to what waves over fabric are, why they appear and how they can be reduced. The documentation that Almedahls have made of the problem so far, including photographs and customer complaints reports, was examined. Orders produced from four selected grey-weaves during the last three years was examined and compared to received customer complaints and standard operations lists. No clear relationship was found and weaves with longer process lines did not seem to cause more waves to appear. However, addition of an extra colouring to the standard operations appeared to be more frequently occurring when a standard operations list had been changed.Waves over fabric were at an early stage related to the mechanical properties of the weaves as the weaves are exposed to stresses and strains during the entire production line. In Almedahls’ finishing line the web and the beam tensions and the levelling mechanisms in the stenter frames appeared to be the parameters which especially apply stresses and strains. Tensile tests were performed to examine the mechanical properties of a few of Almedahls grey-weaves and half processed weave. The test results showed that a strain between 11-27 % can be applied before the test samples start to deform while calculations of the amount of strain applied by the stenter frames showed to be much less, between 2.5-3.5 %. The difference in size between the test samples and the weaves must be considered when comparing these results. The small, repeated strains applied by the finishing line may eventually lead to permanent deformation of the weaves and appear as waves. The combination of the web and the beam tensions can also result in a stretch in the bias-direction of the weave which cause deformation in the middle of the weave where waves most often appear.The thermal properties of the same weaves were also tested through DSC, Differential Scanning Calorimetry, tests. The test results showed that the polyester material in the weaves does not melt or deform at the temperatures Almedahls use in their processes. The shrinkage of the grey-weaves during the de-sizing processes was also considered through width measurements. The conclusion was that the structure of the grey-weave influences how much the weave will shrink and the dimension change of the weave may influence the appearance of waves and needs more investigation. / Program: Magisterutbildning i textilteknologi