<p>Title: The Influence of Culture and the Level of Acculturation on the Perceptions of Service Quality. A Study of Thai – born Customer Segment in the Swedish Banking Industry in Sweden</p><p>Problem Statement: How important is the customers’ ethnic background, culture and level of acculturation when choosing a provider of financial services?</p><p>Purpose: The main purpose of this research is to find out how a service company can measure Thai customer satisfaction and which factors to consider in order to improve their service qualities with respects to cultural dimensions.</p><p>Theory and Method: The research is based on the quantitative approach in the form of questionnaires. The structure is developed in accordance to the Service Quality Gap of measuring Thai customer satisfaction by comparing their expectation and perception of service during and after service approach.</p><p>Conclusion: From elaborate results of the distributed questionnaires, Thai customers are flexible and have integrated into the Swedish culture; therefore the current level of bank service approach is appropriate to their needs.</p> / Tobias Eltebrandt

<p><p><strong>Title:</strong> The Influence of Culture and the Level of Acculturation on the Perceptions of Service Quality.</p><p><strong>Problem Statement: </strong>How important is the customers’ ethnic background, culture and level of acculturation when choosing a provider of financial services?<strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The main purpose of this research is to find out how a service company can measure Thai customer satisfaction and which factors to consider in order to improve their service qualities with respects to cultural dimensions.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>Theory and Method: </strong>The research is based on the quantitative approach in the form of questionnaires.  The structure is developed in accordance to the Service Quality Gap of measuring Thai customer satisfaction by comparing their expectation and perception of service during and after service approach.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>From elaborate results of the distributed questionnaires,<strong> </strong>Thai customers<strong> </strong>are flexible and have integrated into the Swedish culture; therefore the current level of bank service approach is appropriate to their needs.</p></p> / Tobias Eltebrandt

<p>The assurance of customer satisfaction is an increasing challenge for airline companies.</p><p>Bridging the gap between passenger expectations and the perceived image of service quality</p><p>is a permanent problem that is in the need to be optimized. Therefore, it is indispensable for</p><p>the company to identify these gaps and develop strategies to increase customer satisfaction.</p><p>Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify gaps between perceived and required service</p><p>quality, and strategies to increase customer satisfaction. Consequently, the customer as well as</p><p>the company perspective shall be considered carefully. The theoretical foundation for this</p><p>dissertation can be referred to the service quality model of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry</p><p>(1985). To illustrate the coherencies and provide actual data from the reality, the cases of the</p><p>airline companies Air Berlin, TUIfly and Lufthansa are chosen. By conducting a survey,</p><p>quantitative data was collected from the customer. In order to collect data about the company</p><p>perspective, qualitative methods like an interview and secondary information from the</p><p>companies’ homepages are used.</p><p>Based on the cases of the three airlines, specific gaps are identified. From this, concrete needs</p><p>for action and strategies on the part of the companies can be derived. The findings of this</p><p>study show that core and secondary service quality attributes can be identified. Consequently,</p><p>the improvement of certain attributes can be more important than the improvement of other</p><p>attributes to increase customer satisfaction. These priorities depend also on the size of a</p><p>service quality gap and on the access to company resources.</p>

<p>This paper is based on an assignment from Kvaerner Pulping in Karlstad, a company that supplies complete factories, machines, and systems to the pulp industry worldwide. The assignment was to do a customer survey looking at customer satisfaction focusing on quality.</p><p>Our main purpose with this paper is to study the concept of quality.</p><p>We wanted to know how Kvaerner Pulping’s customers’ perceptions differ. We also wanted to look at whether Kvaerner Pulping can offer what customers perceive as quality, and how customers rate Kvaerner Pulping compared to their competitors.</p><p>Kvaerner Pulping decided which of their customers should be included in the research. A quantitative research was used based on structured telephone interviews. A total of 27 respondents were interviewed. Factories from three Nordic countries and six customers from two other European countries were included in the survey. We tried to interview two respondents from each factory as far as possible, including one person from the purchase department and one from the maintenance department.</p><p>The theories that we have chosen for this paper concerns the network perspective, customer satisfaction looking at quality and customer-perceived value, after market support, and the process of ordering.</p><p>Our research shows that quality is indeed a multifaceted concept since there are differences in how customers from different departments and countries rate characteristics on how important they are in a supplier. Also the fact that we added an additional value feature to the ones constructed by Bovik, shows that quality seen as customer-perceived value is indeed a multifaceted concept.</p><p>When looking at the three characteristics with the highest general mean value (”keeps promises”, “has a good technical knowledge”, and “delivery security”), our results of the survey shows that purchase, the Nordic countries and Finland are more critical to Kvaerner Pulping’s performance than maintenance, the Other European countries and Sweden. Respondents stated that the company performs adequately on three quality categories “product quality”, “support quality” and “delivery quality”, but to get more satisfied customers, they need to be open for improvements. The customers from the research have compared Kvaerner Pulping to its competitors and the results showed that the company is “equal” on most characteristics.</p><p>Using Bovik’s models (2004) we could see that all of value features on the get-side made adequate contribution to the creation of the value. However to strengthen competitive advantage and offer customers more value improvements are needed.</p> / <p>Uppsatsen har sin utgångspunkt i ett uppdrag från Kvaerner Pulping AB i Karlstad, ett företag inom reservdelsbranschen som tillhandahåller kompletta fabriker, maskiner och system till den kemiska massaindustrin världen runt. Uppdraget gick ut på att genomföra en kundundersökning där vi undersöker kundnöjdhet med fokus på kvalitet.</p><p>Vårt huvudsyfte med uppsatsen var att studera kvalitet. Vi ville veta huruvida kundernas uppfattning skiljer sig åt när det gäller begreppet kvalitet. Vi ville också titta på huruvida Kvaerner Pulping kan erbjuda det kunderna uppfattar som kvalitet och hur kunderna rankar Kvaerner Pulping jämfört med konkurrenterna.</p><p>Kvaerner Pulping valde ut vilka fabriker som skulle inkluderas i undersökningen. En kvantitativ metod användes grundad på strukturerade telefonintervjuer. Totalt intervjuades 27 respondenter. Kunder från tre nordiska länder och sex kunder från andra europeiska länder inkluderades i undersökningen. Så långt som möjligt intervjuade vi två respondenter från varje fabrik, en person från inköpsavdelningen och en person från underhållsavdelningen.</p><p>Teorierna som vi har valt att använda i uppsatsen berör nätverks perspektiv, kundnöjdhet med fokus på kvalitet och customer-percieved value, aftermarket support och orderprocessen.</p><p>Vår undersökning visar att kvalitet verkligen är ett mångskiftande koncept eftersom det finns skillnader i hur kunder från olika avdelningar och länder rankar karakteristikerna när det gäller hur viktiga de är hos en leverantör. Även det faktum att vi adderade ytterligare en value feature till de som Bovik konstruerat påvisar att kvalitet sett som custimer-percieved value verkligen är ett mångskiftande koncept.</p><p>Om vi tittar på de tre karakteristikerna som har fått de högsta generella medelvärdena (”keeps promises”, “has a good technical knowledge”, and “delivery security”) visar våra resultat undersökningen att inköpsavdelningen, de nordiska länderna och då speciellt Finland är mer kritiska till Kvaerner Pulpings prestation än underhållsavdelningen, de andra europeiska länderna och Sverige. Respondenterna uppgav att företaget presterar tillfredställande på de tre kvalitetskategorierna ”product quality”, ”support quality” och ”delivery security” men för att få kunderna mer nöjda behöver Kvaerner Pulping vara öppna för förbättring. Kunderna från undersökningen har jämför Kvaerner Pulping med deras konkurrenter och resultatet visar att företaget är lika konkurrenterna på de flesta karakteristikerna.</p><p>När vi använde Boviks modeller (2004) kunde vi se att alla value features på get-sidan gav ett tillfredställande bidrag till skapandet av värde. Dock för att stärka konkurrens fördelarna och erbjuda kunder et starkare mervärde krävs förbättringar.</p> / <p>Nous avons fait une étude de client fondée sur une demande de Kvaerner Pulping AB, une entreprise qui offre des systèmes de processus complet, des machines, des services et de la maintenance pour l’industrie mondiale de pulpe. La tâche était de faire une étude de client et examiner la satisfaction de la clientèle, surtout par rapport à la notion ”qualité”.</p><p>L’ objet de ce mémoire est d’illustrer les multiples aspects de la notion “qualité”. Nous voudrions savoir si les perceptions des clients se différencient. Nous voudrions aussi savoir si Kvaerner Pulping peut offrir ce qu’est la qualité selon les clients, et comment les clients notent Kvaerner Pulping auprès des concurrents.</p><p>C’est Kvaerner Pulping qui a décidé quels clients que doivent être inclus dans l’étude. Nous avons fait une étude quantitative fondée sur des entrevues structurées. Nous avons fait les entrevues par téléphone. Au total, 27 personnes ont été interviewées. Des personnes venant de trois pays nordiques et deux pays européennes. Nous avons essayé d’interviewer deux personnes de chaque usine dans la mesure du possible, incluant un employé de la maintenance et un employé du service des achats.</p><p>Les théories que nous avons utilisées dans cette mémoire concernent la perspective de réseau, la satisfaction de client (customer satisfaction) centré sur la notion de « qualité » et la notion de « la valeur perçue des clients » (customer-perceived value), le support du marché après (aftermarket support) et le processus de commande (ordering process).</p><p>Notre étude a montré que « qualité » est une notion à plusieurs aspects parce que des clients appartenant aux départements différents et venant de pays différents ont montré des opinions différentes par rapport á ce qui est important chez un fournisseur. Le fait que nous avons ajouté une caractéristique de valeur (value feature) à celles des Bovik (2004) montre aussi que la notion de « qualité » a plusieurs aspects.</p><p>Au sujet des trois caractéristiques les plus importantes en général, notre étude montre que le service des achats, les pays nordiques et la Finlande sont plus critiques à la prestation de Kvaerner Pulping que le sont la maintenance, les pays européennes et la Suède. Les interviewées ont déclaré que les prestations de Kvaerner Pulping sont adéquates par rapport à trois catégories: “product quality”, “support quality” et “delivery quality”. Pour augmenter la satisfaction des clients, l’entreprise doit faire des améliorations. Notre étude montre aussi que Kvaerner Pulping est perçu le plus souvent comme égal à ses compétiteurs par rapport aux caractéristiques utilisées dans le questionnaire.</p><p>En utilisant les models de Bovik (2004), nous pouvons voir que toutes les caractéristiques de valeur (value features) contribuent adéquatement à la création de valeur pour les clients. Kvaerner Pulping doit néanmoins faire quelques améliorations.</p>

<p>Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that companies must understand in order to remain competitive in business and hence grow. It is very important for companies to know how to measure these constructs from the consumers’ perspective in order to better understand their needs and hence satisfy them. Service quality is considered very important because it leads to higher customer satisfaction, profitability, reduced cost, customer loyalty and retention.</p><p><strong>Purpose</strong> – The main purpose of this study theoretically is finding out how applicable the SERVQUAL model is in the context of grocery stores and empirically, describe how consumers (students) perceive service quality and whether they are satisfied with services offered by these stores in Umea.</p><p><strong>Design/methodology/approach</strong> – A self-completion questionnaire was developed from the SERVQUAL instrument and distributed using a convenience sampling technique to students in the Umea University campus to determine their perceptions of service quality in grocery stores.</p><p><strong>Findings</strong> – From the analysis carried out, it was found out that, the SERVQUAL model was not a good instrument to measure service quality because some of the items under the dimensions overlapped and regrouped under different dimensions from the factor analysis carried out. It also showed some items associated to more than one component.</p><p>Some dimensions showed a reliability scale of less than 0.7 which could have been as result of the wordings used in the questionnaires or the number of items used under each dimension. Also, it was found that the overall service quality perceived by consumers was not satisfactory meaning expectations exceeded perceptions and all the dimensions showed higher expectations than perceptions of services.</p><p><strong>Research implications</strong> – Theoretically, from the findings, it implies that the SERVQUAL model is not the best tool to use measure service quality in grocery stores because the dimensions do not best measure the construct in that context. Practical implications suggest that grocery stores in Umea are not providing the level of service quality demanded by customers. The findings suggest that grocery stores need to improve all the dimensions of service quality from the gap analysis carried out.</p><p><strong>Originality/value</strong> – This study contributes to the already existing studies examining service quality in grocery stores using the SERVQUAL model and also provides empirical results that could guide management dealing with retail activities to take corrective actions that lead to growth in the company.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D. (Marketing))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that companies must understand in order to remain competitive in business and hence grow. It is very important for companies to know how to measure these constructs from the consumers’ perspective in order to better understand their needs and hence satisfy them. Service quality is considered very important because it leads to higher customer satisfaction, profitability, reduced cost, customer loyalty and retention. Purpose – The main purpose of this study theoretically is finding out how applicable the SERVQUAL model is in the context of grocery stores and empirically, describe how consumers (students) perceive service quality and whether they are satisfied with services offered by these stores in Umea. Design/methodology/approach – A self-completion questionnaire was developed from the SERVQUAL instrument and distributed using a convenience sampling technique to students in the Umea University campus to determine their perceptions of service quality in grocery stores. Findings – From the analysis carried out, it was found out that, the SERVQUAL model was not a good instrument to measure service quality because some of the items under the dimensions overlapped and regrouped under different dimensions from the factor analysis carried out. It also showed some items associated to more than one component. Some dimensions showed a reliability scale of less than 0.7 which could have been as result of the wordings used in the questionnaires or the number of items used under each dimension. Also, it was found that the overall service quality perceived by consumers was not satisfactory meaning expectations exceeded perceptions and all the dimensions showed higher expectations than perceptions of services. Research implications – Theoretically, from the findings, it implies that the SERVQUAL model is not the best tool to use measure service quality in grocery stores because the dimensions do not best measure the construct in that context. Practical implications suggest that grocery stores in Umea are not providing the level of service quality demanded by customers. The findings suggest that grocery stores need to improve all the dimensions of service quality from the gap analysis carried out. Originality/value – This study contributes to the already existing studies examining service quality in grocery stores using the SERVQUAL model and also provides empirical results that could guide management dealing with retail activities to take corrective actions that lead to growth in the company.

Enterprises have to think about how to let their customers trade on their websites to gain profits. Therefore¡A good electronic service quality is even more important to the customers now¡A this research is trying to explore the standard of electronic service quality . According to what Zeithaml et al. (2002) proposed as ¡§e-SQ model¡A¡¨ we set up the "e-SQ model¡¨ of the website of Carnews.com.tw¡A and bring up five dimensions as ¡§efficiency and reliability¡A¡¨ ¡§fulfillment and compensation¡A¡¨ ¡§contact and responsiveness ¡A¡¨ ¡§privacy¡A¡¨ and ¡§system availability¡A¡¨ to prove the proposition that ¡§Information Gap¡A¡¨ and ¡§Fulfillment Gap¡¨ do exist during the process of e-service quality delivery¡A especially among the manager¡A and the online-user. Through the method of interview and e-questionnaire¡A we confirm these propositions successfully. The Carnews.com.tw can enhance service quality by improving the listed five dimensions. This study proposes certain suggestions from the dimensions of ¡§efficiency and reliability¡A¡¨ ¡§fulfillment and compensation¡A¡¨ ¡§contact and responsiveness¡A¡¨ and ¡§privacy¡A¡¨ in order to bridge the gap between the manager and online-user. Moreover¡A this thesis hopes to benefit the exercise and service quality of Carnews website and online-user¡¦s satisfaction. The performance of service and customer satisfaction is not significantly affected by ¡§expectation of service¡A¡¨ however¡A online-user¡¦s perceived ¡§performance of service¡¨ and ¡§gap between expectation and performance¡¨ has significant impact on customer satisfaction. Furthermore¡A the performance of service has greater power to interpret the variation of customer satisfaction. Finally¡A we hope to provide suggestions to the enterprises in this field or the ones that want to participate in to upgrade their electronic service quality and gain profits. Besides¡A from the perspective of management¡A this research also hopes that through the questionnaire¡A managers of the E-commerce can understand more about the way of the customers use to evaluate electronic service.

The assurance of customer satisfaction is an increasing challenge for airline companies. Bridging the gap between passenger expectations and the perceived image of service quality is a permanent problem that is in the need to be optimized. Therefore, it is indispensable for the company to identify these gaps and develop strategies to increase customer satisfaction. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify gaps between perceived and required service quality, and strategies to increase customer satisfaction. Consequently, the customer as well as the company perspective shall be considered carefully. The theoretical foundation for this dissertation can be referred to the service quality model of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985). To illustrate the coherencies and provide actual data from the reality, the cases of the airline companies Air Berlin, TUIfly and Lufthansa are chosen. By conducting a survey, quantitative data was collected from the customer. In order to collect data about the company perspective, qualitative methods like an interview and secondary information from the companies’ homepages are used. Based on the cases of the three airlines, specific gaps are identified. From this, concrete needs for action and strategies on the part of the companies can be derived. The findings of this study show that core and secondary service quality attributes can be identified. Consequently, the improvement of certain attributes can be more important than the improvement of other attributes to increase customer satisfaction. These priorities depend also on the size of a service quality gap and on the access to company resources.

Title: The Influence of Culture and the Level of Acculturation on the Perceptions of Service Quality. Problem Statement: How important is the customers’ ethnic background, culture and level of acculturation when choosing a provider of financial services? Purpose: The main purpose of this research is to find out how a service company can measure Thai customer satisfaction and which factors to consider in order to improve their service qualities with respects to cultural dimensions. Theory and Method: The research is based on the quantitative approach in the form of questionnaires.  The structure is developed in accordance to the Service Quality Gap of measuring Thai customer satisfaction by comparing their expectation and perception of service during and after service approach. Conclusion: From elaborate results of the distributed questionnaires, Thai customers are flexible and have integrated into the Swedish culture; therefore the current level of bank service approach is appropriate to their needs. / Tobias Eltebrandt