This research paper will, based on the frame of references and through a quantitative study, describe how Generation Y prefers to communicate with customer service departments. The purpose is to help companies lower their expenses by focusing on one of the two traditional communication tools, telephone or e-mail. Since more knowledge can arouse new questions this study was executed with an abductive approach. After studying theories regarding Generation Y a hypothesis was created: Customers from Generation Y will choose e-mail rather than telephone, when they are in need of personal customer service from a company. A simulation is used to get a better understanding of social behaviour. In this case two scenarios was simulated to test the research hypothesis. In the first scenario, the customer needs to contact customer service because of an error the company had made. However, in the second scenario is the contact necessary because of a mistake done by the customer. In these scenarios the participants had to make a choice between telephone and e-mail. The reasons for two scenarios are founded on the hypothesis that Generation Y prefers e-mail as communication tool, regardless of the situation. In this quantitative study with Facebook as survey platform, two hundred fifty-nine answers were gathered. Out of these, two hundred twenty-five were respondents belonging to Generation Y. The data collected from this research was analysed and the result showed we could reject our hypothesis in scenario one. In this case it was significantly proved that members from Generation Y prefer telephone instead of e-mail when the company has made an error. In scenario two where the customer had made a mistake there was a slight tendency to choose telephone. However, this could not be significantly proved and therefore we could not reject our hypothesis. To further explore the respondents’ choices a comparison between scenario one and two was made. A cross-tabulation showed that more than fifty per cent of the respondents that chose telephone in scenario one changed their preferred communication tool in scenario two. Our research led to a conclusion that members of Generation Y do not have one communication tool they always prefer to use and their choice of communication tool is not based on the fact that they were brought up during the digital revolution.

Nowadays customers have more varieties of similar products from different companies around the world through the Internet. Internet brings customers power but loyalty than before. In order to maintain customers¡¦ loyalty, companies have learned to keep good relationship with customers, and IT is the best media for the task. Therefore, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System is expected to help companies to manage their customer relationship. The research used multiple case studies method and chose United World Chinese Commercial Bank (UWCCB), Data Systems Company (DSC), and Adavantec Company to study how enterprise implements CRM system. The research results would illustrate why the enterprise needs CRM, what CRM is, how enterprise implements CRM, and what kinds of benefit they can get from CRM.

Customer satisfaction surveys are found everywhere, ranging from a simple on-line reservation service up to highly sophisticated procurement projects, which demonstrates the business entities nowadays position customer service in a decisive role to the operation. On the other hand, training is a popular approach to achieve consistent service quality and advanced customer satisfaction. This case study examines from practical aspects the training effectiveness of a four-year customer service program by analyzing the development of the case company¡¦s annual customer satisfaction rating.

ABSTRACT ¡@¡@With the global economic change and rising pressure of market competition, product-oriented business trend changed into customer-oriented gradually. It becomes an important task about how to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, response the requirement from customer, and making better interaction with customer. Therefore, the role of boundary spanner has become more and more important for organization. The past research of boundary spanner almost focus on the quantitative research method of personal managerial skills of boundary spanner, validity and verification for boundary spanner personal scale and the performance between boundary spanner and organization. This research adopts the narrative method, taking customer service engineer as example, Start from the borders of boundary spanner, hoping to provide another observation of boundary spanner. The result of research indicates that there are four features of the work of boundary spanner : Practice bring efficient learning, Situated learning lead adaptive behavior, Low profile adapt role conflict and adaptive behavior is negative to continued learning and challenge the management of company. Hope these results could be the reference of academic continued research and company training. Also hope these result could be the inspiration of other customer service engineer and encourage them to make more contributation on their job.

Given the increasingly competitive environment characterizing many industries, customer service, specifically, post-sales technical support, has evolved as a key source of differentiation and profits. Against this backdrop, firms are looking to cross-sell products during customer service provision to generate revenue and transition their customer service operations from cost centers to profit centers. However, in the context of customer service, customers are contacting the firm about a product failure and not a purchase need, making cross-selling during customer service provision a challenging task. Essays 1 and 2 investigate which factors affect cross-sell outcomes in the customer service context. Essay 1 addresses the following questions: Do characteristics of the customer, customer service agent, and cross-sell offer influence cross-sell revenues? Cross-sell revenues are defined as the sales generated per customer in the customer service context. Using data on the cross-sell transactions of 6782 customers of a computer systems firm who contacted the firm for technical support, Essay 1 demonstrates that for risk-averse customers and customers who accept cross-sell goods (versus services) as the cross-sell offer, cross-sell revenues increase. However, when risk-averse customers accept a good (versus service) as the cross-sell offer, cross-sell revenues decrease. Surprisingly, for customers who own focal products with high functionality, cross-sell revenues decrease, and this effect becomes more negative as the customer service agent’s resolution ability increases. Essay 2 investigates cross-selling during customer service in an intercultural context and addressees the following question: What influences the likelihood of a cross-sell purchase during customer service by a customer in country X[subscript s] from a customer service agent in Country Y[subscript j]? Multinational firms offshore their customer service operations to a set of low-cost countries to reduce costs and gain access to specialized skills. Customer service agents in these countries provide technical problem resolution services to customers in a different set of countries, creating a cultural dyad between customers and customer service agents. Currently, such firms are asking their offshored customer service agents to cross-sell during customer service provision. Using data from a computer systems firm of 117,721 customer service encounters during which a cross-sell product was pitched, of which 3.6% resulted in a purchase, Essay 2 demonstrates both positive and negative effects of cultural distance on the likelihood of a customer making a cross-sell purchase during customer service. Specifically, Essay 2 shows that cultural distance (1) weakens the negative effect of agent resolution ability, (2) strengthens the positive effect of risk aversion, and (3) weakens the positive effect of failure severity on cross-sell purchase likelihood. I use the findings from both Essays 1 and 2 to generate implications for managers on how to improve cross-selling outcomes in their customer service operations. / text

Research report presented to the Unisa School of Business Leadership / This research focused on the current model and practices of communication and relationship management between the ATIO Interactive Divsion Customer Service Managers and the customers of ATIO Interactive Division. The expected results of the research project will be to design a new, pro-active communication strategy between ATIO and its customers.

Purpose - The purpose of this research is to analyse how employees’ perception of customer service is linked to the brand. The aim is to analyse the connections between brand and the employees’ perceptions and develop managerial implications based on those findings. Problem – Davis et al. (2008) brought the attention of the influence employees have in increasing or decreasing the firms’ brand. Connecting the employees work role in customer service to see how these influence the brand in reality at LSPs.   Method – A deductive mixed method was applied throughout this research and used in the format of several case studies. The qualitative data was retrieved from interviews with employees at LSPs both in Thailand and Sweden and regarded as the primary source of data collection with the quantitative data as support. The survey, based on the frame-work of SERV*OR, was structured on a 7-point Likert Scale and distributed from the same sampling as for the interviews. Pattern matching was applied to analyse the qualitative and quantitative data to determine if reality matched theory.   Conclusions – As seen from the findings, employees and customer service are inter-twined and not separate entities. This is due to them reflecting on their personal perception of what customer service is and how they view their position. Through customer service, employees become an extension of the firms’ brand and based on their individual perception they will project it to the customer thus being able to influence the customer’s overall perception. This shows how brand and employee-customer service are interdependent in the communication which is often based on individual perceptions and not from what the LSP wants their employees to perceive of their brand.   The branding of the firms in this study is perceived by employees in a way that reflects their individual roles in customer service in terms of being fast, professional and having the ability to problem solve. It is also indicated that employees wish for more training and guidance from managers, consequently they have needed to rely on each other to handle the function of customer service at the LSPs.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Kevin P. Gwinner / SiteOne Landscape Supply is the largest distributor of lawn care products for professionals of the landscape industry in U.S.A. and Canada. SiteOne is aware of the importance of customer satisfaction and it is interested on increasing satisfaction by improving customer service. There is a high concentration of Latino landscapers in Texas, whom customer service needs may differ from non-Latino customers. Therefore the purpose of this project was to study customer satisfaction of Hispanic and non-Hispanic landscapers considering the following thirteen service attributes: competitive prices, available stock, cleanliness of facilities, business follow up, timely assistance, timely deliveries, accuracy of orders, helpful staff, approachable staff, knowledgeable staff, Spanish-speaking staff, training in Spanish, and labels in Spanish. The data was collected throughout a survey which was presented to SiteOne customers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. A total of 224 surveys were collected. The methods used to analyze the data were importance-performance (I-P) and regression analyses. The major differences found in the I-P grids are related to the three Spanish language attributes. Spanish-speaking staff, training in Spanish and labels in Spanish are statistically significant more important to Hispanic than non-Hispanic landscapers. Available stock is the most important attribute for non-Hispanic, and it is the second most important for Hispanic customers. SiteOne has an opportunity to improve their stock availability, especially for nursery, fertilizers and pesticides. Other factors that are very important to customers and they perceive that SiteOne is doing an excellent job are: timely assistance, timely deliveries, accuracy of orders, and approachable, knowledgeable and helpful staff. The importance of competitive prices was rated as high as the previous six service attributes, however the mean of pricing performance was not as high as that group of attributes. From the multivariate regression analyses, it was found that pricing was the only variable with statistical significance to predict changes in customer satisfaction for the non-Hispanic group. No statistical significance was found in the regression model run for Hispanic clients. Some negative coefficients with statistical significance were found for stores #199 and #220 in the models run to analyze branch performance. It is recommended that these results be compared with other measurements to determine the nature of the issues that may be present in these locations.

This research investigated the service offering in appliance sales departments of prominent retail stores in an emerging economy to ultimately indicate whether stores‟ customer service, i.e. their presentation of the marketing mix is conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. The study was prompted by significant changes in the profile of South African consumers since 1994 when a new socio-political dispensation was introduced. A sharp increase in the middle-income group since has resulted in an increased demand for housing, electricity and consequently also major household appliances. Retail responded more than willingly. Unfortunately the consequences of limited product related consumer socialization for millions of previously disadvantaged consumers and subsequent lack of structural and transactional knowledge in terms of their ability to cope in the market place was given little attention. The research involved four phases of data collection and the participation of five prominent department stores in Tshwane, RSA that was arranged through liaison with industry. Phase 1 involved an in store survey: store managers assessed the customer service in the stores in the presence of the researcher, according to indicators that were based on the marketing mix. In phase 2, respondents (n=296) were recruited in the stores immediately after closure of a sales deal: questionnaires were completed on the spot. It involved (1) an investigation of their satisfaction with the customer service; (2) an investigation of their perception of the service quality through a SERVQUAL scale and (3) a product knowledge test that pertained to the functional and performance attributes of the appliances that they purchased. During phase 3, experienced salespeople (n=18) were involved in a projective technique that expected of them to act as the managers of their respective stores and to propose recommendations to augment their stores’ service offering to be more conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. Finally, in phase 4, representatives from industry explained their potential contribution to augment customer service in retail stores. Findings revealed shortcomings in the customer service in retail that should be addressed to enhance informed, responsible buying decisions. In phase 1, store managers candidly admitted that in general, price was attended to more attentively than elements such as processes that could enhance informed buying decisions. In the customer survey, exploratory factor analysis revealed a collapse of the original customer service scale from six elements to three, which suggests a more integrated judgement of customer service in the context of this research. Emphasis on price and product was diminished and directed towards value for money and personnel orientations. Similarly the five dimensional SERVQUAL scale was reduced to two dimensions (Supportiveness and Impressiveness). The product knowledge test was used to indicate whether consumers’ judgement of the service offering was supported by evidence of informed, buying decisions. Consumers’ scores contradicted their apparent satisfaction with customer service and their positive perception of service quality. Sales personnel unequivocally accentuated their potential to augment customer service but revealed conditions that limit optimal performance. Representatives of industry acknowledged areas of concern and recommended concerted effort by retailers due to their direct interaction with consumers as well as personnel. The findings of this study provide invaluable evidence that consumers “not necessarily know what they do not know”. Shortcomings in the customer service in retail are revealed and guidelines are provided to augment the service offering to the benefit of the parties involved. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Consumer Science / unrestricted

This thesis provides an introduction to the subject of Delivery Performance and its measurement. The review shows that non-price factors, especially delivery performance, have become recognised as of major importance in manufacturing business success. Attention is given to the reasons why UK manufacturing companies have such a poor delivery record and the adverse effects which result.