<p>Den ekonomiska strukturen har under de sista decennierna genomgått en stor förändring. Service sektorn har vuxit till att bli en drivande kraft i de utvecklade länderna. Därför är konceptet med tjänstemarknadsföring relativt nytt. Fastän fler och fler tjänsteföretag är numera medvetna om hur viktigt det är att marknadsföra sitt företag och dess varumärke, finns det fortfarande många tekniska tjänsteföretag som inte har tillämpat konceptet. Det svenska konsultföretaget SWECO, som kommer att användas som fallstudie i uppsatsen, är en av dem.</p><p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur viktigt det är för tekniska tjänsteföretag att marknadsföra sitt varumärke och hur de kan förbättra sin image samt sitt varumärke.</p><p>Undersökningen har tillämpats med hjälp av elektroniska enkäter. Som ytterligare förstärkning, har tre teorier använts som analysverktyg.</p><p>Studien visar att SWECO är ett relativt okänt företag. Trots att företaget agerar på ett internationellt plan, så har det inte utvecklat en marknadsföringsstrategi. De slutsatser som kunde dras demonstrerar att ett starkt varumärke för tekniska tjänsteföretag är väldigt viktigt eftersom de 7 p:na för tjänster anses vara otillräckliga som marknadsföringsmedel. Den högt upplevda kvaliteten av företagets tjänster samt deras finansiella styrka ger företaget goda förutsättningar för att marknadsföra sitt varumärke internationellt.</p> / <p>The economical structure has faced a great change during the last decades; the service industry has grown into a dominant force in the developed countries. Therefore, the concept of services marketing is relatively new. Although more and more service companies are realizing the importance of marketing and branding, there are still technical service companies that has not adapted the concept. The consultancy firm SWECO, which will serve as a case study, is one of them.</p><p>The purpose with this essay is to examine the importance of branding for technical service firms and how they do to improve their image and brand. The research issue has been studied with the assistance of electronic surveys. As further assistance, three theoretical models has been used as instruments for the analysis.</p><p>The study shows that SWECO is a relatively unknown company. Although the company is operating in an international arena, it has not developed a marketing strategy. The conclusions attained demonstrate the importance of creating strong brands for technical service companies since the 7 P’s of services are insufficient as marketing tools. The highly perceived quality of the company’s services and their financial strength give the company good prerequisites for marketing their brand internationally.</p>

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The concept of ‘customer experience’ has evolved as an imperative area of study within the marketing discipline. Despite its importance and the positive attention this concept has received during the last few years, the explanation of customer experiences have remained vague and lack a thorough theoretical foundation. Furthermore, practitioners across many industries claim that there is a connection between customer experience and loyalty, yet there is a paucity of research to validate this theoretical assumption. This study aims to address this gap in the literature and to facilitate better understanding of the concept of 'customer experience' and its antecedents and focus on brand loyalty as consequence from the consumer perspective. Accordingly, a mixed-method research design was adopted that consisted of two phases. The first phase involved a netnography study to gain better understanding of the notion of customer experience and refine a conceptual framework that has been developed on the basis of the existing literature. In the second phase this framework was tested by means of a survey of British customers to examine their experience with resort-hotel brands in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the survey responses. The structural model showed a very good fit to the data and good convergent, nomological and discriminant validity and reliability stability. The findings of this study identified four aspects of customer experience in the resort-hotels in Egypt; i.e. educational, aesthetics, relational and novelty. Those aspects are congruent with prior work in the tourism literature. Additionally, the study found that customers rely on some service cues such as: price, core service and WOM to predict and assess their experiences. The findings also indicated that perceived service quality has a mediating role in the relationship between customer-contact employees and core service and customer experience. A key contribution of this research is offering a robust model that explains the nascent phenomenon of customer experience and demonstrating that experience has a definite positive impact on brand loyalty. The use of netnography to identify customer experience dimension is also considered as a methodological contribution in the area of marketing research. Moreover, the present study adds novel perspective to the growing body of brand literature (particularly service brand) and suggests directions for future research. Finally, the study provides managerial implications for service managers to identify the experiential needs of their customer and properly design the customer experience.

A qualidade dentro da hotelaria, segundo a perspectiva dos hóspedes pode ser igual, inferior ou superior às suas expectativas. Para estimar esta qualidade é preciso estabelecer atributos, medi-los e elencá-los. Este trabalho propôs-se a através de um levantamento bibliográfico, chegar a atributos de qualidade nos serviços de hotelaria, e posteriormente medi-los junto aos hóspedes dos hotéis de Ribeirão Preto, visando contrastar as diferentes necessidades dos clientes hoteleiros de lazer e negócios. Para isso foi utilizada a aplicação de questionários com o método SERVQUAL em clientes de hotéis da cidade. Esta ferramenta compara as expectativas e percepções dos mesmos. Os dados obtidos foram analisados estatisticamente. O estudo aponta para hóspedes de lazer e negócios com perfis diferenciados de gênero, renda, frequência de viagens. Quanto às questões comparativas do SERVQUAL, conclui-se que os hóspedes de lazer estão quase totalmente satisfeitos com os hotéis nos quais se hospedaram na cidade. Porém, aponta hóspedes de negócios que desejam mais do que encontram nestes estabelecimentos. Há pontos a melhorar em quase todas as dimensões: tangibilidade, confiabilidade, responsividade e segurança. Para o atendimento de excelência dos indivíduos que viajam com este tipo de motivação torna-se necessário ampliar o conhecimento sobre os mesmos e adotar medidas efetivas para sua satisfação. / The quality in the hotel industry, in conformity to the guests perspective can be equal, lower or higher than they expected. To appraise this quality it is needed to establish attributes, measure and order them. This study intends to make a bibliographical research to find quality attributes in hotel services and after that, to test them among Ribeirão Pretos hotel guests. The objective is to contrast different needs of these business and leisure guests. For that, SERVQUAL Method it was used and required questioner applications to the citys hotel clients. This instrument compares the expectations and the perceptions of these two different types of costumers. The data obtained was statistically analyzed. The study has as aim either to leisure and business guests with distinct profiles of gender, income, travel frequency. When it comes to SERVQUAL comparative questions, it was concluded that leisure guests are very much satisfied with the hotels that they are lodged in town. Meanwhile, the study shows business guests that wish more than they find in these establishments. There are aspects to work on almost every dimension: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness and security. To have an excellence attend of individuals who travel with this kind of motivation, some increasement in knowledge about them and adoption of effective ways to measure for their satisfaction are necessary.

O tema central desta dissertação é o uso da evidência física como forma de gerar percepções de qualidade de serviços por parte de clientes. A realização de um estudo exploratório justifica-se pela baixa produção acadêmica sobre o tema no Brasil. Na primeira parte da dissertação é feita revisão bibliográfica em que se abrange: importância dos serviços; definições de serviços; características de serviços; classificações de serviços; serviços de saúde; encontros de serviço; qualidade de serviços; e evidência física. Na segunda parte do trabalho, apresentam-se a metodologia e os resultados de uma pesquisa de campo, realizada para verificar como os conceitos estudados são praticados por três hospitais brasileiros. Na conclusão do trabalho são apresentadas as principais contribuições práticas e teóricas, um resumo das principais descobertas da pesquisa de campo, as restrições e limitações do trabalho e recomendações de pesquisas futuras para outros autores que tenham interesse pelo tema. / The aim of this dissertation is the use of physical evidence as a way to generate service quality perceptions from clients. The realization of an exploratory research is justified by the low academic production on the subject in Brazil. In the first part of the dissertation is presented a bibliographic review including: the importance of services; service definitions; service characteristics; service classification; health services; service encounters; service quality; and physical evidence. In the second part of this work are presented the methodology and the results of a field research in order to verify how the concepts reviewed are practiced by three Brazilian hospitals. At the conclusion are presented the main practical and theoretical contributions, a summary of the main findings of the field research, the restrictions and limitations of the study and recommendations for future researches to other authors who have interest on this subject.

O tempo é importante para o homem nas diversas áreas do conhecimento porque tem uma finalidade em cada área, por isso, é estudado, medido, analisado, avaliado de maneira tanto qualitativa como quantitativa. A questão do tempo de serviço, neste caso, o serviço de saúde, em algumas situações em que ocorre a demora no atendimento leva a formação de fila que faz a espera inevitável. A qualidade é reconhecida como um constructo multidimensional, com vários atributos e visões. Vários pesquisadores desenvolveram ou adaptaram um instrumento para medir qualidade de serviços de saúde e muitos estudos realizados revelaram que ainda ocorre a formação de longas filas para atendimento do paciente. O objetivo deste trabalho é a avaliação da perspectiva do paciente da qualidade de serviços de saúde na rede pública e privada de saúde, focada na análise do tempo de consulta médica. Visa fornecer informações para melhorar e auxiliar a tomada de decisão dos gestores de instituições de saúde sobre a qualidade de serviços de saúde prestados. A análise quantitativa de dados usou o teste de significância não-paramétrico, com o teste com sinais Wilcoxon, usado para pares conjugados e a análise qualitativa usou a técnica descritiva. O instrumento de coleta de dados baseou-se na SERVQUAL, utilizada para avaliação de qualidade de serviços de saúde. O desenvolvimento da pesquisa empírica ocorreu nas instituições de saúde da cidade de Ribeirão Preto devido sua importância no campo da saúde. Concluiu-se que as instituições de saúde que apresentaram o menor tempo de consulta médica também receberam um grau menor sobre a avaliação de qualidade em relação às outras instituições. / Time is important for the man in various areas of knowledge because it has a specific purpose in each area; therefore, time is studied, measured, analyzed and evaluated in a qualitative and quantitative way. The duration of the service provided by an organization, in this case a health care organization, sometimes leads to situations in which the delay in the appointments may result in queue lines, obliging the patients to wait, in order to receive health care assistance. The quality of the service provided by these organizations is mostly recognized as a multidimensional construct, with many attributes and points of view. Several researchers have developed or modified instruments to measure health care service quality and, most of the surveys conducted, have revealed that there is still formation of long queues for attendance of the patient. The objective of this study is the evaluation of the patient?s opinion about the quality of the health care service provided by public and private organizations, with emphasis on the analysis of the duration of medical consultation. This study also aims to gather data that could improve the decisions which have to be made by managers from health care institutions, regarding mainly the health care service quality rendered to patients. The quantitative data analysis, on one hand, was done using the significance test nonparametric, in addition with the Wilcoxon signed ranks test, which was used for conjugated pairs. The qualitative analysis, on the other hand, was done with the descriptive technique. The tool used to collect data was based on SERVQUAL, which evaluated the quality of health care services. The site chosen for the development of the empirical research was the city of Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, Brazil, due to its importance in the area of health care assistance. The conclusion revealed that the health care facilities, which presented the shortest length during appointments with the patients, also received a smaller grade regarding the quality evaluation, in comparison to the other facilities.

The rapid development of information technology in the recent years has added a range of new featuresto the traditional information environment, which has a profound impact on university library services and users. The Quality of Service parameter in library services has reached a broader consensus,which directly reflects customer satisfactions and loyalty. Exploring the evaluation frameworks for service quality in university libraries cannot be undermined in this context. Besides, existing evaluation frameworks of service quality of university library services are also facing numerous challenges due to their imperfections. Thus,there is an urgency and necessity to explore and enhance the efficiencies of the evaluation frameworks of service quality. To this end, this thesis conducts a systematic analysisof evaluation frameworks with a motivation of identifying the core components that needs enhancements for achieving effective service quality in Chinese university libraries through empirical methods. Furthermore, the inferences extracted from the analysis has been exploited to provide suitable recommendations for improving the service quality of university libraries.

The ability to attract and retain customers through providing excellent service quality is a necessity for any business in every field. However, before a firm can expect to consistently provide high quality service, it must first know how to measure and identify areas of needed improvement. While service quality research has been conducted in most of the major sectors of the economy, the residential real estate brokerage industry is only beginning to incorporate existing knowledge of service quality management. This is especially disconcerting given that real estate is such a large part of local and national economies around the world. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the best instrument that can be used to measure service quality in the residential real estate brokerage industry. The findings reveal that the reliability, responsiveness and empathy dimensions significantly lead to increases in the overall evaluation of service the firm provides. The empathy dimension also significantly causes homebuyers to recommend the firm to others. Additionally, empathy significantly causes the client to use the firm again. Finally, as hypothesized, overall satisfaction leads to both repeat uses of the firm and recommending the firm to a friend. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

伴隨著台灣的經濟活動轉型以及國人的飲食習慣改變，「咖啡」己經成為國人日常生活中不可或缺的重要文化。而台灣的連鎖咖啡店在市場上的競爭者眾多，因此，了解消費者的認知，並投其所好及提升服務品質，進而促使提高消費者再次消費的意願，連鎖咖啡業者將能在眾多競爭中佔有一席之地。 　　本研究主要目的是應用PZB設計以「服務品質缺口管理模式」之「期望與認知缺口」，搭配IPA效能分析，作為研究架構。並搭配"DINESERV"量表，以問卷調查方式探討台灣咖啡連鎖業者－85度C之服務品質認知。藉由IPA效能分析，可將顧客期望與感受85度C所提供之服務水準，由傳統單點測量模式擴充為二行評量模式，能確切深入探討顧客不滿意之因素、了解85度C服務品質優弱勢、排列與管理須改善之服務品質順序並找尋改善途徑，明確提供組織服務品質管理方向。 　　本研究結果顯示： 一、整體服務品質期望重視度大於知覺滿意度，此咖啡業者首要就是針對顧客最不滿意屬性：「清潔的洗手間」、「服務人員穿著整潔」、「服務人員重視您的需求」、「選購產品的美味感受」和「能夠提供迅速的服務」去檢討改進。 二、反應性、有形性構面:清潔的洗手間、用餐環境舒適且吸引人影響月收入高的消費者滿意度，而根據分析結果：月收入高的消費者每月消費次數高達2~3次以上，符合RFM矩陣中的頻率型顧客，且在忠誠度上也比其他顧客高，未來希望能透過改善將這群顧客提昇為最佳型。顧客的教育程度影響產品面的滿意度，而內湖江南店顧客多為大學學歷以上，未來在產品的的美味感受、包裝及攜帶性都要持續做審視，才有進步的空間。 三、而在連鎖經營型態中，加盟及直營兩種不同的經營模式，會造成總部對於分店的管理及掌握程度落差，進而間接影響到顧客對品牌所認知及實際體驗的滿意度。故企業總部在思考整體商業模式時，長期品牌的口碑累積以及短期加盟金回收的實際利益，兩者之間的取捨，對於企業後續發展以及佈局策略影響長遠。

<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