This thesis investigates customer-to-customer roles and impacts in the context of service encounters. This topic is studied from two angles: customer interactions during group service encounters and customer perceptions post service encounters. The first angle is a focus on group service encounters that addresses the lack of research on customer-to-customer interactions that occur in customer-to-customer interaction-intensive contexts. These are contexts where the interactions between customers are not peripheral to the service, where there can be an expectation to interact with the other customers, and are common in tourism and hospitality, recreation, and education. The second angle is a focus on service outcomes after the service encounter, including satisfaction, intention to recommend, and online word-of-mouth. Paper 1 explores how firms view and manage customer-to-customer interactions during group service encounters. It finds that the differences in attitude and conduct of firms create four possible stances toward customer-to-customer interaction. Paper 2 delves deeper into how customer-to-customer interactions impact the design and delivery of group service encounters, develops a typology of customer cohort climates (CCCs), and identifies how each CCC can be created through four elements of group service encounters. Paper 3  investigates how positive and negative customer-to-customer interactions impact service outcomes and finds that customer-to-customer interaction is a dissatisfier. Paper 4 examines how customers produce online hotel reviews and finds that content analysis of online reviews yields similar findings to more traditional quantitative research methods. This thesis advances research on the impact of customers on each other and provides evidence that other customers can and should be managed to achieve desired service outcomes. It further proposes how these interactions can be managed to further enhance service firm offerings. / <p>QC 20160516</p>

With the emergence of the internet as a new business channel and its impact on the overall role of today's customers, existing models for the measurement of perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty are worth revisiting. This is specifically important in light of the prominent progress of some of the new business concepts, particularly customer experience management, and the rising emphasis on customers' hedonic and emotional needs. This study attempts to bridge the gap in existing literature by examining the online customer experience in its entirety, attending within the study to both the utilitarian and hedonic needs of online customers and giving special attention to emerging aspects in the online environment, such as customer engagement in self-driven experiences. Therefore, the study includes a comprehensive review of a large body of knowledge, both in consumer behaviour and marketing literature as well as quality management literature, in addition to a scrutiny of 50 studies for different evaluation models in the online environment. This is in order to identify a list of attributes and factors that impact customer evaluations of online experiences. Upon the synthesis of the list of attributes and factors that impact customer evaluations of online experiences, an online blog was created as an environment for asynchronous focus groups. The online blog was beneficial in creating a deeper understanding of what online customers want and what impacts their experiences. Following, an online questionnaire was administered in two stages, once for measure purification purposes which received 90 pilot responses and once for mass data collection purposes which received 366 responses. As a result of this study, an integrated model for the measurement of online customer experience that emphasises the significance of the emotional component was proposed. The model consists of three components, each serve a specific measurement purpose. The XQual construct which consists of 7 attributes and 30 factors, is a performance measure of the experience in relation to specific aspects that address customers' utilitarian and hedonic needs. The satisfaction continuum consists of four factors and is an output measure for each experience or transaction with the online firm. The loyalty continuum consists of four factors and is an outcome measure that indicates customers' attitudinal commitment towards the online firm.

Problem definition: In service organizations, front-line employees are considered to be the primary element when providing the organization’s services as they interact directly with customers and influence their perception of service quality. In other words, if the front-line employees are satisfied they will deliver the organization’s services in the best way which will directly lead to customer satisfaction. So it is worth studying how the service organizations use internal marketing tools towards their front-line employees in order to achieve their satisfaction.     Purpose of the Research: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the human resources practices aimed at front-line employee’s satisfaction that is related to internal marketing at SEB and to show how using the various methods implemented by SEB has took the organization to the position as of now.   Research Questions: How the Internal marketing elements are practiced by human resources at SEB bank in order to achieve front-line employee´s satisfaction?   Methods: In order to fulfil the purpose of dissertation the primary and secondary data has been analyzed based on the theoretical concepts. The theoretical concepts are based on academic data from books and scientific articles. The empirical data consists of both primary and secondary data. The primary data has been collected by conducting two interviews, one with the manager from human resource department at SEB and another with a front-line employee. The secondary data were collected from SEB’s webpage.    Conclusion: This study explores the potential effect the organization can have on the services due to the workings of the front-line employees. It can be concluded from the theoretical and empirical analysis that SEB’s management sees internal marketing practices (such as empowering, motivations and rewarding, job security and training) as a fundamental approaches to achieve their front-line employee’s satisfaction. SEB considers its employees as the most vital asset that can create and achieve its customer’s satisfaction, which has led to its immense growth.

Att färdas med färja är ett populärt sätt att resa i Sverige, både som nöje och som ett färdmedel för att ta sig från en plats till en annan. Vilken anledning passageraren än har för sin resa med färja så behöver de flesta resa genom en stad för att ta sig till färjeterminalen. Syftet med det här arbetet är att undersöka om och på vilka sätt färjelinjerna och deras färjeterminaler gör nytta för städerna de är belägna i. Genom undersökningar med enkäter direkt till passagerarna på olika färjor samt intervjuer, med väl utvalda personer inom de aktuella branscherna, kunde en sammanställning göras om vilken betydelse färjetrafiken har på medelstora städer. Resultatet visade att passagerarnas konsumtion i staden på väg till färjan kunde ses som försumbar, sett till näringslivets omsättning är den konsumtionen relativt liten. Om färjeläget hade försvunnit från någon av de undersökta städerna hade exempelvis den minskade omsättningen hos en butik varit liten. Minskningen i exempelvis den matvarubutik som deltagit i undersökningen hade varit så liten att det inte direkt hade gått att knyta till nedläggningen, om de inte visste om nedläggningen på förhand. Färjelinjerna visade sig dock bidra med nytta till städerna på andra sett till exempel genom sin farledsavgift och stadens igenkänning. / To travel by ferry in Sweden is very popular, both for pleasure and as a means of transport. Whatever reason you have for travelling by ferry, you often have to travel through a city to arrive at the ferry terminal. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in what ways the cities benefit by their ferry lines and terminals. By making our own investigation, containing passenger surveys and interviews with carefully chosen persons in these specific areas, it was possible to analyze how and if the cities benefit by their ferries. The result of this investigation shows that the passengers’ consumption, when they travel through the cities, is negligible. Considering the revenue of the trade and industry, this consumption is very small. If the ferry terminal had been closed down in some of the investigated cities the loss of revenue in a grocery store that participated in the survey would have been so small that the company would have had a hard time figuring out that the loss was because of the closure of the terminal. The survey however showed that the ferry lines and their terminals contributed in other ways to the cities, for example through the fairway fee and the cities’ reputation.

Title: Marketing Research on the Satisfaction of Customers Expreska Jiřího z Poděbrad. Objectives: The aim of work is find satisfaction of Expreska customers by questionnaire survey and to suggest solution based on research results, which could lead to an improvement in the criticized areas in FIT centre. Method: The method of personal questioning with non-probabilistic sample was chosen for the research. Results: The values obtained are organized in tables and graphs in result section. Key words: Marketing research, Customers Satisfaction, Questionaire, Expreska Jiřího z Poděbrad.

Cette recherche doctorale se focalise sur les informations environnementales publiées volontairement par les entreprises françaises dans leurs rapports annuels ou dans leurs rapports de développement durable au travers de cinq articles. L’objectif de cette thèse est de mieux comprendre les bénéfices que les firmes peuvent tirer de communiquer leur engagement environnemental auprès de leurs parties prenantes. En se basant sur un échantillon de grandes entreprises françaises du SBF 120 sur la période 2001-2011, notre recherche examine les leviers par lesquels la divulgation d’informations environnementales peut impacter la performance financière des entreprises. Dans un premier temps, elle analyse les avantages potentiels pour les entreprises qui communiquent sur leur engagement environnemental, concernant deux catégories importantes de parties prenantes : les actionnaires et les clients. Puis, elle analyse les circonstances dans lesquelles les entreprises opérant dans des secteurs polluants peuvent obtenir des bénéfices de leur divulgation environnementale. Nos résultats empiriques démontrent que les entreprises trouvent un intérêt économique à rendre compte à leurs actionnaires et clients leur engagement environnemental. / This doctoral research focus on the voluntary environmental information released by French firms in their annual reports and sustainability reports through five articles. The aim of this thesis is to provide better understanding of the potential benefits achieved by firms through communicated their environmental engagement to their external stakeholders. Using a sample of French listed firms belonging to the SBF 120 stock index over an eleven-year period (2001-2011), this research examines the mechanisms by which environmental reporting can influence firms’ financial performance. First, it illustrates the potential benefits for firms that report more on environmental initiatives, with regard to two important categories of stakeholders: shareholders and customers. Second, it investigates circumstances under which firms operating in environmentally sensitive industries can obtain financial benefits from the disclosure of their environmental initiatives. Our findings show that firms can reap economic benefits arising from environmental information disclosed to shareholders and customers.

A sociedade brasileira apresenta um processo de desenvolvimento desencadeado pela democratização na década de 90. Esse processo tem um fator de inclusão social que resultou no nascimento de uma classe C ávida por consumo de produtos e de serviços, dentre os quais está o acesso à energia elétrica com qualidade e com disponibilidade. Contudo, a sociedade não é homogênea e a estratificação econômica em classes não é suficiente para tratar e definir comportamentos. Essa diversidade afeta a operação de empresas distribuidoras de energia, as quais enfrentam a questão de inclusão de clientes, até então informais, e questões de altas perdas não técnicas provenientes, por um lado, de uma grande parcela de clientes informais e, de outro, de uma cultura de não pagamento, o que eleva essas perdas a patamares superiores a 50%. E, novamente, tais perdas são distribuídas de forma desigual no país, ou seja, empresas concessionárias têm que lidar com clientes de diferentes perfis e comportamentos além de operar em cidades com diferentes estágios de desenvolvimento. A contribuição deste estudo é mostrar a possibilidade de usar projetos de inclusão digital para melhorar os resultados de eficiência energética ao criar ações focadas no empoderamento de clientes através de educação e de geração de renda. Os testes experimentais revelaram que existe um grande potencial para integrar ações sociais a atividades técnicas desses programas. Tal potencial deve ser exercido na nova classe social em ascensão, que necessita de empoderamento e de integração social para quebrar definitivamente a cultura de não pagamento e culturas não integradas aos conceitos de uma sociedade democrática baseada em conceitos de direitos e deveres. A inclusão de clientes informais é fundamental para diminuir a parcela de perdas não técnicas, e o desafio é duplo, pois não basta incluí-los; deve-se mantê-los como clientes adimplentes e com relações comerciais regulares. Este trabalho apresenta a experiência do CDI, o Comitê para Democratização da Informática, no Projeto de Eficiência Energética da Light na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. / The Brazilian society has a development process unleashed by democratization in the 90\'s This process has social inclusion as factor that led to the birth of a medium class that is eager to purchase products and services, which include access to electric energy with quality and availability. However, the society is not homogeneous and economic stratification into classes is not enough to address and define behaviors. This diversity affects the electricity distribution operations by companies, which are facing issues related to the inclusion of new clients, who, until then, are informal, and issues concerning high non-technical losses, firstly, because of a large number of informal clients and, secondly, because of a non-payment culture that elevates these losses at levels higher than 50%. These losses are distributed unevenly in the country, that is, the utilities have to deal with customers of different profiles and different behaviors as well as to operate in cities with different stages of development. The contribution of this study is to show the use projects of digital inclusion to increase the results of the energy efficiency programs to create actions focused on empowering customers integrating education and income generation. Experimental tests have shown that there is a great potential to integrate social actions with technical activities of these programs, and this potential should be exercised in the new class, rising to empowerment and social integration to break definitively cultures of non-payment and culture that is not integrated with the concepts of a democratic society based on concepts of rights and duties. The inclusion of informal clients is fundamental to reduce part of non-technical losses, and the challenge is twofold, once it is not only necessary to include them; they should be kept as customers in non-default situation and regular commercial relations. This paper presents the experience of the CDI Change trough Digital Inclusion in the Project of Energy Efficiency of Light Energy Company in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:26:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauro Silva Ferreiraprot.pdf: 1204458 bytes, checksum: e96d5d982c1287bc0943cccf364dbc5a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-06 / This study aimed to establish the influence of Organizational Values on Practices of Organizational Dignity, by using two scales: the scale of Organizational Dignity Practices, developed by Teixeira et al. (2010) for use by stakeholders of companies and created from research conducted with employees; and the scale of Organizational Values, developed by Guardani (2008), and dedicated exclusively to customers. The descriptive research, quantitative, was developed from a non-probability sample and used the Principal Components Analysis (PCA), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Analysis. The results confirmed the influence of Organizational Values factors on the Dignity of Organizational factors, especially values for Respect for stakeholders and Well-being of employees, but it was found that values related to Authority and Power do not show significant relationship with Organizational Dignity. The results achieved reinforce the need of organizations to establish, together with their employees and customers, practices based on moral and ethical values, which may benchmark their actions and allow advantageous business both for companies and for customers. / Esta pesquisa buscou estabelecer a influência dos Valores Organizacionais sobre as Práticas de Dignidade Organizacional, através da utilização de duas escalas: a escala de Práticas de Dignidade Organizacional, desenvolvida por Teixeira et al. (2010) para ser utilizada pelos stakeholders das empresas e criada a partir de pesquisa efetuada com empregados; e a escala de Valores Organizacionais, desenvolvida por Guardani (2008), e voltada exclusivamente para clientes. A pesquisa descritiva, de natureza quantitativa, foi desenvolvida a partir de uma amostra não probabilística e utilizou os métodos de Análise dos Componentes Principais (ACP), Análise Fatorial Exploratória (AFE), Análise Fatorial Confirmatória (AFC) e Análise de Equações Estruturais. Os resultados confirmaram a influência de fatores de Valores Organizacionais sobre os fatores de Dignidade Organizacional, principalmente de valores relativos a Respeito aos stakeholders e de Bem-estar dos empregados, porém constatou-se que valores relacionados a Domínio e poder não apresentaram relação significante com Dignidade Organizacional. Os resultados alcançados reforçam a necessidade das organizações de estabelecer, em conjunto com seus colaboradores e clientes, práticas baseadas em valores morais e éticos que balizem suas ações e permitam negócios vantajosos tanto para as empresas quanto para os clientes.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Claudio Benossi.pdf: 580690 bytes, checksum: ab4608eac4836b9b950dbbaa9fac08a2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-14 / The paper entitled Loyalty of customers on the web: How to know the loyalty of customers through the internet. Technology Master of Intelligence and Digital Design (TIDD) aim to analyze the contribution technology of information to the relationship marketing increasing business competitiveness. The current global environment requires an age of competition result of disintegration of the border and the opening of previously protected markets. This scenery leads campanies to reorganize in two polo: the information technology and marketing. The information becomes the key factor to gain positioning and competitiveness advantage in the market. Relationship marketing is adopeted as a business philosophy focusing on understanding and attending the buyer behavior and consumer needs. The intensive use of information technology under their many forms (computers, telecommunications, network information, internet, software management, etc) helps to make efficient and profitable the company s relationship with its clients allowing them to collect, store, process, analyze, interpret and transmit the data relationship with them in its several sectors of the economy. Thus, establishing how the institutions can take advantage of the flow system and information over the customers, market environment obtained from the CRM Techology custumer Relationship Management to gain competitiveness. Starting from a brief review concept of CRM and analyzing electronic commerce will be described various categories such as E-business, E-Auctioning, E-banking, E-directories, E-Engineering, E-franchising, E-learning, E-marketing, E-Gambling, E-Procurement, E-recruiting to work out a comparative between electronic commerce and traditional commerce. Therefore, to approach we will discuss how the quality of service and the management of the customers satisfaction through the philosophy of CRM, combined with information technology may bring loyalty benefits of that customer anticipating the challenge of integration data, organizational and cultural changes of the new global economy / A dissertação intitulada Fidelização de Clientes na WEB: Como conhecer e fidelizar clientes através da Internet do Mestrado em Tecnologias da Inteligência e Design Digital (TIDD) tem como objetivo analisar a contribuição da tecnologia da informação para o marketing de relacionamento, incrementando a competitividade empresarial. O atual ambiente globalizado implica numa era de concorrência e competição, resultado da desintegração de fronteiras e da abertura de mercados anteriormente protegidos. Esse cenário conduz as empresas a uma reorganização em 2 pólos: a tecnologia de informação e o marketing. A informação torna-se fator chave para ganho de posicionamento e de vantagens competitivas no mercado. O marketing de relacionamento é adotado como filosofia empresarial de negócios, focando a compreensão e o atendimento do comportamento de compra e das necessidades do consumidor. O uso intensivo da tecnologia de informação, sob suas várias formas (computadores, telecomunicações, redes de informações, Internet, softwares de gestão etc.) contribui para tornar eficiente e rentável o relacionamento da empresa com seus clientes, permitindo coletar, armazenar, processar, analisar, interpretar e transmitir os dados dos relacionamentos com os mesmos, nos vários setores da economia. Assim, apontar-se-á como as instituições podem aproveitar o fluxo sistemático e consistente de informação sobre os seus clientes, mercado e ambientes obtidos com a tecnologia de CRM Customer Relationship Management para ganhar competitividade. Partindo-se de uma breve revisão conceitual sobre CRM e analisando o comércio eletrônico serão descritas algumas categorias como o E-business, E-Auctioning, E-banking, E-directories, E-Engineering, E-franchising, E-learning, E-marketing, E-Gambling, E-Procurement, E-recruiting, para traçar um comparativo entre comércio eletrônico x comércio tradicional. Desta forma, abordaremos como a qualidade de serviços e o gerenciamento da satisfação dos clientes, por meio da filosofia do CRM, associadas a tecnologia da informação, podem trazer vantagens para a fidelização desse cliente, prevendo o desafio da integração de dados e as mudanças organizacionais e culturais da nova ordem econômica global

A configuração do capitalismo atual, a globalização de mercados, o acirramento da concorrência, a velocidade de mudança e os gerentes cada vez mais cobrados por resultados e sustentabilidade das tomadas de decisão têm impelido as empresas a investir cada vez mais em sistemas de relacionamento para conhecer clientes. Os clientes são a mola propulsora de qualquer empresa e sem eles a empresa não possui valor algum. O objetivo desse trabalho foi explorar os fatores que impactam e determinam o valor do cliente para a empresa e/ou acionistas. Com base em fundamentação teórica, foram evidenciadas as principais pesquisas, destacando as contribuições empíricas de cada caso e a contemplação dos vetores de valor para a empresa e/ou acionistas. Resultados sugerem que o advento da tecnologia da informação nas empresas tem proporcionado a produção de conhecimento para a tomada de decisão mais estruturada em relação à gestão de clientes por valor. Foram evidenciadas (9) nove pesquisas sobre análise de padrão de lucratividade, (8) oito sobre otimização de alocação de recursos, (5) cinco sobre aquisição, retenção e efeitos sociais e (4) quatro sobre avaliação de empresas por meio de clientes. Cliente é definido como ativo intangível na medida em que otimiza a utilização dos recursos para a cocriação de valor para a empresa e/ou acionistas. / The current capitalism configuration, markets globalization, tight competitiveness, the change speed, managers more and more called by results and account for their decision have been forcing companies to invest more and more in customer relationship systems. The customers are the bottom line of any company and without them the company doesn\'t possess any value. The objective of this work was to explore the factors that impact and determine the customer\'s value for the company and/or shareholders. Based on theoretical, it was evidenced the mainly researches, dealing with empirical contribution of each case and the value vectors contemplation for company and/or shareholders. Results suggest that the introducing information technology in the companies has been providing the knowledge production for decision models more structured for managing customers by value. Nine researches were evidenced on profitability pattern analysis, eight on optimize resources allocation, five on acquisition and retention and social effects and four about firm evaluation through customers. Customer is defined as in-tangible assets as long as optimizes the utilization of resources for the co-creation of value for the company and/or shareholders.