Denna uppsats menar att den svenska bankbranschen genomgår ett miljöskifte. I enighet med Contingency Theory finns då ett behov av anpassning för de bankerna som äntrar den nya miljön. Den svenska storbanken Nordea används i denna studie som ett exempel på en bank i den nya miljön. Genom att intervjua sex medarbetare och sex kunder till banken antas ett dubbelt perspektiv för att diskutera hur Nordeas organisationstyp och strategi förhåller sig till den nya miljön. Kundintervjuerna har påvisat att personliga relationer värderas högt. Samtidigt visar medarbetarintervjuerna och en analys av Nordeas arbetssätt att den antagna organisationstypen och strategi ser ut att minska på de personliga relationerna. Diskussionen hävdar att en Flexibel, Organisk och Kundorienterad strategi som skapar Relational Benefits passar i den nya miljön; en strategi Nordea endast delvis antagit. Slutsatsen uppmärksammar en risk i att inte tillvara ta kundernas önskan om en personlig bankrelation i den nya digitala miljön.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Deborah Canter / Chihyung Ok / As the number of older adults increases so does the demand for housing and personal care needs. The continuing care retirement community is unique from other senior care facilities as it provides a continuum of housing and care that caters towards an individual’s need. Foodservice is often utilized to attract older adults into retirement facilities. Such service would give residents additional opportunities to socialize with service workers as well as other patrons of the restaurant. Yet, few studies have focused on the roles of food and dining service on resident’s satisfaction with foodservice and their quality of life. Study 1 examined the relationships between residents’ perception of individual customer orientation of service employee dimensions: technical skills, social skills, motivation, and decision-making authority, with relational benefits, satisfaction and subsequent behavioral outcomes: repurchase intention and word-of-mouth. Study 2 explored the moderating effects of resident’s activity involvement and food involvement on the relationships between rapport, dining-need satisfaction and resident’s quality of life. To achieve the objectives of these studies, 412 continuing care retirement community residents from five facilities completed a self-report questionnaire. Of these, 354 were used in study 1 and study 2. Findings of the structural equation modeling (Study 1) suggested that resident’s perception of foodservice employee’s technical skills, social skills and motivation were important determinants of confidence and social benefits that led to residents’ overall satisfaction with foodservice. Satisfied resident-consumer is likely to engage in word-of-mouth and repurchase intention. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions (Study 2) revealed that perceived rapport and resident’s dining-need satisfaction are positively related to resident’s quality of life. This study also found that activity involvement and food involvement moderated the relationships between rapport and dining-need satisfaction with quality of life respectively. That is, the more involved resident has an improved quality of life.

As virtual channels on the internet grow full-blown, two major chain department store corporations in Taiwan entered internet markets one after another in 2007. Since the department store is a typical service industry highly based on interactions, the salesclerk has been a major mediator for serving customers and therefore face-to-face interaction between consumers and salesclerks is especially important. With the coming of brand-new self-service system combined with technology, consumers are able to take advantage of the technology to serve themselves. The relationship between corporations and consumers is hence transformed with a delivery system of ¡§low contact but high technology.¡¨ Researchers of previous studies mainly focus on interpersonal-based service encounter for investigation of relationship marketing and customer loyalty and researches about technology-based self-service and interaction with consumers are rarely seen. This research takes department store customers as subjects of investigation and adopts their viewpoints from questionnaire, aiming to probe into the influence of the department store¡¦s introduction of self-service technology on the effect of relationship marketing for better understanding of the relationship between the effect and customers loyalty. The study will take questionnaire survey of internet, and put the questionnaire on the Telecommunication Laboratories (TL) website to gather data via the customer¡¦s e-mail in cooperation with the Web-based Newspaper for the credit card users of the department store of the department store. The questionnaire will put for one month from February 1 to February 28, 2008 to gather enough data for analysis. A total of 1412 copies of questionnaire are issued, retrieving 396 copies, with 1016 copies of effective questionnaire. Structural Equation Modeling is used in this research. The followings are four points of conclusion: (1) the quality of web-based self service has significantly positive influence on result indicators of relational benefits by means of customer relational benefits; (2) the quality of web-based self service, except for delivery service speed, has significantly positive influence on customer relational benefits; (3) customer relational benefits have significantly positive influence on result indicators of relational benefits; (4) customer relational benefits bring significant effect as a mediator between web-based self service and result indicators of relational benefits. Therefore, we suggest that the department store managers shall create more elements of relationship benefit so that the customers all feel highly of the relationship benefit in the hope to enhance the customer's satisfaction and loyalty on the enterprise.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Facebook activities on relationship drivers and relational benefits and the effect of relationship drivers of relational benefits perceived by customers to Pite Havsbad. To do this we have explored the relationship between a number of Facebook activities, relationship drivers and relational benefits. We developed two conceptual models, which included these relationships. We have written this degree project on commission for Pite Havsbad, which is a company that operates in the hotel industry in the county of Norrbotten in the north of Sweden. The research question that we formulated was as following:   What kind of impact does Facebook activities have on relationship drivers and relational benefits in the hospitality industry?   With this research question we aimed to make a practical contribution and to help Pite Havsbad develop their social media strategies in order to be able to build customer relationships. We also aimed to make a theoretical contribution to fill the research gap that exists in the research area on social media and customer relationship building. We used a quantitative data collection method in the form of a survey administered on Pite Havsbad’s Facebook page. Our population consist of the approximately 6 300 fans that Pite Havsbad has on Facebook. The data continuing of was 256 responses were processed in SPSS by conducting Cronbach’s alpha test, Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis in order to test the hypothesized effects between our key variables.   The findings from this degree project show that Facebook activities affect both the relationship drivers and relational benefits, although they have less effect on relational benefits. The relational benefits are though highly affected by the relationship drivers. Over all, the Facebook activities of Pite Havsbad were highly valued by the respondents, which means that all of them are important to work with. Many of the activities also had positive effects on the relationship drivers, which means they can be used to build relationships with customers. By conducting this research we also helped Pite Havsbad with the starting point of creating a Social CRM strategy, which can be used for future relationship building with their fans on Facebook.

South African short-term insurers are finding it increasingly more difficult to maintain their market value amidst unpredictable and erratic economic conditions. In addition, the short-term insurance industry is faced with two major challenges: the growing number of direct short-term insurers entering the industry, and the significant decline in customer retention rates. Based on the literature review, it was found that these challenges present short-term insurers with a strategic imperative – they need to adopt a CRM approach, incorporating an integrated customer focus aimed at developing long-term relationships with customers. If they want to succeed in this pursuit, short-term insurers need to understand their customers‟ perceptions of the service offering, their existing relationship with the insurer, their levels of satisfaction, and their behavioural intentions towards the insurer. The primary objective of this study was to determine the influence of both direct and indirect short-term insurers‟ service quality and benefits derived from being in a relationship with the insurer, specifically on their customers‟ levels of satisfaction, their loyalty, and positive word- of-mouth intentions. In this vein, the study also sheds light on how short-term insurers can adapt their marketing strategies in order to develop and maintain successful long-term relationships with their customers. The study followed a descriptive research design. Convenience sampling was used to select suitable respondents, and data was collected by means of mall-intercept, person-administered surveys from individuals residing in the Gauteng Province of South Africa and who currently have short-term insurance. A sample size of 891 responses was realised. The results from the study indicate that respondents’perceptions of their insurers’ service quality offering do not differ significantly from their expectations. In other words, respondents seem to be satisfied with their insurers’ services. Results furthermore showed that quality services and additional relational benefits positively influence respondents’ levels of satisfaction with their short-term insurers, which in turn influence their intentions to remain loyal to their insurers or to communicate positively about them. In addition, no significant differences were observed between direct and indirect short-term insurance respondents with regard to service quality, relational benefits, customer satisfaction, or behavioural intention. Based on the results, this study proposes a model that sets out to demonstrate how South African short-term insurers can utilise service quality and relational benefits to realise and improve customer satisfaction, in order to encourage positive behavioural intentions among their customers. It is recommended that, in order to differentiate themselves, short-term insurers (both direct and indirect) should ensure that their service quality offerings are superior to those of their competitors’. Short-term insurers can attain high quality service offerings by paying special attention to their reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. It is also recommended that short-term insurers should attempt to provide the same levels of relational benefits to all of their customers, independent of demographic differences, as a way to improve the overall morale and satisfaction of their customers. Since no significant differences were found in terms of different groups of respondents, it is further recommended that short-term insurers should differentiate themselves by customising their target market(s), through focusing their service and relational offerings on specific demographic, geographic, and psychographic segments. Finally, it is recommended that short-term insurers should use the model developed in this study with a view to improve the overall effectiveness of their CRM efforts. Recommendations for future research include extending this study to other South African provinces, in order to determine whether differences exist between respondents from different geographic locations. Future research can include representative numbers of respondents from each individual short-term insurer with a view to attain more accurate and representative information regarding specific insurers. A similar study can also be conducted among long-term insurers in order to determine whether the insurance industry in its entirety can benefit from the findings from this study. Finally, future research can test the CRM model presented in this study in the context of other service industries to determine its relevance and applicability. / Thesis (PhD (Marketing management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

South African short-term insurers are finding it increasingly more difficult to maintain their market value amidst unpredictable and erratic economic conditions. In addition, the short-term insurance industry is faced with two major challenges: the growing number of direct short-term insurers entering the industry, and the significant decline in customer retention rates. Based on the literature review, it was found that these challenges present short-term insurers with a strategic imperative – they need to adopt a CRM approach, incorporating an integrated customer focus aimed at developing long-term relationships with customers. If they want to succeed in this pursuit, short-term insurers need to understand their customers‟ perceptions of the service offering, their existing relationship with the insurer, their levels of satisfaction, and their behavioural intentions towards the insurer. The primary objective of this study was to determine the influence of both direct and indirect short-term insurers‟ service quality and benefits derived from being in a relationship with the insurer, specifically on their customers‟ levels of satisfaction, their loyalty, and positive word- of-mouth intentions. In this vein, the study also sheds light on how short-term insurers can adapt their marketing strategies in order to develop and maintain successful long-term relationships with their customers. The study followed a descriptive research design. Convenience sampling was used to select suitable respondents, and data was collected by means of mall-intercept, person-administered surveys from individuals residing in the Gauteng Province of South Africa and who currently have short-term insurance. A sample size of 891 responses was realised. The results from the study indicate that respondents’perceptions of their insurers’ service quality offering do not differ significantly from their expectations. In other words, respondents seem to be satisfied with their insurers’ services. Results furthermore showed that quality services and additional relational benefits positively influence respondents’ levels of satisfaction with their short-term insurers, which in turn influence their intentions to remain loyal to their insurers or to communicate positively about them. In addition, no significant differences were observed between direct and indirect short-term insurance respondents with regard to service quality, relational benefits, customer satisfaction, or behavioural intention. Based on the results, this study proposes a model that sets out to demonstrate how South African short-term insurers can utilise service quality and relational benefits to realise and improve customer satisfaction, in order to encourage positive behavioural intentions among their customers. It is recommended that, in order to differentiate themselves, short-term insurers (both direct and indirect) should ensure that their service quality offerings are superior to those of their competitors’. Short-term insurers can attain high quality service offerings by paying special attention to their reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. It is also recommended that short-term insurers should attempt to provide the same levels of relational benefits to all of their customers, independent of demographic differences, as a way to improve the overall morale and satisfaction of their customers. Since no significant differences were found in terms of different groups of respondents, it is further recommended that short-term insurers should differentiate themselves by customising their target market(s), through focusing their service and relational offerings on specific demographic, geographic, and psychographic segments. Finally, it is recommended that short-term insurers should use the model developed in this study with a view to improve the overall effectiveness of their CRM efforts. Recommendations for future research include extending this study to other South African provinces, in order to determine whether differences exist between respondents from different geographic locations. Future research can include representative numbers of respondents from each individual short-term insurer with a view to attain more accurate and representative information regarding specific insurers. A similar study can also be conducted among long-term insurers in order to determine whether the insurance industry in its entirety can benefit from the findings from this study. Finally, future research can test the CRM model presented in this study in the context of other service industries to determine its relevance and applicability. / Thesis (PhD (Marketing management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

This study's first goal is to investigate whether a 23-item multidimensional scale is a valid and reliable measure of benefits private club members perceive to be important. Seven theoretically plausible model structures are empirically tested: a unidimensional model, a two oblique first-order factors model, a four oblique first-order factors model, a two oblique second-order factors model, a bifactor model with two domain-specific factors, a bifactor model with four domain-specific factors, and two oblique bifactor models. The second goal is to examine the benefits members receive most often from their membership clubs. The multidimensional scale is based on four dimensions: member-to-employee relationship, member-to-member relationship, confidence, and reduced anxiety. Member-to-employee relationship and member-to-member relationship subscales are aligned with social benefits while confidence and reduced anxiety subscales are aligned with psychological benefits. The study participants (N = 114) were recruited through a commercial crowdsourcing platform, Prolific. The results of a Bayesian confirmatory factor analysis (BCFA) provided support for the two oblique bifactor models. Additionally, the social benefits and psychological benefits bifactor scales displayed acceptable reliability. A comparison of the means for each type of benefit revealed that no statistically significant differences existed between the general social benefits factor and the general psychological benefits factor as well as between member-to-employee relationship and member-to-member relationship benefits. However, the mean of reduced anxiety benefits was statistically significantly higher than the mean of confidence benefits. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical understanding and measurement of private club membership value by examining various dimensions of benefits members perceive to be important. The findings also provide private club managers with a valid and reliable scale for assessing benefits their members perceive to be important.

Bakgrund: Relationsmarknadsföring har under de senaste 20 åren blivit ett populärt begrepp inom marknadsföring. Facebooks betydelse diskuteras även flitigt bland marknadsförare som ett verktyg för relationsmarknadsföring. En ökning har skett i antalet sidor och grupper på Facebook kopplade till företag. För att företag ska lyckas med att skapa attraktiva grupper och sidor på Facebook måste de förstå facebookanvändarnas preferenser. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån ett användarperspektiv beskriva och undersöka vilka fördelar facebookanvändare upplever som viktiga med att vara medlem i grupper och sidor på Facebook. Dels kommer dessa fördelar att beskrivas och undersökas ur ett relationsperspektiv och dels som olika fördelar med att tillhöra ett nätverk. Studien syftar även till att identifiera vilka övriga fördelar medlemmar i en grupp eller sida på Facebook kan uppleva med sitt medlemskap. Vi kommer därmed att förklara, ge förslag på och konstruera en modell för vilka huvudsakliga fördelar medlemmarna finner är viktiga med olika grupper och sidor på Facebook. Genomförande: Vi har genomfört tre fokusgrupper med facebookanvändare, samt en intervju med chefen för sociala medier på Junkyard, som är en onlinebutik som har varit mycket framgångsrika på Facebook. Resultat: Vi har i vår studie kommit fram till att det finns ett antal viktiga fördelar med att vara medlem i grupper och sidor på Facebook ur ett användarperspektiv. En gruppering av de funna fördelarna har gjorts i definitiva fördelar och potentiella fördelar och konstruerats i en modell. De definitiva fördelarna förekommer i de flesta grupper eller sidor och består av specialbehandling, underhållning samt sense of community. De potentiella fördelarna är inte lika vanligt förekommande men ger potentiellt starka fördelar för facebookanvändare när de hanteras på rätt sätt. De består av förtroendefördelar samt lärande i nätverk. Fördelarna som resulterat utifrån studien kan ge företag en fingervisning om hur de bör utforma grupper eller sidor på Facebook, för att tillfredsställa användarnas behov. / Background: Relationship marketing has in the past 20 years become a popular concept in marketing. Facebook's role is also discussed widely among marketers as a tool for relationship marketing. An increase has occurred in the number of pages and groups on Facebook. For companies to succees in creating attractive groups and pages on Facebook, they must understand the Facebook users' preferences. Objective: The purpose of this study is that from a user perspective describe and investigate the benefits of Facebook groups and pages from a user´s perspective. Firstly, these benefits will be described and examined from a relational perspective, and as different benefits in belonging to a network. The study also aims to identify what other benefits members of a group or page on Facebook can experience with their membership. We will therefore suggest and construct a model of the main benefits that members of Facebook finds important. Method: This study was conducted with data collected through qualitative methods. We conducted three focus groups with users of Facebook, and an interview with the head of social media at Junkyard, which is an online store that has been very successful on Facebook. Results: The study shows that there are a number of important benefits of being a member of groups and pages on Facebook from a user´s perspective. A grouping of the benefits have been found in definite benefits and potential benefits and are explained in a model. The definite benefits exist in most groups and pages and is: special treatment, entertainment and sense of community. The potential benefits are not as common, but potentially provide strong benefits for Facebook users when they are handled properly. They consist of the benefits confidence benefits, and community of practice. The benefits that resulted from the study can give companies an idea of how they should design groups or pages on Facebook, to satisfy users' needs.

La réussite du marketing relationnel dépend des préférences individuelles des clients, ceux-ci n'étant pas tous également réceptifs aux approches relationnelles. Il apparaît, à ce titre, nécessaire d'approfondir la connaissance des bénéfices relationnels attendus par les clients. Dans un design mixte séquentiel, des entretiens non-directifs menés auprès de clients en gestion de patrimoine, puis auprès de clients de banques de réseau, montrent et confirment l'existence de trois profils relationnels distincts : transactionnel, relationnel psychologique et relationnel socio-valorisable. Une matrice combinant l'attitude à l'argent et le stéréotype du banquier révèle des profils hybrides souhaitables vs indésirables. L'étude quantitative crée une échelle de mesure du stéréotype du banquier, enrichit l’échelle de l’attitude à l’argent de la dimension tabou, et aménage une échelle des bénéfices relationnels attendus. Le test d'hypothèses dans un modèle d'équations structurelles montre le rôle du stéréotype du banquier, de l'attitude à l'argent du client, de ses valeurs culturelles et des incidents critiques, dans l'explication des bénéfices relationnels attendu. / The success of relationship marketing depends on individual preferences, knowing that clients are not all equally receptive to relational approaches. It appears necessary for this purpose to improve knowledge about client’s expected relational benefits. Within a sequential mixed design, non-directive interviews conducted with wealth management clients, then with retail bank clients, show and confirm the existence of three distinct types of relational profiles : transactional, psychological relational and socio-valuable relational. A matrix combining the money attitude and the banker stereotype reveals desirable vs undesirable hybrid profiles. The quantitative study creates a scale to measure the banker stereotype, enriches the money attitude scale with the taboo dimension, and produces a scale for the expected relational benefits. The test of hypotheses in a structural equations model shows the role of the banker stereotype, the money attitude, the cultural values and critical incidents, in the formation of expected relational benefits