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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Total Quality Management (TQM) is known for its success in transforming Japan from economic ruin after World War II into a world economic power. Telkom South Africa (SA) wants to develop a customer centric culture that permeates the entire organisation through people, processes and systems, with the objective of making Telkom the customer's ICT service provider of choice. The research show that by applying TQM principles at Telkom SA will increase customer satisfaction and assist Telkom SA in becoming a leading employee and customer centric ICT solutions service provider. Certain TQM principles which apply to the manufacturing sector can equally be applied to a service organization like Telkom SA, while certain TQM principles have to be adapted to apply to a service organisation.

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Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA), Business Studies Unit, Durban University of Technology in the Faculty of Commerce, 2008 / The conditions for doing business are changing rapidly. In the last decade, the resin market has witnessed a substantial growth and rapid changes globally as well as domestically. Customer satisfaction is a critical issue in the success of any business system, hence, one of the key challenges of this market is how to satisfy and retain their customers. This issue is strongly related to how service quality is managed and which holds a significant importance to customers’ satisfaction and their perceived performance of companies. In order for companies to survive and grow, they must find new ways of thinking, which has led to doing marketing researches, especially those related to customer satisfaction. In this study, the SERVQUAL model was employed to establish the customers’ perceptions versus their expectations of service quality at Cray Valley Resins. Both primary and secondary data were used to inform this particular research. The research was quantitative in nature and conducted in the form of a self-administered survey. The type of study used was the cross-sectional analytical survey method. The summary of the findings reveals that the dimensions with the highest expectation were tangibles followed by responsiveness. Coincidently these two dimensions also had the largest gap scores. The overall mean gap score (-0.326) is relatively small. Thus, it can be concluded that although the customers hold a good opinion of the quality of the services provided, expectations of the services were higher.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Marketing, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / Store layout is an important factor affecting consumer behaviour and a critical determinant towards the creation of store image. Well designed layouts are extremely important because they strongly influence in-store traffic patterns, shopping atmosphere, shopping behaviour, and operational efficiency (Vrechopoulos et al., 2004: 13). When an inconsistency occurs, some consumers will abandon that establishment in search of another one which offers fast, convenient and better services (Andersen, 1997: 118). Taking a more strategic approach to store layout can reap big rewards by boosting sales, increasing customer loyalty and ultimately increasing turnover (Clark, 2003: 42). The overall aim of the study was to ascertain if independent convenience stores in Kwa Mashu are aware of the impact of store layout on purchasing patterns of consumers. In order to accomplish the objectives of the study, a quantitative study was conducted at the convenience stores at Kwa Mashu by means of self-administered questionnaires. A sample of 400 respondents was asked questions pertaining to the study. The respondents were selected through non-probability sampling within which convenience sampling was applied. Conclusions and recommendations were thereafter drawn from the literature and the findings of the study. The results of this study show that consumers experience problems with store layout. It was found that appearance of the store, merchandise display, store atmosphere, instore service and accessibility are the major causes of this discomfort. Therefore, it is recommended that convenience retail owners in Kwa Mashu attend to those areas and see to it that necessary strategies are implemented to help customers where there is a need.

ESKOM is the Electricity Supply Commission, a South African utility company that provides electricity to South Africa. The Group's principal activity includes generation, transmission of electricity to industrial, mining, commercial, agricultural and residential customers and distributors. Eskom services a customer base well in excess of 3 million. In the past years Eskom had a few hundred thousand customers and as such had a customer service model that relied on face-to-face contact with all its customers. Customers enjoyed coming into an Eskom office for a chat when they paid their accounts, and had other electricity related queries. Five years ago their customer base had grown to approximately 3 million and it was obvious that Eskom could not continue with that model. South Africa had come out of the apartheid isolation and Eskom realised that they were very uncompetitive. Faced with this growth, improving customer satisfaction and ways to deliver service became critical questions. It became clear as well that customer acquisition and retention are important and will even be more so in a future deregulated electricity supply industry. The Group had to come with creative solutions to questions presented by these challenges. The utilization of call centres to address customer service delivery, customer satisfaction, as well as means to remaining competitive in the new millennium is the route that ESKOM has taken to address these key questions. Hence the basis for the study is to investigate the effectiveness of call centres as tools to offer service delivery and customer satisfaction. The focus of the study was located at the Shelley Beach Area Office; wherein it was apparent that the customers in this zone were not using the call centre to address their queries rather opted to visit the area office personally. The study then aimed to discover the cause of this, and how it could be curtailed, as the office was not as sufficiently equipped to deal with the vast number of queries that descended on them in this manner. The findings of the study will chart a way in unraveling the extent of the problem of people not using call centres, also will uncover the underlying factors that sustains this behaviour. It will also help in identifying what needs to be done to discourage this trend. The effectiveness of call centers has, however been found to differ between rural, urban and semi-urban areas. Call centers appeared to be more effective in urban areas, where supporting infrastructure (telephones) is readily available than in rural areas with limited access to telephones. It was noted that in rural areas mostly access to the telephone was limited in comparison to semi-urban and urban areas. Now, 7% of rural households have landline phones, up from 6% in 1994. The level of awareness of the call centre in these areas was also a point of concern. Up to 70% of people in rural areas were not aware of the existence of the call centre. In contrast to 76,8% in urban areas who were aware of its existence. Another factor, that influenced the use of call centres or lack thereof, was the degree of satisfaction, received from call centre service. Despite these concerns, the rural infrastructural development will see the increase in telecommunication in rural areas. The heightened awareness of existence of call centres and the service they provide will modify the rampant tendency of customers in Shelley Office area to descend in that office in their numbers. While the study's recommendations are not prescriptive, however they provide necessary information relevant for decisive intervention by management. It offers guidelines as to what could be done. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Store image and customer satisfaction become increasingly important factors in modern retailing - a market characterized by fast growth and intense competition. 7-11, Taiwan; Family-Mart and Hi-Life are already present as the top three in Taiwan retail market. This development will demand even more focus on the relationship between store image and customer satisfaction in order to stay in business and even more to create some new coalitions for future market. Therefore, chain convenience stores have to find a new way how to stand firm under this intense competition. The only way is to strengthen customers' perception through store image and provide the various services and products to satisfy customers' demands than increase customer satisfaction / Thesis (DBusinessAdministration)--University of South Australia, 2005

This thesis is a study of how a combination of process improvement and the action research approach was developed and used to change the work behaviour of Chinese employees, in terms of staff commitment and consequent customer satisfaction in a foreign-owned elevator-company service division in China. The case organisation is the multi-national company KONE and its operations in mainland China. / Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2001.

The aim of this research is to examine the effect of customer satisfaction and switching costs of customer loyalty through an empirical study of the health care and service industry in Taiwan. The significance of the research will affect hospital management throughout Taiwan and academics majoring in the field of customer loyalty and satisfaction. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2005