Värdeflödesanalys är ett ofta använt verktyg inom förbättringskonceptet Lean och syftar till att eliminera slöserier i processer och erhålla en högre resurseffektivitet. Värdeflödesanalys har sitt ursprung i produktionssektorn men har utvecklats till att användas också inom tjänstesektorn även om det fortfarande inte tillämpas i lika stor utsträckning där. Reklamationsprocessen är just en sådan tjänsteprocess som detta examensarbete syftar till att undersöka. Målsättningen är att framlägga resultat som bidrar till att ABB Control Products kan lämna svar till kund inom 10 arbetsdagar från mottagande av returnerad produkt. För detta ändamål kartläggs ett antal avslutade reklamationsärenden bestående av produktfamiljerna kontaktorer, mjukstartare och tryckknappar. Dessutom följs ett mjukstartarfall i realtid genom reklamationsprocessen för att direkt kunna observera hur arbetet går till. Det kan konstateras att den främsta anledningen till att ledtiden för reklamationsärenden idag är för lång är att det samlas stora lager vid varje processteg. Detta beror i sin tur på att det är mycket gods som kommer in i huset, de tillgängliga resurserna är hårt belastade och att reklamationsärenden generellt sett är nedprioriterade. Detta ställer höga krav på effektivitet och resursoptimering. I detta examensarbete har det framkommit att ett av de största hindren för att kunna ge kunden svar inom 10 arbetsdagar är att en ofullständig felbeskrivning ofta lämnas av kunderna. Detta gör det svårt att kunna göra en bra undersökning av produkterna. Ett annat problem är att en stor andel av det tillbakaskickade godset som kommer till ABB Control Products är felfritt, detta tar en massa tid och kostar mycket pengar för såväl kunderna som ABB Control Products. Ytterligare en brist med reklamationsprocessen är att reklamationshanteringen är personbunden, information om reklamationsärendena är knutna till en viss anställds e-mail och därmed inte åtkomliga för andra anställda. Dokumenten som används ser också lite olika ut beroende på vilken produktfamilj man jobbar med. Ett förbättringsförslag som rekommenderas för att åtgärda bristen med ofullständig felbeskrivning från kund är att införa en interaktiv Trouble Shooting Form där kunden via ett gränssnitt beskriver sina problem och de förhållanden som rådde då felet med deras produkt uppstod. Syftet med denna interaktiva Trouble Shooting Form är att kunna erhålla fler och bättre svar från kund. Detta skulle samtidigt även minska andelen tillbakaskickat gods som inte är felaktigt eftersom en bättre bedömning av ett reklamationsärende kan göras redan innan godset skickas tillbaka. Dessutom är det viktigt att man har en kontinuerlig dialog med kunden och att man betonar vikten av att fylla i denna interaktiva Trouble Shooting Form och givet att kunden gör detta så ska svar till kund garanteras inom 10 arbetsdagar. Vidare bör en breddutbildning av kvalitetspersonalen initieras för att de ska kunna skriva rapporter även för andra produktfamiljer. Syftet är att de anställda vid kvalitetsavdelningen ska kunna backa upp varandra vid frånvaro av personal. För att kunna göra detta behövs även åtkomst till alla e-mail som berör reklamationsärenden. Detta kan åstadkommas genom att skapa en, för kvalitetsavdelningen, gemensam inbox. En standardisering av de dokument som används för de olika produktfamiljerna är ytterligare ett förbättringsförslag som är viktigt att genomföra i syfte att kunna ge ett mer professionellt intryck gentemot kund. Beslut om standardisering bör man fatta på en högre organisatorisk nivå. I ett framtida tillstånd kan alltså reklamationsprocessens lagertid, med ovanstående och andra förbättringsförslag som framläggs i denna rapport, minska väsentligt och således blir flödet genom reklamationsprocessen bättre, ledtiden förkortas och kunden får svar snabbare. I ett längre perspektiv kan man tänka sig ett optimalt framtida tillstånd för produktfamiljen mjukstartare där processtegen undersöka produktochskriva rapport & krediteringsunderlag utförs av en och samma person på samma sätt som för kontaktorer och tryckknappar idag. Fördelarna med detta optimala tillstånd är att undersökning av produkt och skrivande av rapport till kund kan ske i direkt anslutning till varandra, man minskar ett led i  reklamationsprocessen och färre personer blir inblandade i ett visst  reklamationsärende vilket resulterar i att kunden får svar ännu snabbare. / Value stream mapping is a tool frequently used within the improvement concept Lean and is aimed at eliminating waste in processes and obtaining higher resource efficiency. Value stream mapping originated in the production sector but has developed for use in the service sector even though it is not used there to the same extent. The process for handling customer claims is the kind of service process which this thesis aims to investigate. The goal of the thesis is to furnish results to ABB Control Products which help them provide customer response within 10 working days from receipt of returned goods. The products investigated in this thesis are contactors, softstarters and pilot devices. In addition to these cases, a softstarter case is followed throughout the process for handling customer claims in real time to allow the process to be observed directly. Result show that the main reason for the lead time for a claim today being too long is the large stocks accumulated at every process step. This in turn is due to many goods being returned to the factory, the available resources having a high workload and customer complaints generally not being prioritized. This places high demands on efficiency and optimization of resources. The conclusion of this thesis is that one of the greatest obstacles to responding to the customer within 10 working days is the incomplete fault description given by the customers. This makes it difficult to conduct a proper investigation of the products. Another problem is that a large number of the goods returned to the factory are not defective and this costs a great deal of time and money for the customers as well as for ABB Control Products. On top of that the process for handling customer claims is dependent on individual employees: information about the claims is tied to the e-mail correspondence of these employees and thus, not available to other employees. The documents used also look slightly different depending on which product family an employee is working with. A suggestion for improvement to counteract the inadequate fault descriptions from the customers is to introduce an interactive Trouble Shooting Form where the customers through an interface describe the problem and the circumstances when the fault occurred. The purpose of this interactive Trouble Shooting Form is to receive more and better answers from the customers. This would also decrease the volume of non-defective returned goods because a better assessment of a claim can be made before the goods are sent back. It is also important to maintain a continuous dialog with the customer and to emphasize the importance of filling in the interactive Trouble Shooting Form; provided that this is done the customer must then be guaranteed an answer within 10 working days. A further recommendation is to initiate a broad training program for the employees at the quality department so they also can write reports for other product families and thus be able to support each other when undermanned. For this purpose, access to all the e-mails concerning the process of handling customer claims can be obtained by creating a common inbox for all those working at the quality department. Another important improvement to implement is to standardize the documents used for the different product families in order to give the customer a more professional impression. The decision to standardize should be taken at a higher organizational level. With the abovementioned and other suggestions for improvement presented in this thesis, the shelf life in a future state may be substantially reduced; thus the flow through the customer claims process will be better, the lead time will be reduced and the customer will receive a faster response. In the long term, an optimal future state could be outlined with the process steps investigate productandwrite report & base of credit for the product family softstarter being performed by the same person in the same way as for contactors and pilot devices today. The advantages of this optimal future state are that the investigation of products and the report to the customer can be written directly after each other, thus a link in the process of handling customer claims is reduced and fewer people are involved in product claims, resulting in even quicker responses to the customer.

It is common practice for service providers, such as cell phone network providers, to utilise relationship marketing strategies in an effort to retain their customers and thereby to increase profitability. Customers with relationship intentions are willing to respond to such efforts while other customers will refrain. Service failures negatively impact relationship marketing efforts and thus complicate service providers’ relationship-building efforts. Therefore, service providers endeavour to restore customers’ post-recovery satisfaction and loyalty through service recovery efforts to retain their customers. However, the influence that customers’ relationship intentions have on this process has not been considered. Previous research on relationship intention in South Africa focussed only on developing a valid and reliable relationship intention measurement scale. For this reason, the primary objective of this study was to determine the influence of relationship intention on customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery within the cellular industry. Supporting the primary objective, a model depicting the influence of respondents’ relationships intentions on satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery was developed. Furthermore, a model depicting the interrelationships of the relationship constructive dimensions of the service recovery process uncovered during this study was also developed. Through non-probability convenience sampling of adults 18 years and older (residing in Johannesburg and the surrounding residential suburbs) who have used a cell phone network provider for three years or longer, 605 respondents completed interviewer-administered questionnaires. Demographic and patronage information, together with respondents’ relationship intentions, attitudes towards complaining, customers’ complaint behaviour, expectations of service recovery, perceived service recovery as well as satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery, were obtained. Results indicated that no associations exist between respondents’ levels of relationship intention and their relationship lengths, as well as whether they had contractual agreements with their cell phone network providers. It is therefore recommended that instead of using relationship length or contractual agreements, cell phone network providers should use customers’ relationship intentions to identify customers for relationship marketing purposes. Findings from this study furthermore include that respondents’ relationship intentions influence their propensities to complain, as well as the likelihood that they will voice a complaint regarding dissatisfactory service delivery. It is therefore recommended that cell phone network providers use the opportunity to identify customers with relationship intentions through customers’ complaint behaviour. This study found that respondents’ relationship intentions influence both their expectations of cell phone network providers to take service recovery action, as well as their perceptions of service recovery. Respondents’ relationship intentions also positively influence their satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery. Based on these findings, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should always take corrective action following service failures (such as billing errors in this study), preferably by including at least an acknowledgement, apology, explanation and rectification of the problem as part of the service recovery efforts. Such a combination of service recovery efforts will increase the satisfaction, loyalty and retention of customers with higher relationship intentions. From the results it can be concluded that customers’ relationship intentions influence their behaviour with regard to propensity to complain, voicing, expectations of service recovery action, perceptions of service recovery, as well as satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery, when service failures occur. The proposed model developed from these findings results in the recommendation that cell phone network providers should view the service recovery process as an interrelated process influenced by customers’ relationship intentions. Cell phone network providers should note that customers with higher relationship intentions will attempt to salvage the relationship when service failures occur, which contributes to their satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery. This study contributes to establishing relationship intention theory by confirming the positive influence of customers’ relationship intentions on constructive behaviour when service failures occur. Moreover, practical recommendations concerning cell phone network providers’ response to billing errors are proposed. Future research should address the methodological limitations of this study by using probability sampling, and data should be collected from all South African provinces. Real-time service failures should be considered as opposed to the scenario-based approach used in this study. Important influences on customer behaviour when service failures occur, such as the perceived severity of service failure, service failure type, perceived justice and attributions, should also be considered with regard to their influence on the constructs of this study. Lastly, the antecedents of or differences with regard to customers’ relationship intentions based on personality, generational cohort or population group deserve further attention to establish relationship intention as study field within the domain of relationship marketing. / PhD (Marketing Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014.

The press is filled with stories about termination of customer relationships in banking, telecom and other service industries. Yet, there is limited research on firm-initiated service termination and in particular, customers’ reactions to different termination strategies is under-researched. This study employs a 2 (termination strategies: firm-oriented and customer-oriented) * 5 (compensation types: explanation, apology, moderate monetary compensation, high monetary compensation and no compensation) experimental design with US adult consumers in retail banking. In phase 1, the study examines the direct and indirect effects of termination severity on customers’ reactions and the perceived justice theory is used to explain the post termination conceptual framework. The results show that a firm-oriented approach is perceived as more severe and less fair compared with a customer-oriented approach. In addition, termination severity negatively influences perceived justice and positively influences anger, direct complaint, negative WoM and revenge behaviours. The results also demonstrate that anger and perceived justice mediate the relationships between termination severity and behavioural responses and attitude towards complaining moderates the effects of anger on revenge, direct and third party complaint. The study contributes to the service termination literature by enhancing the understanding of the consequences of service termination and also providing a theoretical model of customers’ attitudinal, emotional and behavioural reactions to firm-initiated service termination. Furthermore, little is known about the role that compensation plays in influencing customers’ responses to intentional failures such as service termination. Therefore, in phase 2, this research examines the effects of different types of compensation and different level of monetary compensation on customers’ anger, satisfaction, image and negative WoM following the two termination approaches. Expectancy violation theory is used to explain the post compensation conceptual model. Contrary to the accepted wisdom, the findings reveal that explanation is the salient compensation type for both termination approaches. In addition, high level of monetary compensation is only effective following a firm-oriented, but not a customer-oriented approach. Moreover, apology and moderate monetary compensation are not effective in improving customers’ satisfaction and reducing their anger following either approach. The research contributes to the service recovery literature by examining the effectiveness of psychological and monetary compensation in service termination, which is an intentional failure. The findings provide managers with critical insights about the effectiveness of different compensation strategies based on specific termination strategies (i.e. psychological compensation following customer-oriented and both psychological and high monetary compensation following firm-oriented approaches).

It is common practice for service providers, such as cell phone network providers, to utilise relationship marketing strategies in an effort to retain their customers and thereby to increase profitability. Customers with relationship intentions are willing to respond to such efforts while other customers will refrain. Service failures negatively impact relationship marketing efforts and thus complicate service providers’ relationship-building efforts. Therefore, service providers endeavour to restore customers’ post-recovery satisfaction and loyalty through service recovery efforts to retain their customers. However, the influence that customers’ relationship intentions have on this process has not been considered. Previous research on relationship intention in South Africa focussed only on developing a valid and reliable relationship intention measurement scale. For this reason, the primary objective of this study was to determine the influence of relationship intention on customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery within the cellular industry. Supporting the primary objective, a model depicting the influence of respondents’ relationships intentions on satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery was developed. Furthermore, a model depicting the interrelationships of the relationship constructive dimensions of the service recovery process uncovered during this study was also developed. Through non-probability convenience sampling of adults 18 years and older (residing in Johannesburg and the surrounding residential suburbs) who have used a cell phone network provider for three years or longer, 605 respondents completed interviewer-administered questionnaires. Demographic and patronage information, together with respondents’ relationship intentions, attitudes towards complaining, customers’ complaint behaviour, expectations of service recovery, perceived service recovery as well as satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery, were obtained. Results indicated that no associations exist between respondents’ levels of relationship intention and their relationship lengths, as well as whether they had contractual agreements with their cell phone network providers. It is therefore recommended that instead of using relationship length or contractual agreements, cell phone network providers should use customers’ relationship intentions to identify customers for relationship marketing purposes. Findings from this study furthermore include that respondents’ relationship intentions influence their propensities to complain, as well as the likelihood that they will voice a complaint regarding dissatisfactory service delivery. It is therefore recommended that cell phone network providers use the opportunity to identify customers with relationship intentions through customers’ complaint behaviour. This study found that respondents’ relationship intentions influence both their expectations of cell phone network providers to take service recovery action, as well as their perceptions of service recovery. Respondents’ relationship intentions also positively influence their satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery. Based on these findings, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should always take corrective action following service failures (such as billing errors in this study), preferably by including at least an acknowledgement, apology, explanation and rectification of the problem as part of the service recovery efforts. Such a combination of service recovery efforts will increase the satisfaction, loyalty and retention of customers with higher relationship intentions. From the results it can be concluded that customers’ relationship intentions influence their behaviour with regard to propensity to complain, voicing, expectations of service recovery action, perceptions of service recovery, as well as satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery, when service failures occur. The proposed model developed from these findings results in the recommendation that cell phone network providers should view the service recovery process as an interrelated process influenced by customers’ relationship intentions. Cell phone network providers should note that customers with higher relationship intentions will attempt to salvage the relationship when service failures occur, which contributes to their satisfaction, loyalty and retention following service recovery. This study contributes to establishing relationship intention theory by confirming the positive influence of customers’ relationship intentions on constructive behaviour when service failures occur. Moreover, practical recommendations concerning cell phone network providers’ response to billing errors are proposed. Future research should address the methodological limitations of this study by using probability sampling, and data should be collected from all South African provinces. Real-time service failures should be considered as opposed to the scenario-based approach used in this study. Important influences on customer behaviour when service failures occur, such as the perceived severity of service failure, service failure type, perceived justice and attributions, should also be considered with regard to their influence on the constructs of this study. Lastly, the antecedents of or differences with regard to customers’ relationship intentions based on personality, generational cohort or population group deserve further attention to establish relationship intention as study field within the domain of relationship marketing. / PhD (Marketing Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014.

The topic of this thesis is: Travel contracts according to the new Civil Code. The thesis consists of two parts - theoretical and practical. The theoretical part deals with the basic terms related to the tourism and it describes the consumer protection legislation in both the Czech Republic and the European Union. In the practical part, there is an analysis of some travel contracts (including the terms of a contract) of tour operators and travel agencies located in České Budějovice. This part also analyses the results which were obtained from the questionnaires intended for the customers of tour operators or travel agencies and for the tour operators and travel agencies.