This research investigated the service offering in appliance sales departments of prominent retail stores in an emerging economy to ultimately indicate whether stores‟ customer service, i.e. their presentation of the marketing mix is conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. The study was prompted by significant changes in the profile of South African consumers since 1994 when a new socio-political dispensation was introduced. A sharp increase in the middle-income group since has resulted in an increased demand for housing, electricity and consequently also major household appliances. Retail responded more than willingly. Unfortunately the consequences of limited product related consumer socialization for millions of previously disadvantaged consumers and subsequent lack of structural and transactional knowledge in terms of their ability to cope in the market place was given little attention. The research involved four phases of data collection and the participation of five prominent department stores in Tshwane, RSA that was arranged through liaison with industry. Phase 1 involved an in store survey: store managers assessed the customer service in the stores in the presence of the researcher, according to indicators that were based on the marketing mix. In phase 2, respondents (n=296) were recruited in the stores immediately after closure of a sales deal: questionnaires were completed on the spot. It involved (1) an investigation of their satisfaction with the customer service; (2) an investigation of their perception of the service quality through a SERVQUAL scale and (3) a product knowledge test that pertained to the functional and performance attributes of the appliances that they purchased. During phase 3, experienced salespeople (n=18) were involved in a projective technique that expected of them to act as the managers of their respective stores and to propose recommendations to augment their stores’ service offering to be more conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. Finally, in phase 4, representatives from industry explained their potential contribution to augment customer service in retail stores. Findings revealed shortcomings in the customer service in retail that should be addressed to enhance informed, responsible buying decisions. In phase 1, store managers candidly admitted that in general, price was attended to more attentively than elements such as processes that could enhance informed buying decisions. In the customer survey, exploratory factor analysis revealed a collapse of the original customer service scale from six elements to three, which suggests a more integrated judgement of customer service in the context of this research. Emphasis on price and product was diminished and directed towards value for money and personnel orientations. Similarly the five dimensional SERVQUAL scale was reduced to two dimensions (Supportiveness and Impressiveness). The product knowledge test was used to indicate whether consumers’ judgement of the service offering was supported by evidence of informed, buying decisions. Consumers’ scores contradicted their apparent satisfaction with customer service and their positive perception of service quality. Sales personnel unequivocally accentuated their potential to augment customer service but revealed conditions that limit optimal performance. Representatives of industry acknowledged areas of concern and recommended concerted effort by retailers due to their direct interaction with consumers as well as personnel. The findings of this study provide invaluable evidence that consumers “not necessarily know what they do not know”. Shortcomings in the customer service in retail are revealed and guidelines are provided to augment the service offering to the benefit of the parties involved. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Consumer Science / unrestricted

<p>Title: Strategies for competition – a study of the Swedish contact lenses market.</p><p>Authors: Pernilla AArskog and Annika Lange.</p><p>Background: As a market gets more mature and the competition increases, it is more important for a company to apply the right strategic perspective. There are four fundamental strategic perspectives for a service-oriented business: a core product-, a price-, an image- and a service perspective. This study is a about service management and take its point from the theories from the Nordic School about strategies for competition, customer value, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty.</p><p>Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to analyze and evaluate how the actors at the Swedish market of contact lenses should compete to gain further competitive advantages.</p><p>Method: The study includes four qualitative interviews with two traditional opticians and two Internet based businesses, but also a survey with 106 contact lens users is included.</p><p>Analysis: In the analyse part of this thesis it was concluded that the traditional opticians conception about their customer not agrees with what the customer evaluate as important. Many of the customers have thought about changing their optician, and besides that do not recommend their optician, and can there for not be categorize as loyal customers. The Internet based businesses conception about their customer is more in line with the customer groups about the company and their service. These customers do recommend their optician.</p><p>Result: In the result it can be concluded that the traditional opticians should change to a service perspective as their comprehensive strategic perspective, which means that the relation with the customer is the most important for the company. The Internet bases businesses should continue working from a price perspective since they have huge economy of scales.</p><p>Keywords: Customer value, strategies for competition, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty.</p> / <p>Bakgrund: Allteftersom en marknad mognar och konkurrensen ökar blir det än viktigare för ett företag att välja rätt strategiskt perspektiv. Det finns fyra grundläggande strategiska perspektiv för ett tjänsteföretag, kärnprodukt-, pris-, image- och tjänsteperspektivet. Detta arbete handlar om service management och utgår från den nordiska skolan med teorier kring konkurrensstrategier, kundvärde, kundupplevd kvalitet och kundlojalitet.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet med detta arbete är att analysera och utvärdera hur företag på den svenska kontaktlinsmarknaden bör agera för bli vara konkurrenskraftiga.</p><p>Metod: Undersökningen bygger på fyra kvalitativa intervjuer med två traditionella optiker och två företag verksamma på Internet samt en enkätundersökning där 106 kontaktlinsanvändare medverkade.</p><p>Analys: I analysen framkom att de traditionella optikernas uppfattning om sina kunder inte överensstämmer med vad kunderna uppfattar som viktigt. Många av dessa kunder har funderat på att byta optiker och de rekommenderar heller inte sin optiker, de kan därför inte heller anses lojala. Nätföretagens uppfattning om sina kunder överensstämmer bättre med vad kunderna tycker om företaget och dess service. Dessa kunder rekommenderar sin optiker.</p><p>Resultat: I resultatet framkom att de traditionella optikerna bör ändra till ett tjänsteperspektiv som sitt övergripande strategiska perspektiv som innebär att relationen med kunden sätts i fokus. Nätföretagen bör fortsätta arbeta utifrån ett prisperspektiv eftersom de har stora skalfördelar.</p>

Title: Strategies for competition – a study of the Swedish contact lenses market. Authors: Pernilla AArskog and Annika Lange. Background: As a market gets more mature and the competition increases, it is more important for a company to apply the right strategic perspective. There are four fundamental strategic perspectives for a service-oriented business: a core product-, a price-, an image- and a service perspective. This study is a about service management and take its point from the theories from the Nordic School about strategies for competition, customer value, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty. Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to analyze and evaluate how the actors at the Swedish market of contact lenses should compete to gain further competitive advantages. Method: The study includes four qualitative interviews with two traditional opticians and two Internet based businesses, but also a survey with 106 contact lens users is included. Analysis: In the analyse part of this thesis it was concluded that the traditional opticians conception about their customer not agrees with what the customer evaluate as important. Many of the customers have thought about changing their optician, and besides that do not recommend their optician, and can there for not be categorize as loyal customers. The Internet based businesses conception about their customer is more in line with the customer groups about the company and their service. These customers do recommend their optician. Result: In the result it can be concluded that the traditional opticians should change to a service perspective as their comprehensive strategic perspective, which means that the relation with the customer is the most important for the company. The Internet bases businesses should continue working from a price perspective since they have huge economy of scales. Keywords: Customer value, strategies for competition, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty. / Bakgrund: Allteftersom en marknad mognar och konkurrensen ökar blir det än viktigare för ett företag att välja rätt strategiskt perspektiv. Det finns fyra grundläggande strategiska perspektiv för ett tjänsteföretag, kärnprodukt-, pris-, image- och tjänsteperspektivet. Detta arbete handlar om service management och utgår från den nordiska skolan med teorier kring konkurrensstrategier, kundvärde, kundupplevd kvalitet och kundlojalitet. Syfte: Syftet med detta arbete är att analysera och utvärdera hur företag på den svenska kontaktlinsmarknaden bör agera för bli vara konkurrenskraftiga. Metod: Undersökningen bygger på fyra kvalitativa intervjuer med två traditionella optiker och två företag verksamma på Internet samt en enkätundersökning där 106 kontaktlinsanvändare medverkade. Analys: I analysen framkom att de traditionella optikernas uppfattning om sina kunder inte överensstämmer med vad kunderna uppfattar som viktigt. Många av dessa kunder har funderat på att byta optiker och de rekommenderar heller inte sin optiker, de kan därför inte heller anses lojala. Nätföretagens uppfattning om sina kunder överensstämmer bättre med vad kunderna tycker om företaget och dess service. Dessa kunder rekommenderar sin optiker. Resultat: I resultatet framkom att de traditionella optikerna bör ändra till ett tjänsteperspektiv som sitt övergripande strategiska perspektiv som innebär att relationen med kunden sätts i fokus. Nätföretagen bör fortsätta arbeta utifrån ett prisperspektiv eftersom de har stora skalfördelar.

BACKGROUND Quality improvement literature usually conceptualises two principal dimensions of quality, technical and service. Technical quality is what the customers receive relative to what is known to be effective and largely reflects issues related to the health care providers. Service quality is how the customers receive the services and reflects the way and the environment in which health services are provided. This thesis proposes and tests a third principal dimension, Customer Quality, which is the characteristics that customers need for effective involvement in health care processes, decision making and action to improve the quality of care delivered and received. This model is applied in the context of care for people with Type 2 diabetes as an example of the high priority common chronic diseases and one of the most important public health problems in Australia and worldwide. The study also examines the feasibility of using patient reports of received care as a way of measuring service and technical quality on a population basis. OBJECTIVE The present study aims to assess the quality of delivered care as perceived by people with Type 2 diabetes. Specifically it aims to measure service quality, technical quality, customer quality; and finally an overall quality index by combining all three dimensions. METHODS A community based cross-sectional survey of 603 people with Type 2 diabetes was carried out in Queensland, Australia in 2005/06 using a self-administered questionnaire. The eligible participants were Diabetes Australia-Queensland members over 25 years old with diagnosed Type 2 diabetes at least one year prior to the study. Adherence to the eleven clinical, lifestyle and management indicators, derived from standard Diabetes Australia Guidelines, were measured from the patients’ reports as a representative of technical quality to explore the likely gap between received services and what should have been received in the 12-month period. Focus Group Discussions were used to determine the elements of service quality that were important from the patients’ perspective. Twelve service quality indicators, derived from the review of the literature and the focus groups, were assessed to calculate service quality as perceived by people with Type 2 diabetes. The validated, reliable and practical 13- item Patient Activation Measure was used to evaluate customer quality in terms of customers’ knowledge, skills and confidence. Demographic and disease related information was obtained using a self-reported questionnaire. Two types of outcome variables were used in this study: participantreported binary variables (having complications, continuity of care and diabetes control status) and calculated continuous variables (technical quality rating, service quality and customer quality scores and, finally, the overall quality index). RESULTS The response rate from the 1500 mailed out questionnaires was 40%. Nonrespondents were a little younger (P<0.001) than study participants and matched on gender (P> 0.05). Participants were mostly over 65 years old, over 50% were male, almost half of them were obese and a quarter were studying or had completed tertiary level of education. Almost two-thirds reported well controlled diabetes and 60% had diabetes for more than five years. Most of them were not treated by specialists and maintained continuity of care for their diabetes management. The majority of participants were treated with insulin or oral agents (72%) and 37% reported diabetes complications. Overall adherence rate for top 5 clinical and top 3 management and lifestyle indicators were 49.7% and 18.8% respectively. Over 90% of participants reported an appropriate level of checks of HbA1c, blood pressure and serum cholesterol. For lifestyle and management indicators, reported adherence rates to guidelines were lower than for clinical indicators. Participants who reported care as recommended for blood pressure measurements; feet examinations; self-management, diabetes knowledge and nutritional consultation reviews were more likely to report their diabetes as being well controlled. Participants maintaining continuity of care also reported fewer complications and well controlled diabetes. Of the twelve service quality indicators, the highest service quality score were for support group, basic amenities, dignity and confidentiality. Inadequate quality was identified for overall service quality (86.2), choice of care provider, continuity, timeliness, safety, prevention and accessibility. Younger participants reported lower service quality scores (P=0.001) and participants with good control of their diabetes had higher scores (P<0.001). Overall reported Customer Quality score was 64.5. Ten percent of participants did not achieve the Customer Quality score for the confidence stage and 26% did not reach the actual action stage. Nearly three quarters of respondent reported the capacity to take action for self-management but only 38% reported the highest Customer Quality score equating to perceived ability to change the action by changing health and environment. Participants with a higher level of education and those who maintain continuity of care reported a higher Customer Quality score. Participants with a higher Customer Quality score were also more likely to report well controlled diabetes status. An overall imperfect Quality Index score (70) reflects significant room for overall quality improvement of diabetes care services. The younger participants reported lower Quality Index scores than older ones. Higher Quality Index scores were highly significantly associated with reporting better diabetes control status and continuity of care. There were no significant differences in the Quality Index scores in terms of gender, participants’ education level and diabetes complications. CONCLUSION Customer quality appears to be a useful third dimension in conceptualising quality in health care, particularly in the context of chronic disease where good selfmanagement can improve the outcomes of care. A substantial proportion of Queensland adults with Type 2 diabetes reported receiving suboptimal care. From the perspective of people with Type 2 diabetes there is a notable gap between their expectations and what they have actually received in most aspects of provided care. The overall service quality and choice of care provider, accessibility, prevention, continuity, timeliness and safety were identified to be of inadequate quality. Participants also reported relatively low customer quality scores based on the personal knowledge, skills and confidence as well as low overall quality score for delivered diabetes care. Thus, there was a significant opportunity to improve the quality of diabetes care on all three dimensions. The study demonstrated that a patient selfadministered survey is a potentially useful way of measuring all three dimensions of quality of care for diabetes.

Hotell ser i dagens samhälle i regel likadana ut och konkurrerar om samma utbud och kunder. Det är således betydelsefullt att i dagens konkurrensinriktade samhälle skilja sig från andra företag som verkar i samma bransch. Nya tjänster hjälper företag att attrahera nya kunder och samtidigt behålla redan befintliga vilket har gjort tjänsteutveckling till en viktig konkurrensfaktor. Det är således viktigt för hotell att känna till vad kunderna efterfrågar för att kartlägga potentiell tjänsteutveckling. Avsaknad av konkret forskning på ämnet kan leda till att ledningen för ett hotell genomför förändringar utan att se till kundernas egentliga behov, vilket kan medföra ett stort risktagande och stora ekonomiska kostnader. En positiv förändring sker först när hotell utvecklas i den riktning som deras kunder begär. Studien syftar till att kartlägga potentialen till tjänsteutveckling inom hotellbranschen i Umeå ur ett företags- och kundperspektiv. Detta för att se om det finns behov till förändring och om branschen tillmötesgår marknadens krav. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer kartläggs utbudet och efterfrågan av tjänster och service i hotellbranschen. Dessa analyseras sedan mot den teoretiska referensramen. Studien avser även att som delsyfte analysera och beskriva om tjänsteutveckling ger ett högre kundvärde samt vilken typ av tjänsteutveckling inom hotellbranschen som skulle underlätta för kunderna samt öka kundvärdet. En ökad förståelse i ämnet kan öka hotellens marknadsposition, lönsamhet och kundvärde. Studiens resultat uppvisar att det finns potential till utveckling av tjänster och service bland hotellen som var föremål i studien. Främst gäller det personalutveckling och utveckling av processen vid in- och utcheckning samt möjligheten till att göra beställningar på mat under alla tider på dygnet. Resultatet visar skillnader mellan vad affärsresenärer och privatresenärer efterfrågar. Affärsresenärer efterfrågar effektivisering och tjänster som underlättar i deras vardag och bidrar till att hotellet fungerar som ett stationärt hem. Privatresenärer å andra sidan efterfrågar främst personlig service och har inte samma krav som affärsresenärerna har över boendet och utbudet av tjänster. Slutligen har vi funnit att hotellen som önskar att öka kundvärdet gentemot sina kunder måste välja en tydlig strategi. Här har vi kommit underfund med två starka koncept, antingen ett lite dyrare koncept där allt ingår eller så ett billigare alternativ där kunderna får köpa tilläggstjänster efter önskemål. En tydlig strategi minskar risken för besvikelse och missförstånd.

Nowadays more and more enterprises transform into service-oriented infrastructure to sustain their competitive advantage. Although IT is an enabler of service-orientation, IT must align with business strategies to deliver expected value. In order to ensure the investment of service-oriented IT can improve the quality of customer service effectively, we aim to develop an IT-business alignment framework to assess the quality of alignment in the context of service-oriented enterprises. In our framework we propose three components of IT-business alignment: strategic alignment, operational alignment and social alignment. The strategic alignment is the degree to which the business process and information can support corporate service strategies. The operational alignment is the degree to which information systems fulfill the information and process needs of service orientation. The social alignment is the degree to which a common service climate is shared between IT and business units. Our data is collected from web questionnaires. The total data set constitutes a representative sample of n=300. Among all returned questionnaires, 96 were found to be complete and usable; this represented a response rate of 32 percent. From this research we get four conclusions: (1) Regardless of customer integration level, strategic alignment plays a significant role in improving customer service quality. (2) Strategic alignment is particularly influential to customer service quality when the enterprise is not service-oriented. (3) Operational alignment is not significant; however with the increasing of data integration level, enterprises increasingly emphasize the operational alignment. (4) Regardless of service-orientation; social alignment effectively helps enterprises make good customer service quality and retain customers. / Nowadays more and more enterprises transform into service-oriented infrastructure to sustain their competitive advantage. Although IT is an enabler of service-orientation, IT must align with business strategies to deliver expected value. In order to ensure the investment of service-oriented IT can improve the quality of customer service effectively, we aim to develop an IT-business alignment framework to assess the quality of alignment in the context of service-oriented enterprises. In our framework we propose three components of IT-business alignment: strategic alignment, operational alignment and social alignment. The strategic alignment is the degree to which the business process and information can support corporate service strategies. The operational alignment is the degree to which information systems fulfill the information and process needs of service orientation. The social alignment is the degree to which a common service climate is shared between IT and business units. Our data is collected from web questionnaires. The total data set constitutes a representative sample of n=300. Among all returned questionnaires, 96 were found to be complete and usable; this represented a response rate of 32 percent. From this research we get four conclusions: (1) Regardless of customer integration level, strategic alignment plays a significant role in improving customer service quality. (2) Strategic alignment is particularly influential to customer service quality when the enterprise is not service-oriented. (3) Operational alignment is not significant; however with the increasing of data integration level, enterprises increasingly emphasize the operational alignment. (4) Regardless of service-orientation; social alignment effectively helps enterprises make good customer service quality and retain customers.