Local authorities have experienced significant cuts in income whilst grappling with increased demand, an aging population and welfare reform. This pressing imperative has driven local authorities to challenge their sense of self and in doing so consider the participative role that customers can and do play. This study sought to examine practitioner perspectives of customers, their role, impact and constraining and enabling factors within the design and delivery of local government contact centre services. There is limited empirical research on practitioner perspectives of the role of customers within a local government environment. There are multiple terms used to describe the concept of customer but an absence of established approaches to examine the role that customers play within socially constructed phenomenon within local government demonstrating a gap in current academic thought. Whilst the rationale for involving customers in local governance is debated, the application of theory in to practice is limited thereby further constraining the opportunity for local authorities to leverage potential benefits afforded through participative approaches to the design and delivery of contact centre services. An interpretivist stance was adopted with qualitative techniques employed within the research. Using a priori codes developed through the review of extant literature, thematic analysis of forty-four customer service strategies spanning single tier, upper tier and metropolitan local authorities was undertaken. Themes were further developed through analysis of transcripts from seventeen semistructured interviews with managers responsible for the design and delivery of local government contact centre services. This research highlighted the differing and often contradictory practitioner perceptions of the concept of customer and the role that customers play in the design and delivery of local government services. Whilst organisations espoused a desire to progress participative principles due to the potential benefits afforded through such approaches, the extent to which these were operationalised by practitioners was limited and this coupled with a perceived sense of passivity on the part of customers resulted in little or no positive impact on current service performance. As extant literature and research is limited on the role of customers within local government, this study expands current academic thought providing particular insight on the practitioner perspective. The research findings provide a robust foundation on which theorists and practitioners in particular can formulate participative strategies and associated policies thereby providing meaningful opportunities for customers to co-design and co-deliver local government services and through which potential benefits, financial and non-financial, can be realised.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka byråanställda art directors och originalares olika perspektiv på och förhållningssätt till sin yrkesroll med särskilt fokus på kreativitet och kundrelationer.Nio semi-strukturerade djupintervjuer genomfördes med sex art directors och fyra originalare. Respondenterna valdes ut genom ett kombinerat strategiskt bekvämlighetsurval från nio reklambyråer.Professionalism inom yrkesrollen visade sig vara något som respondenterna inte reflekterat över men det framkom att det främst handlar om hur art directors och originalare förhåller sig till kunden. Dessutom framkom det att respondenterna såg variation i arbetet som en positiv aspekt av yrket medan de såg prestationsångest och utomståendes oförståelse av yrket som negativa.Det framkom även att art directors och originalare i första hand ser på kreativitet som problemlösning, dock såg de olika på problemlösning i sina respektive roller. De använde sig av samma metoder för att finna inspirationsamt hanterade ångest på liknande sätt.Studien visade även att kunden och kundrelationen spelade en stor roll för yrket och ämnet berördes återkommande i respondenternas svar under intervjuernas gång. De använde sig av samma metoder för att finna inspiration / The aim of this study was to investigate the agency employees’ different perspectives and approaches to their professional role focusing on creativity and customer relationships.Nine semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with six art directors and four graphic designers. Respondents were selected through a combined strategic and convenience sample of nine advertising agencies.Results showed that professionalism was nothing that the respondents thought about but it turned out that it is mainly about how art directors and graphic designers handle and relate to the customer. Furthermore, results also showed that the respondents saw variation as a positive aspect of the profession while they saw anxiety and outsider's lack of understanding of the profession as negative. Results also showed that art directors and graphic designers primarily look at creativity as problem solving, though they looked at problem solving in their role differently. They used the same methods to find inspiration and tackle anxiety.It was also found that the customer and the customer relationship played a big role in the advertising profession and the subject was discussed repeatedly.

The study aims to understand the underlying factor why McDonald's customers return despite previous failure customer experiences. Why do customers come back to the company that contributes to the former dissatisfaction? McDonald's attempt to maintain unceasing purposeful emergence fail at the local level, where the customer contact occurs. McDonald's offerings and customers' bounded rationality results in that customers are satisfied with an "ok" experience, which adds to their low expectations of McDonalds. This makes clear that McDonald's does not have to make an effort through constant adaptation at the local level to achieve a "great" level of satisfaction. Because the customer is satisfied with an "ok" experience, and not require more to return to McDonalds. If you can lower your customers' expectations so much that they do not care about the previous failure customer experiences, the company's competitive invincible, even without continuous adjustment.

New technologies have increased the possible ways in which humans interact and as a result require new as well as old ways to establish trust. The findings of this paper suggest that trust should be divided into three main categories of trust drivers, exchange factors, design factors and motivational factors. The results indicate that tutorials can, and should, include drivers that build these categories. While we found varying degrees on how well implemented these were, we found that design factors were generally more prominent and found opportunities for tutorials to improve on the exchange side.

Background: The banking industry is a classic service industry where companiesand customers meet and where their interactions take placedaily. There are many reasons why an unsatisfied customer canchange company to a competitor and the customers that are loyalchoose to stay for certain reasons. There is a competition betweenthe commercial banks and niche banks which makes the relationshipwith existing and new customers more essential for thebanks. It is important for banks today to have loyal customers andbuild up long term relationships. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to understand the difference in strategiesof developing loyalty in a traditional bank and a niche bank,based on customer relationship marketing and compare Swedbankto Länsförsäkringar Bank. Method: A qualitative research method has been used in the thesis by aninterview with Kenneth Åberg at Swedbank and with EdinParazik at Länsförsäkringar Bank. We have used secondary datafrom other studies and combined with our own empirical findings. Findings: It has become important to have a customer focus as thecompetition has increased in the banking market. The generalrelationship marketing has become more focused on thecustomer, as more companies value the relationship withtheir customers instead of only focusing on the product orservices. It is equally important for the twoLänsförsäkringar Bank and Swedbank to strive for customersatisfaction and good work environment which encouragesand strengthens the creation of relationships. It appears forus that there are no major differences between LänsförsäkringarBank’s and Swedbank’s strategies in creating loyalty.Both the niche bank and the commercial bank are aware ofhow their organizations are affected by customer relationshipsand they also have customer loyalty as a starting pointto grow more and to get more market shares.

The constellation of the customer base has implications for the company’s future survivability. Within the business-to-business markets, the customer relationships are characterized by technical and organizational interfaces. Understanding the customer relationships and using customer accounting can provide information about how to prioritize among the customers in order to improve short-term and long-term profitability. The framework by Lind and Strömsten (2006) where different customer accounting techniques are related to a typology over customer relationships is evaluated and further elaborated on in this thesis. The empirical findings both confirm the reasoning behind the framework and cause development potential. The relation of customer accounting techniques to different types of customer relationships is mainly confirmed by the study. Regarding the customer typology, the empirical findings bring forth proposed improvements; a grading of the technical and organizational interfaces of the customer relationship types is suggested.

The aim of this paper is to characterize software solution of CRM system BlueJet, product of the Compekon software company and evaluate its benefits for business companies which are using it. The next aim was to find out problems of these companies which were solved by using the system, conduct cost-benfit analysis in selected company and propose some recomendation for extending the profit of Compekon company.These objectives have been met.

This thesis aims to examine if and how Value Co-Creation works online, and what interactions the customers believe to be of importance to continue a relationship with a company. The problem of the thesis is how to create value in order to establish long-term relationships with customers in an online environment where the element of face to face interactions is absent, and switching costs facing the customers are non-existent. There is little research made about Value Co-Creation in an online setting, further how Co-Creation of Value affects the ability to establish and maintain Customer Relationships. This paper utilized a qualitative research approach and was executed through a case study built up by a thorough analysis of a marketing plan and the value creating activities of Company X, and semi-structured interviews with twelve customers of Company X to investigate how these activities are perceived. The conclusion of the research in this paper is that Company X performs activities that allows Co-Creation of Value. Further, it was concluded that the services provided by Company X contributes with important factors when trying to establish and maintain relationships with their customers.

Determinar cómo se relaciona la fidelización y la gestión de captaciones y colocaciones en Financiera Proempresa. Conocer la situación actual del servicio de pre y post venta y su relación con la rentabilidad de Financiera Proempresa. Analizar de qué forma la fidelización de los clientes permitirá optimizar los resultados de gestión de captaciones y colocaciones de Financiera Proempresa. / Trabajo de investigación

Customers have lately become of increased importance in supplier innovation processesthrough inter-firm relationships. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to study how suppliercustomer relationships affect supplier innovation. By stemming from three main theoreticalconcepts, supplier-customer relationships, trust and commitment, and supplier innovation, a theoretical framework to base the analysis on was formed. The thesis utilized a qualitative casestudy research approach, where data was collected from a conducted pilot study, semistructured interviews, and secondary data sources. A small supplier within the Swedish techindustry was chosen as the unit of observation, where the supplier and two of their customerswere interviewed regarding innovation processes they had partaken in together. The results ofthe study indicate that communication and trust are important enablers of initiating jointinnovation practices. The supplier perceived the most valuable resource to receive fromcustomers in an innovation context to be knowledge about markets and demand. The resultsindicate that such knowledge could be easier for suppliers to obtain if multiple customers areincluded in innovation processes, and future research should therefore focus on comparing thebenefits and risks of single versus multiple customer involvement in supplier innovation.