Date                                    2009-09-07 Program                            MIMA – Master of International Marketing Course Name                    EFO705 Master Thesis Title                                    From Core Values to Customer Satisfaction: Ericsson in Kazakhstan Authors                              Dalila Aitpayeva (Västerås), Dejan Mandic (Göteborg) Supervisor                         Joakim Netz  Problem                            How can a company deploy its core values into customer relations to increase customers’ satisfaction? Purpose                              The purpose of this study is to explore how company’s core values can interact with customer’ expectations and as embedded in the customer relation make impact on the customer satisfaction. Method                              Inductive research was used for data collection and analysis because the study is explorative in nature and therefore based on interviews and document analysis. Interviews were conducted with Ericsson’s managers and their customers in Kazakhstan.  Findings                             Findings resulted from this study indicate that strong direct relationship exist among core values of service providers and expectations of their customers.        Conclusion                         Ericsson’s core values: professionalism, respect, and perseverance are constantly integrated in Ericsson daily business operations. Commitment to its customers, willingness to share knowledge and continuous offering of new technologies are best examples of that integration. Ericsson’s unique and professional service offerings meet and in many cases exceed high customer expectations and ultimately satisfy its customers in Kazakhstan.

Background: Statistics say that Pakistan is the third largest user of compressed natural gas, its increased demand has encouraged investment in this sector. Number of stations has doubled in less than four years, this has increased the ratio of competition and low amounts of profit. Cut throat competition forces retailers to work on quality for customers’ retention and for this retailers are expected to understand the needs and requirements of their customers. This understanding is the only key to customer retention. Research undertaken focus on the key issues faced by CNG stations for customers’ retention. The study will focus on retailer’s strategies for customer retention in a competitive environment. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is study customer retention strategies adopted by compressed natural gas (CNG) retailing stations, in a developing country (Pakistan). Research Question: How do CNG retailing stations satisfy, make loyal, and retain their customers in a competitive environment? Methodology: Deductive approach has been adopted for this research to investigate the behaviour of customers through telephone interviews, as it is a distant research. Convenience sample has been selected for this research and ten semi-structured telephonic interviews have been conducted to get the empirical data from the CNG retailers of Lahore, stations from ten different stations have been selected on the basis of prestige, repute and amount of publicity in print and electronic media. Semi structured interviews will be based on primary and secondary data together. Primary data is in the form of interviews, secondary in the form of reports and published journals. Telephonic interview was based on open-ended questions to judge the views, knowledge and utility of customers experience and close-ended questions that have provided the direct and accurate answers. Telephonic interviews have advantages and disadvantages but for a distant research like this, it is the only best possible methodology to get first-hand knowledge quickly, interview was based on ten questions to get a complete picture of customers’ retention. Operationalization was based on 14 questions question 1 to 6 are about customers’ satisfaction, 7 to 11 customer loyalty and 12 to 14 customer retention. Validity and reliability is the key to success for any research. Same question were asked in different ways to check the reliability of the answers, target oriented questions were asked to validate the objective of the research and to make research credible. Conclusion and Results: The research establishes that most companies do not have specific plans for the customer retention in a cut-throat competitive environment. Customers’ service and technical issues were the targeted areas to understand the customers’ retention. Customers’ retention means profit, low retention means low profits. Result in a nutshell is an increased focus on imperial investigation, which is inevitable to study strategies for customer retention for the survival in the competitive world.

More and more companies are faced with fierce competition; ergo, companies are consistently trying to build a long term relationships with their customer. In addition, a decade ago, relationship marketing gained more and more credibility among the companies and is still a topic of discussion today. Therefore, this study is aimed to describe how service firms can use relationship marketing as a strategy to develop customer satisfaction.   A theoretical framework has been developed derived from a review of the existing literature in order to describe how service firms can use relationship marketing as a strategy to develop customer satisfaction. Five different tactics have been empirically investigated, namely the service quality, brand image, price perception, value offers and communication. A qualitative method has been chosen for this study. Three different companies have been studied within the banking sector and have been led by an inductive and deductive approach which will aim to investigate the aforementioned theoretical framework.   The analysis of the empirical findings exposed and discovered some relevant findings. Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that four main customer relationship tactics have a role on customer satisfaction and trust; namely the service quality, the brand image, the price perception and the human capital. These tactics have been identified as having a crucial role on gaining customer satisfaction.

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As information technology and the popularity of Internet technology and in-depth applications, e-commerce is at unprecedented pace. People become more and more the focus of attention. At present, relatively fast development of e-commerce activities are online sales, online promotions, and online services. Globalization of electronic commerce as the development of enterprises provided many opportunities, but in developing country’s electricity business is still in the initial stage of development, how to improve e-commerce environment of consumer satisfaction, consumer loyalty and thus, related to the electron the performance of business enterprises. Therefore, to the upsurge in e-commerce for more benefits, for many enterprises, there is still need for careful analysis of the business environment electricity consumer behavior, understanding the factors that affect their consumption and thus the basis of network marketing the characteristics of the network setup customer satisfaction evaluation index system, then the theory based on customer satisfaction, on this basis to take corresponding countermeasures, the development of effective and reasonable marketing strategy, E-commerce can improve business performance, and promote the sound development of their self. At present, domestic and international network of scholars on consumer psychology, motivation and behavior have more exposition, however, how in e-commerce environment impact factors of customer satisfaction and how to improve e-commerce customer satisfaction studies are not many see. This article is from the analysis the impact of e-commerce network environment factors in consumer satisfaction.

This study is to discuss the service quality electronic components manufacturers can provide. 120 questionnaires were mainly from three groups: (1)Electronic parts and components manufacturers; (2)Optoelectronic manufacturers; and(3)Semiconductor manufacturers. The goal of this study is to investigate the six supplier¡¦s service quality dimensions (service reliability, credibility, service competence, internal organizational communication, service flexibility and financial trust) on customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions relationship. This study is based on the ¡§SSQSC¡¨ model which has been applied in the Indian manufacturing industry. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: 1.The two dimensions ¡§credibility¡¨ and ¡§internal organizational communication¡¨ have significant effects on customer satisfaction. 2.The two dimensions ¡§service reliability¡¨ and ¡§internal organizational communication¡¨ have significant effects on behavioral intention. The conclusions above are significant to the management in the following aspects. 1.Work experience differences in some dimensions will affect the satisfaction. 2.Company size will affect customer satisfaction. The larger the company size, the higher the customer satisfaction. However, this does not apply on very large size companies. 3.The number of employees will affect customer satisfaction. Companies with more than a certain number of employees can provide better services. However, this does not apply on very large size companies. 4.The top three services that respondents are most satisfied with are: (1) Service competence (2) Internal organizational communication (3) Service reliability. On the other hand, the top three services that respondents are most dissatisfied with are (1) Finance Trust (2) service flexibility (3) credibility. It is proposed that suppliers can further strengthen the credibility dimension, which has the most significant impact on customer satisfaction in the result of this study.

Online music has become an important commercial possibility in the music industry. However, according to the marketing research of Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute on 2009, there¡¦re only 17.6% of those web users willing to pay for online music. Hurley and Estelami (1998) mentioned that the service quality will affect the customer satisfaction. Superior service quality will have a positive effect on customer satisfaction, and proceed to affect the customer¡¦s repurchase intentions and behavior. In this research, we tried to find the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction for online music. The main aspects of online service quality are informativeness, selection, portability, convenience, perceived enjoyment, and Idolization. In this research, we collected data of online music in Taiwan by conducting a survey on the Internet. It¡¦s found that selection, convenience, perceived enjoyment, and Idolization have a positive influence on customer satisfaction based on statistical analysis. Above all, the aspect of convenience is highly relative to customer satisfaction. As a result, the author suggests that online music should add more functions according to the four aspects mentioned above.

Nowadays ERP system is crucial for management to improve internal process or SOP. The critical roles of ERP system are system user and MIS. This research is to discuss the main factors of MIS professional service quality based on IMP structures affecting user¡¦s satisfaction and behavior intention based on electronic manufacturing industry. A total 100 questionaries were filled out by system users and 76 were returned effectively. The data analysis goes to the conclusion as below. 1. The three dimensions ¡§social exchange¡¨¡B ¡§cooperation¡¨ and ¡§system quality¡¨ have significant effects on user satisfaction. 2. The two dimensions ¡§social exchange¡¨ and ¡§system quality¡¨ have significant effects on behavioral intention. The above conclusions are significant to the management as the following aspects. 1. Female user is willing to accept routine and paper work than male user. The satisfaction and behavior intention is also higher than male user. 2. The open and trust attitude between user, MIS and management is crucial to improve ERP system and internal process. 3. System quality and stability is key point for system user.

Looking back the past and prospecting for the future, Taiwan¡¦s catering industry in the next 10 years will be facing stronger competitive threats including the stagnation of population growth, continuing increase of diverse caterings, rising costs and the moderation of the cross-strait relations. Encountering such outer changes, strengthening the core competencies and competitive advantages for satisfying the various customer demands and creating customer¡¦s value will be the only way to ensure the business stand in the position of not defeated. Restaurant industry is a kind of service industry; the service quality and customers¡¦ satisfaction are always the bases for its subsidence. This study aims to investigate effects of customers¡¦ perceived service quality, customers¡¦ satisfaction, and specific acts customers towards the restaurants. The statement provides the understanding of comprehensive perspectives of customers¡¦ sense, perception, service satisfaction and differences of demographic analysis. The quantitative method is adopted to realize the demographic influence on the customers¡¦ perceived service quality and satisfaction via the data collection of questionnaires. The analyzed data has proved that the customers¡¦ satisfaction and perceived service quality develops a positive influence of each other. It means that the better service quality perceived the higher customers¡¦ satisfaction received. ¡§Empathy, assurance and reliability¡¨ are the crucial elements of service quality. The factors for customers on different gender, at different restaurant location, by different number of diners and for different purposes of dinning can apparently impact on the outcome of customers¡¦ satisfactions. The key factors for increasing the catering competiveness rely on the ¡§service quality¡¨ and providing catering workers with trainings and cultivation on the realization of ¡§assurance, reliability and empathy¡¨. From the viewpoint of service quality and customers¡¦ satisfaction, the first-line service personnel usually play an important role for satisfying customers¡¦ needs, and their performance will significantly lead to the overall satisfaction and influence on the restaurant as well as the company.