An empirical assessment of customer satisfaction and quality of servisse: Comparing Servqual and Servperf

This paper assesses the validity and reliability of two instruments measuring quality of service, the SERVPERF and SERVQUAL scales, replicated in a novel cultural settings, a Portuguese energy company. To provide insights and strategies for managerial intervention, a relation between customers’ satisfaction and quality of service is established. The empirical study suggests a superior convergent and predictive validity of SERVPERF scale to measure quality of service in this settings when comparing to SERVQUAL. The main differences of this study with previous ones, are that this one resorts on a confirmatory factor analysis, the validation of the instruments is performed by using the same measures suggested by their creators and extends the line of research to a novel cultural settings, a Portuguese energy company. Concerning the relationship between service quality and customers’ satisfaction, all of the quality of service attributes correlate almost equally to the satisfaction ones, with a lower weight concerning tangibles.

An empirical assessment of customer satisfaction and quality of service: comparing SERVQUAL and SERVPERF

This paper assesses the validity and reliability of two instruments measuring quality of service, the SERVPERF and SERVQUAL scales, replicated in a novel cultural settings, a Portuguese energy company. To provide insights and strategies for managerial intervention, a relation between customers’ satisfaction and quality of service is established. The empirical study suggests a superior convergent and predictive validity of SERVPERF scale to measure quality of service in this settings when comparing to SERVQUAL. The main differences of this study with previous ones, are that this one resorts on a confirmatory factor analysis, the validation of the instruments is performed by using the same measures suggested by their creators and extends the line of research to a novel cultural settings, a Portuguese energy company. Concerning the relationship between service quality and customers’ satisfaction, all of the quality of service attributes correlate almost equally to the satisfaction ones, with a lower weight concerning tangibles.

The role of discriminant analysis in the refinement of customer satisfaction assessment

OBJECTIVE: To test discriminant analysis as a method of turning the information of a routine customer satisfaction survey (CSS) into a more accurate decision-making tool. METHODS: A 7-question, 10-multiple choice, self-applied questionnaire was used to study a sample of patients seen in two outpatient care units in Valparaíso, Chile, one of primary care (n=100) and the other of secondary care (n=249). Two cutting points were considered in the dependent variable (final satisfaction score): satisfied versus unsatisfied, and very satisfied versus all others. Results were compared with empirical measures (proportion of satisfied individuals, proportion of unsatisfied individuals and size of the median). RESULTS: The response rate was very high, over 97.0% in both units. A new variable, medical attention, was revealed, as explaining satisfaction at the primary care unit. The proportion of the total variability explained by the model was very high (over 99.4%) in both units, when comparing satisfied with unsatisfied customers. In the analysis of very satisfied versus all other customers, significant relationship was identified only in the case of the primary care unit, which explained a small proportion of the variability (41.9%). CONCLUSIONS: Discriminant analysis identified relationships not revealed by the previous analysis. It provided information about the proportion of the variability explained by the model. It identified non-significant relationships suggested by empirical analysis (e.g. the case of the relation very satisfied versus others in the secondary care unit). It measured the contribution of each independent variable to the explanation of the variation of the dependent one.

Concept of Customer Relationship Management as an example of innovation in banking sector

Banks that has introduced CRM system, had to make some difficult changes in their organization in order to become more customer oriented. Beside the pure CRM banks try to adopt other innovative tools related with the core CRM. Some of these solutions are constructed in such a way so that ensured could be also access to the information beside to bank’s organization.

A matter of time: Phases of customer co-creation community participation and their impact on customer behavior

Despite the growing relevance of co-creating customer communities only little scientific evidence is available on their impact on transactional behavior of participants. Previous research has mostly used self-reported data or distinguished only between during and pre-community phases obtaining mixed results. However, the author proposes that co-creating community activity takes place in five distinguishable phases and changes in transactional behavior are limited to certain phases. Using 33 months of transactional data of a Dutch online auction provider a study was conducted covering all five phases of the community co-creation process from community planning over community set-up, co-development and co-testing to post-launch. The overall results indicate mixed effects of community participation on the different transactional variables during the co-creation process. Community participation had positive effects on auctions listing behavior at the community set-up, co-development and post-launch phases, whereby the number of auctions listed peaked during the community set-up phase. These results suggest that the impact on transactional behavior differs between co-creation phases and different psychological mechanism limited to certain phases might trigger the respective changes.

Online consumer behavior: The tablet shopper – A new kind of customer?

Tablet computers are on the rise and are increasingly superseding stationary computers in terms of modern online shopping. This paper therefore aims on understanding how tablet and website characteristics might impact online consumer behavior. The collected data resulted from focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted with a technology affine audience. It has shown that tablets indeed may have shifted shopping behavior from utilitarian towards rather recreational attributes. Discussions also revealed high customer expectations towards visited shopping websites and prevailing deficits. Thus, harnessing the concept of experiential flow is crucial. Compelling experiences are required to increase the duration of stay and consequently the likelihood of increased purchases.

Competências digitais e desenvolvimento profissional de professores em rede: The Voice of the European Teachers

Publicado em "Anais eletrônicos. ISSN 1984-1175"

An investigation of customer order flow in the foreign exchange market

This paper examines the effect that heterogeneous customer orders flows have on exchange rates by using a new, and the largest, proprietary dataset of weekly net order flow segmented by customer type across nine of the most liquid currency pairs. We make several contributions. Firstly, we investigate the extent to which customer order flow can help to explain exchange rate movements over and above the influence of macroeconomic variables. Secondly, we address the issue of whether order flows contain (private) information which explain exchange rates changes. Thirdly, we look at the usefulness of order flow in forecasting exchange rate movements at longer horizons than those generally considered in the microstructure literature. Finally we address the question of whether the out-of-sample exchange rate forecasts generated by order flows can be employed profitably in the foreign exchange markets

Dementia 2013: The hidden voice of loneliness

Dementia 2013: The hidden voice of loneliness is Alzheimer's Society's annual report examining the quality of life for people with dementia.The report found that over half of the general public (54 per cent) believe that people with dementia have a bad quality of life. This was echoed in the feedback from people with dementia with 70 per cent saying they had stopped doing things they used to due because of lack of confidence. The majority of people with dementia also felt anxious or depressed (63 per cent) and a third of people (35 per cent) said they’d lost friends after a diagnosis.��Other key statistics in Dementia 2013 include:38 per cent of all people with dementia said they felt lonelyPeople with dementia said they relied on relatives and friends for social contact and yet almost a quarter (21 per cent) speak to friends or family on the telephone less than once a month. ��Only 23 per cent of the general public thought it was possible for a person with dementia to live alone ��16 per cent answered that they would not be comfortable talking to someone with dementia, 19 per cent were unsure.The findings from Dementia 2013 are based on a survey of 510 people with dementia or carers on their behalf and a YouGov poll of 2,287 UK adults.Download the full report here.������

Assessment of Customer Needs in Fine Coal Dewatering

Työn tavoitteena on kartoittaa ja arvioida asiakastarpeita hienojakoisen hiilen ja nesteen erotuksessa. Aluksi työssä kuvataan hiiliteollisuutta, jonka jälkeen syvennytäänhiilen ja nesteen erotukseen. Tämän jälkeen keskitytään asiakastarpeiden kartoittamiseen. Jo olemassaolevan tiedon keräämiseen käytetään haastatteluja ja kysymyslomakkeita. Saatyn AHP-mallia hyödynnetään asiakastarpeiden arvioinnissa. Yksi suurimmista haasteista puhtaan hiiliteknologian käytössä on kustannustehokas nesteen ja hienojakoisen hiilen erotus, joka on tärkeää rahtauskustannusten minimoinnin, laatuvaatimusten täyttämisen ja prosessiveden kierrättämisen kannalta. Tekniset ominaisuudet ja kustannukset ovat tärkeimmät ominaisuudet hiilen ja veden suodatinratkaisussa asiantuntijoiden mukaan. Asiakkaan mukaan laatu, tekniset ominaisuudet ja tukipalvelut ovat tärkeitä.Sekä asiakkaan että asiantuntijoiden mielestä korkea yksikkökapasiteetti, matala lopputuotteen kosteus ja luotettavuus ovat tärkeimmät tekniset ominaisuudet. Investointikustannukset ovat noin kolme kertaa tärkeämpiä kuin käyttökustannukset. Asiakkaan mukaan laitetoimittajan ominaisuudet ovat tärkeämpiä kuin teknologiset ominaisuudet.

Intraorganizational Benefits of Customer Orientation in International Businesses - Empirical Evidence fromFinnish Service Exporters

This research concentrates to find out whether service employees' customer orientation has positive consequences relating to job attitudes in international context. A literature review is conducted in order to define the essential concepts and to see what kind of results researchers have found between customer orientation and job attitudes. The job attitudes researched in this research arejob satisfaction, role ambiguity, role conflict and commitment. This research differs from the previous customer orientation and job attitudes researchers with its international context. International services are thus discussed. Upon the previous literature and findings, four hypotheses are formed. They are tested with data from Finnish service exporters. Three hypotheses are supported, indicating that customer orientation has positiveeffect on job attitudes also in international context. Upon this research and literature review, future research recommendations are presented as well as managerial implications.