Monitoring Customer Satisfaction Research Articles

The effectiveness of investments in relationship marketing strategies: The case of Yiulian Dockyards (Shekou) Limited

The purpose of this paper is to put forward a conceptual framework for understanding factors shaping the nature of the relationship marketing using the case study. Through this research, I can suggest it. Companies may monitor customer satisfaction by using questionnaires, general comments, customer complaints, online surveys, suggestion boxes, and personal interviews. The main purpose is to keep up to date with the needs of customers in order to retain them by creating the relationship it wants with the customers. Relationship Marketing is quite expensive, especially, in the initial period. Therefore, effective relationship marketing requires marketers to adopt affordable and practical and profitable approaches that give room to low costs without compromising quality of the product.

Reading the public mind: a novel approach to improving the adoption of new science and technology

This paper describes a new approach to measuring and monitoring the quality of dialogue between research groups and the wider community about specific scientific matters. It is an adaptation of a proven marketing process for monitoring customer satisfaction: key drivers of community perception are elicited and measured, so that managers can respond to the issues that are most important to the community, rather than relying on their own perceptions. One important benefit of the approach is that the method provides a means of linking an overall score for the community’s perceived value of a research project to an important business driver such as ‘percentage of people very willing to support deployment of the research results’. The method is illustrated by a case study exploring the views of the Australian public about research into genetic manipulation for pest mouse control. For the population surveyed (the community in New South Wales, Australia), some 40% were very willing to support the use of genetic manipulation to manage pest mice. If an increase of 1.5 in the score for the perceived value of a research project (measured on a scale from 1 to 10) were achieved, the prediction is that overall community support for eventual deployment would rise to about 80%. The approach would appear to have a useful role to play in assisting eventual technology adoption.

Hospital Nursing Satisfaction With Clinical Laboratory Services: A College of American Pathologists Q-Probes Study of 162 Institutions

Monitoring customer satisfaction is an important and useful quality improvement tool and is required of most clinical laboratories in the United States. To survey the level of nursing satisfaction with hospital clinical laboratory services. Participating laboratories provided information regarding laboratory demographics and practices. These laboratories then surveyed hospital nursing personnel regarding their level of satisfaction with defined aspects of laboratory service. College of American Pathologists Q-Probes laboratory quality improvement study in 162 hospital laboratories. Nursing overall satisfaction score (ranging from 1, not satisfied, to 5, very satisfied) and satisfaction scores for 13 specific aspects of clinical laboratory services. One hundred sixty-two institutions submitted data from a total of 7033 nursing surveys. The overall satisfaction score for all institutions ranged from 2.5 to 4.6. The median overall score for all participants was 3.9 (10th percentile, 3.2; 90th percentile, 4.2). Nursing personnel were most satisfied with the accuracy of test results, phlebotomy courtesy toward patients and nursing staff, and notification of abnormal results. They were least satisfied with stat test turnaround time, laboratory management responsiveness and accessibility, phlebotomy responsiveness to service requests, and routine test turnaround time. The most important aspect of laboratory service reported by nursing personnel was stat test turnaround time. Most nursing personnel are satisfied with the clinical laboratory services that are provided to the patients in their care. Although test result accuracy is very highly regarded, there is room for improvement in several aspects of service, particularly in test turnaround time and laboratory management accessibility and responsiveness.

The pan-European customer satisfaction index programme—current work and the way ahead

Any organization has to listen to its external customers and clients. In a number of studies it has been shown that the long-term success of a corporation is closely related to its possibility to adapting to customer needs and changing preferences. Satisfying customers should thus be a goal in its own right for all future-oriented organizations. In order to monitor customer satisfaction and to take action to improve it, a number of different methods have been devised and implemented in practice. However, for the purpose of real usefulness, a number of criteria have to be fulfilled on any such measurement system, not least if the ambition is to compare and benchmark. This is the spirit in which the Pan-European intiative to develop, launch and implement a system for comparable aggregate (national) Performance Satisfaction Index studies (the EPSI Rating) has evolved. In the paper the EPSI Rating model for comparable Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) is presented and the fulfilment of the quality criteria are elaborated, based on three years of national studies. In this context, possibilities and limitations for systematic comparisons are highlighted using a combined time-series and cross-section approach. It is also illustrated how the EPSI Rating results may be combined with company specific measures using a similar framework in order to arrive at proposals for strategic and operational improvements. Furthermore, lessons learned so far are discussed and an agenda for future development is presented.

The effect of service performance and ski resort image on skiers' satisfaction

Most ski resort managers make use of techniques to monitor customer satisfac-tion with their services. This aspect is a major concern for management. This paper defines ski resort services as those that offer the consumer the opportunity to take part in ski (e.g., quality of the snow, ski lifts velocity) and non-ski activities. This study examined how ski resort image, and ski and non-ski service attributes affect customer satisfaction. Skiers (N = 1448) responded to a questionnaire in order to measure the above variables. Using structural equa-tion modelling, these relationships were examined. We hypothesized that ski resort image influence consumer satisfaction more than functional attributes. Several models were tested. The final model's goodness-of-fit summary re-vealed an adequate fit of the model to the data (Satorra-Bonnet Chi-square = 1377.65 [577 df], CFI = .95, GFI = .94, RMSEA = .03). The results indicate that ski resort image, and ski and non-ski attributes are predictive of consumer satisfaction. A well positioned ski resort image will increase consumer satisfac-tion more than a high assessment on ski attributes. These results correspond with the experiential model and contradict the rational consumer satisfaction model. Consequently quality management needs to focus both on image and functional attributes.

Customer satisfaction: Keeping tabs on the issues that matter

Though customer satisfaction is in the eye of the beholder, common ways of monitoring customer satisfaction do not allow for customers to 'speak their own mind'. More often than not, a predefined set of aspects is measured, thereby-even if inadvertently-shaping the context within which the customers express themselves. The authors propose a rather unconventional way of monitoring customer satisfaction based upon promoting the expressing of customer perceptions from the frame of reference of the customers themselves, not (only) from the frame of reference of the investigator. By employing open-ended questions and structuring the resulting textual data, the aspects of customer satisfaction relevant to the customers surface. Further assessment is then directed towards these aspects. Open-ended questions are to be repeatedly employed to ensure that the monitoring of customer satisfaction keeps up with the changing aspects deemed relevant by the customers. The authors illustrate their approach by discussing the results of a study on the service quality of personal banking in South Africa.

A Framework for Monitoring Customer Satisfaction:: An Empirical Illustration

This article presents an empirical illustration of a framework for monitoring customer satisfaction over time. Three years of data from a customer satisfaction program of a large Fortune 500 firm is used to illustrate the framework and the associated methodologies. The framework provides management with important insights into monitoring and improving customer satisfaction. Any firm desiring to develop a program for systematically monitoring customer satisfaction easily can adapt the framework.

Barclays Life customer satisfaction and loyalty tracking survey: a demonstration of customer loyalty research in practice

Outlines the development by Barclays Life of a tracking survey to collect information concerning customers’ feelings of satisfaction and loyalty. Describes research undertaken by Barclays Life into the determinants of satisfaction amongst customers and the importance of each of these elements in determining loyalty. Initial qualitative research was undertaken to allow the company to develop a frame of reference concerning the elements of service which customers considered important. These initial findings were used in later quantitative studies to establish the relative importance of the different elements, with a view to understanding what was determining customer loyalty. The research culminated in the development of a tracking survey instrument, now used by the company to monitor customer satisfaction and loyalty levels across time and customer groups. Discusses both the findings of the research undertaken, and the importance of such research for firms. Outlines the use to which the information gathered by the surveys is put, together with initiatives which have resulted from the research.

A National Customer Satisfaction Barometer: The Swedish Experience

Many individual companies and some industries monitor customer satisfaction on a continual basis, but Sweden is the first country to do so on a national level. The annual Customer Satisfaction Baro...

A National Customer Satisfaction Barometer: The Swedish Experience

Many individual companies and some industries monitor customer satisfaction on a continual basis, but Sweden is the first country to do so on a national level. The annual Customer Satisfaction Barometer (CSB) measures customer satisfaction in more than 30 industries and for more than 100 corporations. The new index is intended to be complementary to productivity measures. Whereas productivity basically reflects quantity of output, CSB measures quality of output (as experienced by the buyer). The author reports the results of a large-scale Swedish effort to measure quality of the total consumption process as customer satisfaction. The significance of customer satisfaction and its place within the overall strategy of the firm are discussed. An implication from examining the relationship between market share and customer satisfaction by a location model is that satisfaction should be lower in industries where supply is homogeneous and demand heterogeneous. Satisfaction should be higher when the heterogeneity/homogeneity of demand is matched by the supply. Empirical support is found for that proposition in monopolies as well as in competitive market structures. Likewise, industries in general are found to have a high level of customer satisfaction if they are highly dependent on satisfaction for repeat business. The opposite is found for industries in which companies have more captive markets. For Sweden, the 1991 results show a slight increase in CSB, which should have a positive effect on the general economic climate.