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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the voice of the customer (VOC) of public transport (PT) users and non-users and to identify the role VOC plays in PT service quality analysis and improvement practices. Design/methodology/approach: This research is based on quantitative and qualitative data collection. Quantitative data were collected through two questionnaires; the first is based on ranking data: 192 responses and the second on the Kano model: 46 responses. The qualitative data was obtained through 10 semi-structured interviews with senior management from seven bus companies in the UK. Findings: Findings indicate that VOC differs between PT users and non-users and compared with the perspectives of PT Providers. The research also revealed that VOC plays a crucial role in PT service quality improvement (QI). Practical implications: The findings can be used by PT service providers to better understand the VOC of PT users and non-users, which will assist in strategic and QI decision-making. Furthermore, an in-depth study of VOC in PT is provided, which progresses the academic field on this topic and advances research in this area. Originality/value: This research brings new insight into the most important quality attributes for PT users and non-users. Moreover, the paper fundamentally contributes to the literature, which until now had severely limited input pertaining to the role of VOC in PT and little knowledge of service QI tools and practices in this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main scope of this study is to investigate the effects of competition and liquidity constraints on the cyclical behaviour of the markup ratio. In particular, 79 2‐digit NACE Rev.2 sectors across the UK manufacturing and services industry over 2008–2017 are taken into account in order to observe markup cyclicality and whether pricing decisions are significantly influenced by the degree of competition and liquidity restrictions. A panel VAR framework is used to take into account the presence of cross‐section dependence and heterogeneity amongst the regressors of the model. The empirical results provide the following significant insights: (a) the markup ratio across the UK sectors follows a countercyclical pattern, (b) concentrated sectors tend to charge countercyclical price–cost margins as they attempt to increase their market share in normal periods and (c) sectors with liquidity constrained firms charge countercyclical markups in order to substitute lack of funding with additional revenue. Complementary findings also suggest that more profitable firms charge procyclical markup ratios, thus validating predatory pricing strategies in more concentrated sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

▀ The UK recovery should be aided by households spending some of their excess savings built up during the pandemic. The potential boost from this source is very uncertain, although we think it may not be as large as some hope. We think around 5% of the savings stockpile could be spent over 2021–2022.▀ The amount of savings that households have accumulated – to a large extent involuntarily – is unprecedented in the post‐war era. Most of this extra cash is held by the better‐off, who are relatively upbeat about their financial prospects.▀ But higher‐earners have a relatively low propensity to spend, and historical episodes where consumption was artificially curtailed saw limited dissaving afterward. In addition, consumer services have borne the brunt of the lockdowns, which will also limit the surge in savings‐fuelled, pent‐up demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/purpose – The purpose of the paper is to improve understanding of the process activities that Poland-based and UK-based prosumers engage in for current and future knowledge sharing with enterprises. It explores the Poland-based and UK-based prosumer differences and similarities in terms of their engagement with enterprise products and service offerings. Design/methodology/approach – The reported outcomes result from a survey that yielded 171 prosumers responses from the United Kingdom and 783 from Poland. The APQC framework is used as a means to establish the product versus service activities that appear to influence prosumers most in their knowledge sharing. Findings – The findings show that Poland-based prosumers currently share knowledge marginally more than their counterparts in the UK. However, Poland based prosumers are more willing, in fact twice as likely, to share knowledge in the future in relation to product offerings including (P3) materials from which products were made, followed closely by (P6) ease and intuitiveness of product use, (P4) designing package or graphic elements of the product and (S4) establishing new channels of sale. Research implications/limitations – In particular, the results reveal that both the Poland- based and UK-based prosumers want to engage with enterprises in sharing knowledge related to the ordering process, handling complaints and customer services. Originality/value/contribution – This finding is relevant to any enterprises that may like to engage prosumers in providing feedback about their specific product and service offerings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturers moving into services must design a service delivery system that can effectively and efficiently support their product‐service offerings. Commonly, such manufacturers outsource customer service and support to independent service suppliers, while maintaining the ownership and control of certain service units. Despite the increasing number of studies in service triads investigating ways that may improve service performance and customer satisfaction, the dynamics of mixed‐ownership service delivery systems have remained understudied. By deploying the Motivation–Opportunity–Ability (MOA) framework, and synthesizing insights from research in franchising and the literature on training effectiveness, we hypothesize that manufacturer‐led formal training increases the service performance of the entire network, but that outsourced service units choose more suitable training courses and derive comparatively higher performance benefits than company‐owned ones. We test (and find support for) our hypotheses within the UK service network of a major commercial vehicles manufacturer, using several panel data regression models and objective measures of training and performance. This study primarily contributes to the literature on servitization and service triads by showing the performance‐enhancing capacity of manufacturer‐led training. The results have practical implications for the development and implementation of the service operations strategy of servitized manufacturers that support customers through mixed‐ownership service networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a model of a business customer's decision to upgrade service contracts conditional on the decision to renew the contract. It proposes that the firm's upgrade decision is influenced by (1) decision-maker perceptions of the relationship with the supplier, (2) contract-level experiences, and (3) interactions between firm- and contract-level variables. The authors model the firm's decision as a binary logit model with random parameters for the contract-level variables and fixed parameters for the firm-level variables. They estimate the model with data describing more than 2000 service contracts and find that decision-maker satisfaction, service quality, and price have a significant effect on the decision to upgrade; price and satisfaction also moderate the effect of service quality on the decision. Simulations indicate that modest improvements in service quality for a focal contract can have a relatively large, positive effect on the likelihood that the firm will upgrade. The results suggest that suppliers need to manage their firm relationships at both the individual contract level and the overall firm level. In addition, the results suggest specific windows of opportunity for suppliers when firms may be more likely to upgrade to higher-level service contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Elektronik Industrie is the property of Hüthig GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examined a major contention of stakeholder theory: namely, that a firm can simultaneously enhance the interests of its shareholders and other relevant stakeholders. Financial data relating to the U.K. water supply industry and the customer service performance indicators introduced after privatization in 1989 to protect customer interests provided the basis of the authors' empirical analysis. The results show that, although improving relative customer service performance is costly for firms in terms of current profits, shareholder returns respond in a significantly positive manner to such improvements. The authors interpret this finding as being consistent with stakeholder theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a number of recent information technology (IT) outages affecting the provision of key services to customers, UK regulators have become worried about the 'resilience' of banks' IT systems environments. Over time, banks develop, purchase and maintain, sometimes, many hundreds of 'sub-systems', which, when combined, provide the full range of services to their customers. Any disruption of the most important (or 'core') systems will invariably cause serious inconvenience to customers and often require remediation actions to resolve customers' losses. Because of their sheer size and the complexity of the many internal and external interactions, however, replacing core systems takes many years and is very risky. Because of the enormous risks involved, any decision to undertake a major core systems replacement (CSR) programme must be taken by the board of a firm as part of the firm's overall technology strategy. This paper discusses the problems of CSR through drawing lessons from three case studies that illustrate the complex risks that can be encountered by boards making such strategic decisions. The paper finally proposes a framework for managing the risks of a CSR programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post Office is a customer service facility forming part of a national portal system. Prior to the advent of Postal and Zip Codes, postal system would route items to specific post office for receipt of delivery. The evolution and genesis of postal system is a very significant and important subject matter of study which dates back to 2400 B.C. The most powerful countries of the world like the United States of America, the Egypt and the United Kingdom were the pioneer in this line. In India too, the genesis of the postal system is a very important and interesting subject matter of study. During the process of development, the Postal system has evolved greatly affected by factors known and unknown. Here in this present study, an effort has been made to visualize the different factors which are responsible for evolution of the postal system around the globe and of course in India both pre and post independence. It is worth mentioning that the Postal system has evolved along with development of modern digital system. The whole postal system has ramified with the latest development of postal banking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a research project into the determinants of consumer evaluation of services. The research uses the healthcare context to explore consumer perceptions of the service product dimensions. Using a critical incident technique, a consumer-derived model of the relationships between core and peripheral aspects of the service is presented. The results indicate that evaluation is a function of both personal and organizational factors which comprise core and peripheral components of the service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK financial services industry has experienced a number of sharp discontinuities in its marketing environment in recent years. These have ranged from changing demand patterns to wholesale deregulation and market liberalization. International competition and new entrants exploiting technological innovations have also added to the turbulence in what has been a traditionally parochial and stable sector. Under these conditions, it is to be expected that companies would develop a much sharper customer focus and, if they are to survive and prosper, that they would adopt the core principles of the marketing concept. In this paper, the findings of research which tests this assumption amongst merchant banks, retail banks, insurance companies and building societies are presented. Conclusions are drawn which indicate that there is a growing awareness of the need for a marketing orientation and that some sectors appear to be more customer-orientated than others at this point in time. Despite this, there is also evidence that in some sectors marketing myopia may be masquerading as marketing orientation and that much work needs to be done to more fully realize the ideals of the marketing concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, empirical research findings are presented from an investigation of consumer expectations and perceptions of service quality. Customers of banks, in the UK and US, indicated the importance of a range of elements of service quality and their perceptions of the service actually received. A number of similarities and differences between UK and US respondents are highlighted together with evidence of the success to date of the banks in their delivery of service quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the rapport management (Spencer-Oatey 2005) that collections agents at a UK-based utilities company call centre are expected to perform during debt collection telephone interactions. It examines the rapport-relevant information communicated in the textual materials, including training manuals, through which a prescribed debt collection style is implemented. The analysis reveals that there are tensions in the rapport-concerns that collectors must attend to when using the style. Collectors are instructed to perform potentially face-threatening behaviours in order to collect debt, whilst simultaneously engaging in linguistic behaviour that may be interpreted as face-enhancing and which functions to develop rapport with the debtor. It is suggested that the local deployment of this contradictory "helping you to pay us" philosophy is problematic on multiple levels and may give rise to relational tensions between collectors and debtors who have conflicting expectations about rapport management entitlements. In turn, this may contribute to a culture of sanctioned face-attacks in call centres (Archer and Jagodziński 2015). Therefore, I suggest that call centres may need to loosen the synecdochical hold they have over their employees, thereby affording them the flexibility and volition to cope with the complex face demands, unpredictability and potential volatility of debt collection encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants and consequences of online customer satisfaction by considering the entire online shopping experience, based on data collected from our survey of UK consumers in 2016. We found evidence that post online purchase experiences including experiences with order fulfilment, ease of return and responsiveness of customer service are the most significant contributors to online customer satisfaction. Security assurance, customisation, ease of use, product information and ease of check-out, all have significant impact but at much lower levels. The effect of website appearance on customer satisfaction is not significant. Our findings show that online customer satisfaction leads to repurchase intention, and a likelihood of making positive recommendations to others, but not willingness to pay more. We also found the effects of product information, customisation, order fulfilment and responsiveness of customer service on customer satisfaction are stronger for experience products than search products, while there is no significant difference in the effects of other determinants for search products and experience products. Several theoretical and managerial implications are provided, based on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines service nepotism, the practice of bestowing gifts or benefits on customers by frontline service staff based on a perceived shared socio-collective identity. Adopting a micro-sociological approach, it explores the practice as played out in multi-cultural transient service encounters. Given the dearth of existing research and low visibility of service nepotism operating 'under the radar', the article assumes an exploratory qualitative research approach to capture it through 'microstoria': the sharing of stories by marginal actors, as recounted by West African migrants working in the UK. These stories reveal similarity-to-self cueing, non-verbal communication and the availability of discretionary authority as three salient logics in play. In a highly differentiated multi-ethnic society, service nepotism challenges a very specific customer-oriented bureaucratic ethos that demands impartiality. It also provides contexts for relatively powerless employees to rebalance their relationship with their organizations, thereby addressing a more pressing dysfunction within the market and society more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the relationship between institutional pressures and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been well studied, its underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions are not well understood. To remedy these gaps, we draw on institutional theory and the literature on organisational sensemaking, stakeholder salience and the resource-based view of the firm. We test our conceptual model using survey data from 442 managers of hospitality and tourism enterprises based in Egypt and the United Kingdom. SEM-based results show that both stakeholder issue salience and discretionary slack mediate the link between institutional pressures and external CSR. National culture moderates the effects of institutional pressures on both stakeholder issue salience and external CSR. Multi-group analyses reveal noticeable differences between Egyptian and British managers regarding their interpretations of CSR issues and the institutional environment. This study contributes to the emerging micro-institutional stream and cross-cultural CSR research, providing important insights for managers, policymakers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the customer-orientated bureaucracy (COB) construct, this qualitative study investigates changes to the Human Resource (HR) function’s status in eight Scottish voluntary organisations delivering public services at a time of contradictory government calls for greater customer service (personalisation) and cost control (austerity). HR attempts to build and sustain social orders that encourage worker commitment to customer service, leading to business facing and ‘business partner’ strategic roles in areas of recruitment and skills. The study, however, challenges the ability of unitarist ‘business partner’ HR roles to resolve emerging organisational tensions concerning industrial relations, worker concerns over their own security, lack of opportunities to up-skill and service quality. It further questions whether the HR function can be strategic in this and other COB contexts as it can be powerless to resolve workplace tensions because its own status is undermined by budget cuts by government and it faces challenges to its expertise from internal and external actors such as consultants and customers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using an extended SERVQUAL model, this study identifies and compares the importance of service quality to Muslim consumers with an Islamic or non-Islamic bank account in a non-Muslim country, Britain. Eight group discussions and a survey of 300 Muslims were conducted. Five dimensions of service quality were identified, i.e. responsiveness, credibility, Islamic tangibles, accessibility and reputation. These differ in structure and content from the original SERVQUAL developed in a western context and the subsequent CARTER model constructed in a Muslim country. In addition, significant differences were found in the importance of items between Islamic bank account and non-Islamic bank account holders. This study is one of the first to identify and compare the importance of service quality between Islamic and non-Islamic bank account holders in a western non-Muslim country. The results advance our understanding of the impact of culture on SERVQUAL. The study provides insight into Muslims' bank choice and helps bank managers of both Islamic and non-Islamic banks to focus their attention on the service quality dimensions that matter most to Muslim customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Business & Projects / Revista de Gestão e Projetos is the property of Revista de Gestao e Projetos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and tests a service excellence model, thus providing a detailed understanding of the key antecedents of service excellence, from a customer ' s perspective. The model presented in this paper is rooted in cross-disciplinary literature and tested amongst customers of UK retail banking services. Design/methodology/approach – Following a systematic approach to scale development, the paper draws on survey data from 260 consumers of retail banking products, with the data collected on national basis in the UK. Findings – The theoretical framework was evaluated using a structural approach. Of the hypothesised antecedents, innovation has the greatest impact on service excellence while reputation the least, as far as customers are concerned. Research limitations/implications – The research was limited to one research domain, i.e. UK retail banking, and thus it is reasonable to hypothesise that other aspects of service excellence will be more or less relevant for other types of financial services or in other geographic regions. Practical implications – Given the challenges faced by the retail banking sector, there are implications for practitioners because the authors identified the key antecedents of service excellence. The antecedents can be used by practitioners to help demonstrate excellence on their part and they could differentiate what are homogenous services at a time when the retail banks are going through a period of recovery following the crisis within the sector. Originality/value – This work complements the understanding of service excellence and provides insight for scholars and practitioners by modelling services for a specific service sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the role of retail service encounters in the contemporary British retail industry and compares the perspective of customers and retail staff about the role of service within this context. Topics discussed include link between service quality, service encounter and service experience; role of goods and process quality and imagery in evaluating the retail organisation performance; and perceptions of Customer Value.

The article focuses on the reshoring of several companies to Great Britain along with the information on Hotel Chocolat, a British chocolatier, and views of Eben Upton, chief executive officer of Raspberry Pi (Trading), on the opportunities in China. It reveals that improvement in quality of products and components, faster customer service, speed of delivery and the desire to minimise logistics costs are the main reasons behind companies returning to home country. INSETS: HOTEL CHOCOLAT;RASPBERRY PI;CALDEIRA.

This article adds to the literature on worker attitudes towards unions by investigating the impact of cultural attitudes and the call centre labour process on union attitudes among call centre workers in Britain and India. It is hypothesised that workers with egalitarian and collectivist cultural attitudes will be more likely to have pro-union attitudes than other workers, although if the impact of cultural attitudes is mediated by history and institutions, it might be expected that this relationship is stronger for British than Indian workers. Conversely, if union attitudes are largely a function of the call centre labour process, we would expect union attitudes to be similar among workers in both countries. Our results only partially support our hypotheses. Collectivist attitudes are only weakly related to union attitudes among the British sample but are more strongly related in the Indian sample. There are significant differences between union attitudes among our British and Indian samples. The article concludes that relationship between cultural attitudes and union attitudes are heavily dependent on institutional context. Cultural attitudes are unlikely to be either a constraint or a facilitator of union efforts to organise workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on service operations and Lean management in considering the relationship between internal service processes and customer service in public sector organisations. It draws on extensive evidence from two case studies of large UK Government departments to illustrate that whilst public service organisations recognise that methodologies such as Lean improves their internal processes to date they have not linked this to value or customer service. This article presents a model which shows that public service organisations are driven towards internal operations improvement due to the efficiency agenda leading to a process focus, rather than a market driven approach focusing on the customer. This article argues that although this starting point is not necessarily bad in order to sustain improvement after initial gains there is a need to focus on both process and customer. This article therefore contributes and extends the discussion on the adaptation of Lean for a public sector context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]