What academic research tell us about service Essay Example

What academic research tell us about service Essay Example What academic research tell us about service Essay What academic research tell us about service Essay IT not only lowers the cost of service, it creates avenues o enhance revenue through service. Gone are the days of standardization, mass production, and mass marketing. Academic research has revealed that the service sector is now dominant in every developed economy. The goods sector is shrinking as a proportion of the overall economy; and as goods increasingly become commodities, service is becoming the key differentiator even in the goods sector. Thus, to compete effectively, all companies must become service companies. For over a century, technological development has driven an economic shift from a focus on goods to a focus on service. The rise of service in the economy has been reflected by an explosion of academic research on service. This research has tended to emphasize different themes over time (see Table 1 for a summary). In the sass the emphasis was on the differences between goods and services, recognizing that services had characteristics that made for new aspects to consider. Research then the sass resulted in service research of a different flavor?emphasizing service quality measurement, customer satisfaction measurement, and complaint management systems. This evolved in the sass into models for making service financially accountable. At the same time, the advances in IT in the sass resulted in academic research paying increased attention to direct contact with individual customers, storing and analyzing individual customer data, and then using that information to serve individual customers better. Since 2000, academic research has moved to using customer relationships as a foundation for a new approach to strategy, based on customer equity (the discounted cash flows expected from the current and future customer base). This requires managing the customer lifetime values of individual customers, a topic that has received considerable research attention in cent years. The explosion of service research has been facilitated by the introduction of several influential academic centers for service research. Notable centers currently include the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland, the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University (see the article by Bitter and Brown in this section), the Service Research Center at the University of Carlsbad (Sweden), the Masochist Academic Center for Research in Services (Netherlands), and the Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management at the Swedish School of Economics (Finland). The progress of the service research field has been accelerated by international con- preferences?most notably the annual AMA Frontiers in Service Conference (which this year features speakers from 29 different countries) and the biennial Quality in Service (QUIZ) conference. The most prominent academic Journal in the service research field is the Journal of Service Research. More than many academic fields in business, service research is often influential in leading business thought and changing business practice. The breakthroughs in service research have typically resulted from considering the advances in technology, ND carefully studying their implications. Technological development has created many new services?especially information services?and has also made it possible to make physical goods more service intensive. Aside from individual products, technology has also made it much easier to track customer relationships over time, and to therefore link goods and services to serve the customer effectively over an extended period of time. With these trends, service research clearly implies that every business must become a service business, or it will fail to be competitive against competition that does. Successful businesses like MM, GE, and Struck all embrace The economic shift toward service has been ongoing as new products and technologies become available and others become cheaper to produce and transport. However, the information revolution has provided a particularly strong force. IT has advanced service, as previous technological contributions have aided mass production. Assembly line mass production lowered the cost of producing goods. IT likewise decreases the cost of providing and improving service. Thus, we witness the rise of mass service, driven by improved coordination and a greater availability of information. Whereas mass production focused on the product, the new philosophy is customer-centric. Since interacting with customers is now less expensive, it is easier to tailor communications to provide distinct information and service to distinct customers. Using IT, businesses have expensive to satisfy an existing customer than to invest improved communications both internally and with in advertising to attract new customers. Therefore, the customers. Different departments within the same road to profitability is to work hard to keep current accompany can easily share information electronically, tamers. Employee policies have an important impact on Susann businesses and customers can now contact each other via email. Firms now have the ability to collect tome satisfaction [70]. Businesses need to give the corona analyze information on customers entire purr- erect incentives to their service personnel to place emphasis on long-term profitability as well as immediacies and contact histories. Ate sales. By designing compensation schemes decreased the cost of culls sass Service is different from goods that reward employees atomization, marketing to Measuring customer service and service quality SASS not only for immediate smaller segments has become Complaint management sales, but also for service economically feasible. As Making service improvements financially accountable SASS laity, companies can technology continues to Direct marketing and CRM improve customer staircases the cost of consummating customer lifetime value and customer equity sass Profitable long-term relationships with customers faction and long-term atomization, the logical end is Basing corporate strategy on service profitability. One-to-one marketing, with Customer delight has businesses targeting each succubus suggested as an tome separately and providing individually customized Table 1 . Academic research in alternative focus to smartening. Over time, firms can build relationships service over time. Emmer satisfaction. Switch customers by inferring their needs and providing tome delight, a more extreme form of satisfaction, service to meet those needs. Information also gives the consumer power. Rust table 1 (7/06)level of surprise, and may not be possible Con- requires some summer can receive information about a broader range in contexts where there is little room for the customers of businesses, as well as perform their own searches to expectations to be exceeded [72]. Even when customer find the product that best suits their needs. Cones- delight is possible, however, it may not always be innocently, businesses are faced with greater competition sequential for future patronage, if customers suspect the and greater need to differentiate. Firms must provide level of service will not be duplicated in the future. The best value for better- informed consumers or fail to When feasible, however, the strategy of customer delight can lead to exceptional results. Attract them. Wrought improved service a more attractive strategy for success in the marketplace. SERVING THE CUSTOMER As technology has given consumers access to more information and choices, service has become increasingly important. Customer satisfaction is paramount, because customer perception is reality when it comes to buying decisions. In this viewpoint there is no such thing as actual quality except as perceived by the customer, and thus serving the customer better depends upon understandi ng how to increase quality perceptions and customer satisfaction. Expectations play a significant role in customer satisfaction. Customer behavior is affected by satisfaction relative to expectations [71 , 114]. Research indicates that when a customer perceives service quality to be below the desired level, increasing customer satisfaction Wrought improved service has a large positive effect on DESIGNING AND IMPROVING SERVICE The delivery of service is fundamentally different from the concept and design of the service. Delivery is an aspect of implementation, not of design. The service product is planning your work, while service delivery is working your plan. Whereas engineering focuses primarily on the product, service concerns itself primarily with delivery, largely because of the inherent variability of service delivery. Because product development deals only with the quality of the product, firms must measure and manage service livery to ensure the quality of the entire experience. To measure service, metrics on customer perceptions, attitudes, and behavior are essential. Businesses should understand what customers do and why they do it. Customer behavior may simply be observed, such as 51 when a customer repurchases the product or files a research had found that companies attempting to complaint, but customer perceptions and attitudes are achieve a dual emphasis of cost reduction and revenue enhancement simultaneously did not perform as well not as readily revealed. For a complete understanding of customers, firms as companies that focused solely n a revenue emphasis combine computer databases of customer behave- sis strategy, Metal [56] reached the conclusion that a ROR with survey data of customer perceptions and ATT- dual emphasis can be profitable in the long-run for the à ©tudes. Achieved it. However, but are still useful for a number of purposes. For exam- attempting to achieve such a dual emphasis usually plea, they have been useful in studying the profit-Max- doesnt work. Mining balance between customer acquisition and customer rotten- THEN NOW Zion efforts [82]. Although such Standardization Customization findings have significant manager- Transactions Relationships al implications, they do not Focus on goods Focus on service Revenue expansion through service explain the motivation behind Cost reduction through manufacturing efficiency Marketing to individual customers customer behavior. The complex- Mass marketing Improved ability to communicate, store, and momentary use of databases and sure- Limited ability to communicate, process information eves is necessary to get a complete store, and process information understanding. Table 2. Moving to a The manufacturing mind-set is also problematic in service paradigm. Pricing perishable services. It is useful to separate burglarproofing THE MANUFACTURING chase from consumption [96]. For example, rather MIND-SET Rust table 2 (7/06) To succeed in todays marketplace, firms must ban- than selling travel or event tickets at a single price, firms don the manufacturing mind-set and attach highest can take advantage of buyers uncertainty about the priority to customers rather than products. The man- future by offering different advance and spot prices. Factoring mind-set leads businesses toward standard- Advance sales can often more than offset a lower price action. Goods are easier to produce in higher quality and give firms the ability to price discriminate. IT has facilitated the automation and mechanized quantity when production is standardized. Thus, manufacturing is built around assembly lines and Zion of service. Traditional e-commerce focused on mass productio n, and success is defined as producing reducing service costs and increasing efficiency by take same good at a lower cost. As manufacturing Effie- inning advantage of the opportunities to automate service science nears its maximum, there is little room for offered by the Internet. However, this approach suffers businesses to differentiate themselves, making it dif- some of the same pitfalls as the manufacturing mindful to profit or find niches in the market. In contrast, set. Selling commodities online at low prices results in better service demands customization, rather than low profit margins due to competition because there is standardization. Each customer should be treated little room for differentiation from competitors. Expectations by many, this e-comply line. Customers varying needs and desires are not mercer strategy has largely failed (recall such losing all satisfied by precisely the same service product or efforts as pets. Com). Instead, a paradigm of e-service is becoming prevalent. Companies such as Dell and service delivery. Productivity and satisfaction are not always mute- Amazon that have succeeded in e- commerce have done ally compatible goals, especially in service firms [5]. O because they have taken advantage of IT to increase Businesses must often choose between the two, at least revenue through improved service rather than simply in terms of primary emphasis. Academic research to reduce costs. Clearly suggests that more attention must be focused on revenue expansion through service, rather than Just on USING SERVICE TO MAKE MONEY productivity and cost reduction. Cutting costs may Service was once thou ght of as an add-on to physical improve short-run profitability at the expense of service goods, an extra that could be used to enhance the and long-run profitability. For example, downsizing value of the product. Today, most of the economy may reduce costs but have a detrimental effect on cuss- consists of services, rather than physical goods. To a tome service, as remaining employees are spread too large extent, physical goods are now seen as part of the thin. Thus, while costs may be reduced, decreased cuss- overall service. Table 2 shows some of the elements of tome distraction may impose long-run losses in cuss- the paradigm shift from transactional to relationship tome loyalty and future patronage. Whereas previous marketing. The emphasis is now on the value off 52 continuing customer relationship, rather than the value of any individual sale. The inherently high variability in service presents an opportunity even in the goods sector. Although the goods themselves are increasingly commoditized, service levels can vary greatly. Instead of struggling to achieve profit through cost savings in the production process, goods companies can use service to set themselves apart from competition hat is virtually indistinguishable from a manufacturing standpoint. IT decreases the cost of service. This naturally presents an opportunity to profit from cost savings, but it also offers the chance to expand revenues by providing better service to customers at the individual level. Although service improvements bear short-run costs, they allow firms to attract and retain customers and build long-term relationships. Customer loyalty lit- completed because a dissatisfied customer represents a potential loss of future business. Firms can also use IT to identify valuable but potentially threatened customer TRANSFORMING COMPANIES The service revolution is changing the way companies do business. As physical goods increasingly become commodities, goods companies find it increasingly difficult to stay profitable. Service allows companies to escape the commodity trap by providing a means for businesses to differentiate themselves from the competition. Instead of relying on profits from individual transactions, service allows companies to build relationships with customers, using these relationships to enhance long-term revenue. Stead of relying on profits from individual transactions, service allows companies to lid relationships with customers, using these relationships to enhance long-term revenue. Mutely leads to a lifetime of sales from which a company can profit. Service also opens the door to improvements in customer satisfaction. Companies should focus on meeting the varied needs and expectations of individual customers, keeping in mind the caveat that some customers may not be profi table to serve. Higher levels of customer satisfaction can be achieved with customization, increasing customer lifetime value through greater willingness to pay, frequency of purchase, and probability of repurchase. Customer equity, the discounted future cash flow that will be obtained from the firms customers [89], is a very good proxy for the total market capitalization of the firm. Viewing the health of the business in terms of customer equity makes it possible for the firms strategic decisions to have greater financial accountability [88]. Research has taught us that companies should care more about their lifetime relationship with customers rather than standalone transactions. Thus, companies are concerned not only with the loss of a single transaction with a given customer, but with the loss of al potential future transactions with that customer. Service improvements can be justified by increased customer equity, driven by an increased ability to attract and retain customers. Companies have a compelling reason to fix problems even after a transaction has been To survive and thrive, every business must become a service business. Research shows the focus on goods, tangible resources, and transactions has been replaced by an emphasis on service, intangible resources, and relationships [108]. In this new dominant logic, service, not goods, has become the fundamental economic exchange. Consequently, focus has also shifted from the reducer to the consumer, who is now endowed with more power than ever before. Despite the need, it can be difficult to convert locked into the manufacturing mind-set, still focusing on cost reduction through efficiency improvement rather than revenue expansion through improved service and customer relationships. However, businesses embracing the service revolution are finding success and profitability where others are failing. Companies that fail to invest in service run the risk of falling prey to competition. THE FUTURE OF SERVICE Computing and IT provide a particularly strong support for a shift toward service by applying information and tools to facilitate communication and build customer relationships [90]. As the capacity to gather and process information grows, companies can use their new knowledge to offer customized service. 3 Thus, with more information available to improve service, information-driven service becomes necessary for customer satisfaction and profitability. Many businesses have focused on cost reductions made possible by technology, but concentrating only on cost savings is an outmoded vestige of the production mind-set, from which companies must escape to succeed. Academic research indicates that tunnel vision n productivity and efficiency can drive unintended servic e quality erosion, which may hurt revenues and profits despite cost savings. Instead, companies should utilize IT to expand revenues through better service as well as to cut costs via automation. Real-time communication with customers is becoming easier and more affordable. Companies can quickly identify customers desires, guide them to products that meet their needs, and provide the necessary level of service. Additionally, firms can promptly detect and fix customer problems, again increasing customer satisfaction and building long-term relationships. Companies are learning from relationships with their customers. Using computer databases in conjunction with information collected through surveys, businesses can better understand customer attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. Armed with this new knowledge, businesses can design and improve service to ensure long-term profitability. Finally, service gives firms a new tool for financial accountability. Customer equity is a measure of future return on investment for service improvements or any other business improvement. In addition, customer equity enables companies to compare prospective returns on investment from competing service strategies. A complete bibliography of the literature used in the course of preparing the articles for this special section on services science is available on page 33. Roland T. Rust ([emailprotected] Mud. Du) holds the David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing and is executive director of the Center for Excellence in Service and Chair of the Department of Marketing, at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Carol MIM ([emailprotected] Mud. Du) is a doctoral student at Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Structural Frame of Leadership Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Structural Frame of Leadership - Assignment Example Since teaching staffs are the most important employees in an educational organization, their responsibility to maintain this discipline is greatest. The teachers must enforce and exhibit productive, ethically acceptable activities. If formal rules, policies, and procedures are provided to the teachers, they can manage their responsibilities better since ambiguity regarding division of labor will be controlled. Rules, policies, and procedures will act like guidance for the teachers. Since the beginning of human civilization, corruption has been a significant problem. Corruption in the form of bribery, espionage, theft, forgery, etc. can be seen in modern day organizations as well. However, if accountability is enforced onto the management of an organization, they will be compelled to handle their subordinates in more responsible manner. Accountability helps to foster transparency. Education is a process that involves evolution of human mind. If a structural frame is rigidly imposed on the educational system, the necessary room for innovation and experiment will be lost. And this will be a colossal loss for the schools, since schools are like the laboratories of education and ethics. However, a certain degree of structured approach is necessary for the schools too. Structural frame, when applied to a school, can define the hierarchic relationships better and help to resolve conflicts among peers by setting up clearer codes of

Lab report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Lab Report Example They reported seeing a man in jeans, trainers and a T-shirt running away from the house, down Leek Road. The police were informed and responded immediately. The back door of the house had been broken and the sunroof of the VW Polo. Paint and glass of both the car and the property had been damaged. Both of them were damaged so as to allow entry in the property. The police later arrested a suspect who matched the description of the neighbors, two streets away. His clothes were taken for further analysis in the laboratory. This is because clothes might have had contact with the broken glass and damaged paint; hence some of them might have been left on the clothes. The control samples from the broken glass and damaged paint were taken for analysis. The aims of this experiment included to investigate whether the debris recovered from Mark’s clothes had any fragments of glass and paint from the damaged property. The experiment was also meant to determine any kind of relationship between the recovered materials/fragments from the suspect’s clothes with the control samples collected; broken glass of the back door and the damaged paint of the VW sunroof. The final aim of the experiment was to discover any evidence that showed or qualified Mark Jones and the perpetrator of the crime in question. 1. Preparation work: Several petri dishes had been provided that contained the debris from the suspect’s clothes. The contents were observed and described, while the observations were recorded on the results sheet. The identity of each of them was also suggested. Low power microscopy was used to view the contents, while much attention was paid to any presence of glass and paint. The observations were also recorded, and the magnification used. 2. Physical Examination of Evidence: The suspect items were collected carefully, and a physical examination was done as the observations were recorded on the results sheet.

War At Sea Essay Example for Free

War At Sea Essay Throughout the war the British fleets were superior. This was probably due to its large empire. 1914 The first naval battle was on August 28 when the British raided Heligoland Bight. British destroyers entered this German naval base and fired torpedoes but the Germans sent out cruiser ships, which were bigger and stronger. The destroyers retreated to open sea whilst being chased by the Germans and shot at by Battle ships. In September, submarine warfare began when German submarine U-9, sank 3 British cruisers. Meanwhile, 3 British cruisers pursued 3 rival cruisers to the coast of Chile where on November 1st, the Battle of Coronel took place. The Germans sunk 2 British cruisers without loosing 1 ship. When they heard of this the British Admiralty sent 2 more battle cruisers to sink the Germans, but they had gone to the Falkland Islands to raid a British wireless and coaling station. To their surprise they found a British squadron refuelling. The surprised, fleeing Germans were destroyed and 1,800 Germans died. In the Indian Ocean, the German ship Emden attacking small ports and sea-side villages (allies to the British) but later in the beginning of November was destroyed by an Australian cruiser. 1915 On January 23rd, a German squadron went to raid the English coast, but the English had been warned, and sent a fleet to meet them. They met at Dogger Bank and the Germans fled. The British were faster and sunk one cruiser and their 2 flagships were damaged. Because of a misunderstanding of signals, the British attack was not as full on as it should have been so the remaining German ships escaped. The reason the Americans got involved, was when the cruise liner Lusitania was torpedoed twice and sunk. 1,198 people died, 124 of them Americans. On August 19th, the British liner Arabic was lost and 4 more Americans died. 1916 The Battle of Jutland This was the only naval full-scale battle in World  War 1. Neither side was prepared to loose this battle. On the 31st of May, the British Grand Fleet saw the full High Seas Fleet 98 German ships sailing together. Both the British fleets advanced. David Beattys fleet took a parallel rout to the German ships and reached them first followed by Hugh Evan-Thomass squadron. They opened fire and Beatty lost the ships Indefatigable and Queen Mary and received several hits to his flagship Lion. Beatty retreated to Sir John Jellicoes main fleet. Both sides sustained many losses and took many casualties. That night when the main battle was over, the Germans tried to escape. They ran into the tail of a line of cruisers following Jellicoes southbound fleet. Once they were through the chaotic firing, sinkings and collisions of the night they went back to the Jade Anchorage. 1917 By 1917, Germany had built up its navy and because of this and unrestricted submarine warfare Britain almost had to pull out of the war at sea with their depleted navy. But they did not have to because Britain would of needed supplies, so some of the remaining ships of the British fleet joined with some American destroyers and escorted merchant ships to and from ports, whist destroying submarines. This was the convoy system. In February, March and April the Germans raided the English Channel, and in response, Britain raided Ostend and Zeebrugge several times. Later in the year, the British raided German coastal shipping in Holland and in November unsuccessfully raided German minesweeping operations in Heligoland Bight. In December the Germans raided several British-Scandinavian convoys. Britain lost many ships. 1918 German submarine warfare had been decreased by the allied convoy system, but it had not been stopped completely. Raids were sent to Ostend, Zeebrugge and Bruges (3 ports where submarines operated) but were not very successful. 2 more German ships Battle cruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau were attacked in the Aegean Sea. Breslau was sunk and Goeben was badly damaged. In March, the Germans made a large attack and this pushed back the Allies, but later in the year they retaliated and conquered the German navy, this won them and ended the war at sea.

Opal Koboi in Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer :: essays research papers

In the book â€Å"Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident† by Eoin Colfer there is a very intelligent pixie named Opal Koboi. She has an IQ of over 300 which means that she is a certified genius. She appears as a villain in The Arctic Incident and in The Opal Deception (third book in this series). She is the rightful owner of Koboi Labs which designs and creates the majority of the LEPrecon’s (Lower Element Police recon group) equipment. Throughout the time where she was creating all of their stuff she was making it all so she could remotely sabotage it. Opal Koboi is extremely smart. Throughout the book she is proving herself more and more intelligent. She has a plan to takeover Haven City and to do so she hires the B’wa Kell Goblin Triad to assist her. Hiring this gang was a very smart move on her part. The members of the B’wa Kell Goblin Triad are very well known as smugglers. They’ve been illegally smuggling with the mud people (what the people call humans) for the longest time. To smuggle with the mud people is a very dangerous and forbidden thing because if the mud people find a way to the underground towns of the people (basically what any mystical creature in this series call themselves) it would be destroyed. In the beginning of the book Holly Short and her partner have a run in with them and get attacked. It was a smart move because of how sneaky and sly they are. Another example of how intelligent she is, is when she was sent to a mental hospital. Towards the end of the book she is sent to a mental hospital because of her insane plot to capture Haven City. While she is there, really wanting to escape, she is able to make a clone of herself, which took her place, so she could escape. She is also a character that has very realistic problems. She is a very crazy character. After being rescued by the Brill Brothers she became both paranoid and bipolar. She also started having fits of anger. After she escaped she just kept getting crazier and crazier. Opal became so paranoid that she made rules that her pixie enforcers had to follow. There was a rule that no one could look directly at her because she thought that it would be bad for her skin.

Northanger Abbey Characters Essay

Second of which, it is also important to note that the social identity theory claims that every person enacts multiple identities that functions in every social context such as for instance, mother, professor, volunteer, that could be drivers of buying actions (p. 11). The behavioral decision theory that is under the umbrella of the social identity theory claims that choices of consumers are often made in accordance with their attribute values. Closely related to this is the attitude theory which emphasizes consumer expectancies and evaluations on a particular product belief (p.11-12). The figure below presents consumer goals in terms of their buying preferences. It could be seen that the core reason that determines why such and such consumers buy certain products is primarily due to their life theme and values. In effect of these, their life themes and values deeply influenced how they are going to deal with their life projects, current concerns and consumption intentions. Finally, the benefits sought and the feature preferences are also considered as the end goal of the being and doing hierarchy. Figure 3:   A hierarchical model of consumer goals Source: Ratneshwar, Mick and Huffman (2000, p. 14) Life themes and values are the personal ideas of being and the highest goal in a person’s framework. A terminal value is a belief that is considered as an end in itself such as freedom r wisdom. These types of values are like existential concerns that every customer has to deal with their daily lives which are rooted on their personal histories (p. 15). Themes and values in one’s life are the core conceptions of the self. These values are deeply embedded, interconnected and central in order to maintain integrity of the self-system. Corollary with this, these values are relatively stable and accessible as well and could be activated easily in almost any circumstance. As such it could be said that themes and values serve as a yardstick or standard guide to lower-order goals and actions (p. 17). Current concerns such as activities, tasks or quests are also vital in a consumer’s buying behavior. For instance, activities or life projects that a customer wants to engage into like gardening, being an animal rights advocate and the likes influences them to buy certain products that are in accordance to such goals (p.18). 2. 5 CSR and Purchasing Decisions The link between CSR and consumer purchasing decisions is something that has a direct relationship. It has been said by Varadarajan and Menon (1988) that it is very relevant for consumers to first be educated on a particular company’s level of social responsibility before they could incorporate such on their pattern of behavior. This is important so that consumer purchasing decisions could be affected by the CSR programs that a company is employing. The notion of cause related marketing which is a way for companies to support non profit organizations by allotting a certain percentage of their sales to the former is one of the most effective way of doing the aforementioned (Mohr and Webb, 2001, p. 45). Albeit, it should be noted that although CSR has been highly exercised by most companies, the biggest inhibitor of the latter’s success is lack of consumer awareness on a particular company’s CSR program. However even if this is the case, there is a growing evidence that a lot of consumers are desiring to know more about how companies conducts their businesses. The purchasing information that was given by Council on Economic Priorities in 1994 tells that consumer interest on CSR has been steadily growing (Mohr and Webb, 2001, p. 45). 2. 6 Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty Customer satisfaction is difficult to understand and it is define in different ways. Many researchers argued that there is a difference between the customer satisfaction, which is gained from tangible products and intangible services. The difference is because of the intangibility of the services and the failure to separate production and consumption. Therefore, customer satisfaction from services and goods may come from and influenced by different factors. Hence, should be considered separately and differently (Veloutsou, C. et al, 2005). Two issues should be considered when looking customer satisfaction in services whether it is conceptualized or transaction specific or cumulative (Hoest, V. and Knie-Andersen, M. , 2004). Customer satisfaction has been perceived as not the sole determining factor for a loyal customer base (Griffin and Herres, 2002, p. 2). During the 1980s and the 1990s, the notion of customer satisfaction which is weighed in terms of providing quality customer service and excellence has been perceived as providing good financial results and repeat purchase. A study conducted by Forum Corporation (Stum and Thiry, 1991, p. 34) claimed that 40% of the customers who participated in the study claimed to be satisfied with a particular product found it easy to shift brands without any hesitation. As such, it has been perceived by Griffin and Herres (2002; p.4-5) that the true measurement that should be used in repeated business is Customer Loyalty. Customer loyalty focuses more on consumer behaviour than attitude. When a particular client is loyal to a brand, such a person is more particular in conducting purchase behaviour that is relatively more non random. A client who is loyal to a brand has developed a particular justified belief on which and what to buy from whom. More importantly, the notion of loyalty implies a purchase that occurs for a particular duration, which does not occur less than twice. Also, it could be significantly noted that the decision to purchase could be made by one or two or more individuals. As such, it could be the case that the decision making to buy a particular product could be a compromise, hence explaining one of the key reasons for one’s loyalty for a particular unit. There are two important factors that are closely associated with brand loyalty and these are customer retention and total share of customer. The former describes the duration in which a particular company has the business of a client. The rate of customer share on the other hand is equivalent to the percentage of a customer’s budget that is spent with the firm. For instance, a company is said to have 100% share of a customer’s budget if the latter spends his or her entire budget with a particular firm. As such it could be said that customer retention and percentage of customer’s budget is very important; however, there might be instances wherein a customer is prevented by certain laws to purchase just from one vendor such as government accounts. Gustafsson and Johnson (2000; p.50) presented a model which would effectively measure customer satisfaction. Satisfaction in terms of the model is perceived as â€Å"customer’s overall evaluation of the purchase and consumption experience with a product, service or provider†. The model presented by Gustafsson and Johnson (2000) appears to be different from transaction-specific portrayals of customer satisfaction that normally leads to repurchase. The model focuses on the importance of Customer Lens or the perspective of a customer on a particular brand, most especially how it benefits them. The lens of the customer will allow the organization to take a view of their product as it appears on the market place and not really how their organization perceives it (Gustafsson and Johnson, 2000, p. 5). It has been argued by Gustafsson and Johnson   (2000) that customers’ decisions to repurchase a particular product are deeply influenced by their overall purchase and consumption from a particular company or brand. In addition, customer satisfaction could pave the way for an enhanced reputation and an increase of brand equity for a particular organization. Such in turn could further attract customers that could have further increase the market share of a particular brand. 2. 7 The Body Shop International, PLC Values The Body Shop International PLC has five corporate values: Against Animal Testing, Support Community Trade, Activate Self Esteem, and Protecting our Planet (The Body Shop International plc a, 2007). 2. 7. 1 Against Animal Testing The company strongly advocated for the banning of the test of cosmetics on animals. In addition, the company prides itself due to its strict compliance of the internationally recognized Humane Cosmetics Standards (The Body Shop International plc b, 2007). As such it has been implementing a so-called â€Å"fixed cut-off date† to all of their ingredients. Such means, that the company does not and will never test their cosmetics on animals, hence calling it an â€Å"immovable fixed date† (The Body Shop International plc c, 2007). More importantly, the company has also assured that their products could also be suitable for vegetarians. This means that the company does not use any ingredient that is perceived to cause harm to animals (The Body Shop International plc c, 2007). In effect of this, the Body Shop has been awarded on 2006 as the Best Cruelty-free Cosmetics by the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatments of Animals). (The Body Shop International plc b, 2007). The advocate of Body Shop to ban animal testing is stretched even by the company supporting researches that could bring about alternatives against animal testing. In 2004, the Body Shop Foundation has awarded the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing at John Hopkins University ? 20 000 in order to support the university’s research in finding other ways to test cosmetics   (The Body Shop International plc b, 2007). 2. 7. 2 Support Community Trade Body Shop’s support for community trade focuses on the use of natural ingredients and handcrafted products from skilled people and was brought for a reasonable prize for more than 20 years on over 24 countries and 31 suppliers (The Body Shop International plc e, 2007). In another perspective, community fair trade provides workers in marginalized countries to earn a reliable wage that could help them build their futures (The Body Shop International plc d, 2007). More importantly, the community trade that Body Shop made from the aforementioned also provides the company the assurance that it has been purchasing ingredients in which they know where came from (The Body Shop International plc d, 2007). As such, it could be said that the company has been spreading not only its monetary assets but also its intellectual investments as well fairly among countries most especially to the ones which needed it most (The Body Shop International plc d, 2007). 2. 7. 3 Activate Self Esteem Body shop also deeply upholds basic feminist values. Their motto: â€Å"Know your mind, love your body†; communicates the individuality of all women and the disregard to false promises, hype, and jargons of cosmetics and a fixed standard of beauty (The Body Shop International plc f, 2007). More importantly, the body shop emphasizes the importance of self awareness, self-confidence, self-growth and self-acceptance. As such it deems self respect while focusing on diversity, acceptance and empowerment (The Body Shop International plc g, 2007). 2. 7. 4 Protecting our Planet Protecting the planet is the last among the five core values of Body Shop. This value is deeply connected on the advocate of the company in using natural ingredients. Body Shop believed that through the use of natural ingredients and through helping on the ban against cosmetic test on animals, they are helping to protect the environment (The Body Shop International plc h, 2007). Furthermore, Body Shop also supports the use of renewable sources through the use of Forest Stewardship Council certified wood products. I

Personal Narrative Minutes Of Suspense Essay - 894 Words

Minutes of Suspense On my way to my high school graduation at Eastern Randolph High School, I had a mixture of emotions, but then I remembered that I had forgotten the most important item for the day, like forgetting to study for a test that counts fifty percent of a grade. My graduation cap and tassel were left in the bag that I bought them in. I called my mom immediately, hoping she could still bring them to me on time. She would not pick up the phone. I had to let someone know I had a major problem. Thankfully, there were extra caps and tassels but in exchange of borrowing one, I had to leave my phone which made me experience the same feeling I have when I have to leave my little brother with his babysitter and see him cry. As we all headed outside to the football stadium, tension started to come through my whole body. My legs felt stiff and my hands felt as if water was running through my fingers. I was not prepared to walk across the stage. 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