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    Customer satisfaction with air service delivery within Kiribati : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Aviation at Massey University, Turitea campus, Palmerston North
    (Massey University, 2012) Teikake, Aako
    Delivering high quality service to passengers is important so that airlines can survive and strengthen their competitiveness. Service quality conditions influence an airline’s competitive advantage, and with it come market share, and ultimately profitability (Morash & Ozment, 1994). Since, service quality is an important factor in customer satisfaction; this study is basically conducted in Kiribati so that the level of satisfaction can be described allowing an airline and airport management to fully recognize the deficiencies of their service quality. This thesis assessed customer satisfaction with air service delivery within Kiribati, including interisland comparisons. The main research objective of the study was to describe the level of customer satisfaction with the service delivery of both the domestic airline and local airports. The research method consisted of a survey regarding satisfaction with both airline and airport services. A structured questionnaire was developed using the SKYTRAX questionnaire as benchmark. The questionnaire was personally administered to the target population of domestic air travellers within Kiribati. A stratified sampling procedure was used for this research. Each stratum represents different levels of air service availability within the Gilbert group because of geographical distance from the capital. An island within each stratum was selected as being most representative of such stratum. A total of 200 questionnaire were distributed, 50 questionnaire per stratum, of which were returned. Therefore, the final research sample consisted of 177 participants. Results show that, irrespective of islands, customer satisfaction is poor. This indicates that air service quality does not match the expectations of customers. With respect to islands, the study also found that passengers are not satisfied with air service delivery on their respective islands, including both the domestic airline and the local airport. This study also concludes that satisfaction level is significantly different between islands, age groups and gender. Although there are service dimensions which were reported as satisfactory by customers, satisfaction levels were, overall, poor. In conclusion, this study suggests that policy-makers as well as airline and airport management need to take workable measures to improve upon air service quality. It is important for air service providers to recognize the importance of customer satisfaction; as such satisfaction may be the pillar for business continuation in Kiribati. Air Kiribati as well as airport managers must identify and improve upon factors that could limit or prevent customer defection to alternative transport modes. These factors may include employee performance and professionalism, willingness to solve problems, friendliness, and level of knowledge, communication skills and selling skills, among others.
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    The service-profit chain : a New Zealand retail banking example : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing at Massey University, Palmerston North
    (Massey University, 2001) Garland, Brian Donald
    The notion of a service-profit chain has been prevalent in business for many years although only since the 1980s has academic research in services management emphasised such a chain. At its simplest, the service-profit chain implies that certain levels of service to customers will result in profitable transactions for the service provider. However, there are several other linkages in the chain between service and profit such as customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. One of the first of its kind in the public domain in New Zealand, this study presents an empirical analysis of an abbreviated form of the service-profit chain for one bank. It investigates the relationships in the service-profit chain with specific objectives that include identifying the factors that help generate profitable customers. Just over 1100 personal retail customers of a New Zealand regional bank were surveyed on such issues and these customers' contribution to the bank's profitability calculated using activity-based accounting procedures. In general, results support the concept of a service-profit chain in personal retail banking. However, a chain implies linearity, whereas the findings here suggest the links between service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer contribution may be more circular than strictly linear. The relationship between customer loyalty and customer profitability is supported, though only at the behavioural loyalty level, where customers conduct all or nearly all of their banking business with one bank. In general, the greater the share of a customer's banking business, the more profitable that customer is to the bank. Conversely, attitudinal loyalty (positive dispositions held about the bank) was not always present for profitable customers. And the study bank's most profitable customers do not always have "all their eggs in one basket" - they are both attitudinally and behaviourally ambivalent in this regard. What sets these customers apart from their peers as profitable customers is their income. They tend to be high networth customers who give the bank the chance to generate profit from their considerable funds and high transaction volume despite not having all their personal banking business consolidated in one bank. There was some support for association between customer satisfaction and profitability but no hint of a relationship between service quality issues and profitability. In general however, strong associations were common between each successive link in the service-profit chain and for an abbreviated service-satisfaction-loyalty chain. Noteworthy too is the finding that not all customers are always profitable and during this study one third of the bank's customers were unprofitable, one third hovered around breakeven and one third contributed 98% of customer profit. The study also investigated customer defection in personal retail banking and established, in agreement with other recent New Zealand research, that annual defection rates are close to 5%. From the synthesis of results and their interpretation, several issues emerged including concerns about the study's measurement of attitudinal loyalty as well as the usefulness of the family life cycle model. These, along with limitations and caveats were addressed for the benefit of future research into the service-profit chain in personal retail banking.
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    Client satisfaction with English language centre service: Insights from a New Zealand national survey
    (MCB University Press, 2003) Walker J
    The TESOL (teaching of English to speakers of other languages) sector in New Zealand is rapidly developing into a major educational service industry. Despite their growing national importance, little is known about the performance of the English language centres (ELCs) that constitute the industry. This study investigated levels of client satisfaction with New Zealand ELC service at a national level. The research took a services management approach, using a multilingual questionnaire covering nine dimensions of ELC service. The findings indicated that, overall, clients registered mere satisfaction with the service provided. Statistical analysis identified significant differences between levels of client satisfaction in terms of client age and nationality and between ELCs of different type and size. While service provider personal attributes were positively rated by respondents, these did not play a major role as predictors of client satisfaction or the willingness to recommend an ELC.
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    The Application of Machine Learning to Consolidate Critical Success Factors of Lean Six Sigma
    (IEEE, 17/08/2021) Perera AD; Jayamaha NP; Grigg NP; Tunnicliffe M; Singh A
    Lean six sigma (LSS) is a quality improvement phenomenon that has captured the attention of the industry. Aiming at a capability level of 3.4 defects per million opportunities (Six Sigma) and efficient (lean) processes, LSS has been shown to improve business efficiency and customer satisfaction by blending the best methods from Lean and Six Sigma (SS). Many businesses have attempted to implement LSS, but not everyone has succeeded in improving the business processes to achieve expected outcomes. Hence, understanding the cause and effect relationships of the enablers of LSS, while deriving deeper insights from the functioning of the LSS strategy will be of great value for effective execution of LSS. However, there is little research on the causal mechanisms that explain how expected outcomes are caused through LSS enablers, highlighting the need for comprehensive research on this topic. LSS literature is overwhelmed by the diverse range of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) prescribed by a plethora of conceptual papers, and very few attempts have been made to harness these CSFs to a coherent theory on LSS. We fill this gap through a novel method using artificial intelligence, more specifically Natural Language Processing (NLP), with particular emphasis on cross-domain knowledge utilization to develop a parsimonious set of constructs that explain the LSS phenomenon. This model is then reconciled against published models on SS to develop a final testable model that explains how LSS elements cause quality performance, customer satisfaction, and business performance.