Commitment to service quality in automotive dealerships: results from .........

Automotive dealerships play an integral role in the initial and on-going relationship between the purchaser and vehicle manufacturer. Evidence, mostly anecdotal, suggests that the buying and servicing experience of the paying public in regards to automotive dealerships is far from ideal. With continuous improvement systems such as TQM firmly embedded into the supply side of the car industry, questions still exist surrounding the level of service quality being adopted by car dealerships. The purpose of this paper is to establish if service quality is a pursued culture within new car dealership operations and determine if key quality principles such as top management support, customer focus, process management, and employee involvement are practised factors. Results indicated a reasonably high level of commitment to service quality within dealerships, including the factors considered important to the success of quality outcomes. Questions still remain about quality endorsement, the type of quality systems being used and the depth of penetration of quality at the ground level.

Progressives, Loyalists, Multinationals, and Newcomers: Clusters for ..........

The purpose of this study is to identify segments of organizational customers of general insurance (OCGI) based on their perception of value (CPV) and demographic data. Data were collected through 21 interviews, two discussion groups, and administering 400 questionnaires. Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, a cluster analysis was conducted. Findings indicated the presence of four distinct segments of business customers with similar characteristics and perception of value - progressives, loyalists, multinationals, and newcomers. Positive reputation seems to be the most effective marketing appeal, which influences all the four clusters. These findings have value for insurance providers in target marketing. Given the similarities among the Arab countries in general, and among the six gulf cooperation council (GCC) member countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar) in particular, the authors expect that the results may be generalized to this region. This study may also contribute to filling this gap in the literature of CPV of OCGI.

Technology based mamagement of customer relational capital: Human-Touch ............

This paper examines the role of information communication technology (ICT) in customer relation management(CRM). It explores organizational intellectual capital (IC) based on CRM by analyzing the efficiency and the effectiveness of ICT for social interaction and relationships between organizations and their customers. In doing so it seeks to understand the impact of ICT on the exploration or exploitation of knowledge or a combination of both. It asserts that ICT enables organizational efficiencies but compromises effectiveness and customer relational capital. It concludes that, although strong ties are costly; they foster stronger customer relationships-hence enabling competitive advantage. An organization’s customers are more likely to be satisfied with interactive communication and direct contacts than by passive interaction using ICT-oriented processes such as process management, websites for online commerce and automated calling centres. The study concludes that organizations that emphasise efficiencies merely for cost-cutting may find their customers less satisfied, build weak relationships with their customers, and ultimately face diminishing organizational learning and innovation capabilities.

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