Customer satisfaction evaluation on maintenance service quality at schindler vietnam ltd

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES

SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL OF
ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT

MPQPM4

NGUYEN THI QUYNH ANH

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
EVALUATION ON MAINTENANCE
SERVICE QUALITY AT SCHINDLER
VIETNAM LTD.

MASTER FINAL PROJECT
MASTER IN BUSINESS QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Ho Chi Minh City
(2014)


1

ACKOWLEDGEMENT
Of the many people who have been extremely helpful in the preparation of
this thesis, I am especially thankful to my supervisor Dr. Jacques Martin for
his help and support. I am grateful for his comments and guidance throughout
the development of this thesis.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Mr. Hung Le- Existing

Installation Director- for his supports and intellectual comments during
this research.
I would like to thanks to Ms. Ngoc Hien- Solvay Program Coordinator- for
her support throughout the Master Program and a perfect coordinator in
proving useful information relate to final Project.
Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to all my colleagues
and my friends for their unconditional support in every way possible
throughout the process of this thesis.


2

ABSTRACT
Customer satisfaction can be seen as one of the main instruments that ensure
the existence and survival of a business organization. It is very important for the
business organizations to consider offering what the customers want rather than
offering quality goods and services which may not meet up with the customers’
expectation. Therefore, business organizations have to possess a framework in their
organizational structure towards satisfying their customers so that they can maintain
their existence, survival and success. Satisfying a customer today leads to retention
and attraction of new customers as a result of the current customers of the business
organization being satisfied.
For a maintenance service at Schindler Vietnam, every minute of break down
is cost and more serious is dissatisfaction of customer. But normally, we don’t
know what customer think about our service. So, evaluate customer satisfaction is
therefore extremely important for Schindler’s survival. With the purpose to evaluate
customer satisfaction at Schindler Vietnam, this thesis was performed as a case
study at Maintenance Service of the company.
To be able to evaluate the customer satisfaction. The survey will be sent to
customer, then data is gathered, analyzed. Based on the outcome of these, company

can identify the current issues and may use for future improvement.
Key words: maintenance, Net promoter score, customer satisfaction,


3

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT………………………… ………………………...1
ABSTRACT……………………………………………… ………………….2
LIST OF FIGURES………………… ……………………………………….5
LIST OF TABLES ……………………… …………………………………..6
LIST OF ABBREVIATION ……………… ……………………………...…7
INTRODUCTION……...…………………… ………………………………8
1Background information about Schindler and MS Department …...………...9
2-

Research problem and Research question…………………..………………10

3-

Objective of the research………………………………..…………………..10

4-

Plan of the research ……………………………………… .………………..10

5-

Structure of the research…………………………………………………….11

PART 1 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW ……..13
1-

Customer satisfaction: Overview and importance……………… . …………14

2-

Definition of Maintenance……………………………… .…………………15

3-

Customer satisfaction in maintenance service …………… ………………..17

4-

Net promoter score (NPS)

5-

Framework of customer satisfaction criterion in maintenance service… . ….21

..

5.1 Customer oriented behavior ………………………… .………………..21
5.2 Promptness in problem fixing ………………………… ……………….21
5.3 Operation reliability/ product quality…………………… ..……………22
5.4 Price…………………………………………………… .………………23
5.5 Spare part availability ………………………………… .……………..24
PART 2 METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN…………… …….27
1-

Development of list of customer satisfaction factors……… ……………….28

2-

Design of questionnaire and sampling ………………… …………………..29
2.1 Design of questionnaire…………………………… ...…………………29
2.2 Sampling…………………………………………… …………………..31

3-

Layout of questionnaire………………………… ………………………….31


4

4-

Survey distribution and response……………… ...…………………………32

5-

Data analysis……………………………… ..………………………………32

PART 3: DATA ANALYSI AND DISCUSSION……………………… . …….33
1- Response rate………………………………………………………… …….34
2- Description of result… .. ……………………………………………………34
2.1 Trigger Answer on Maintenance Service: ...……………………………34
2.1.1 Question 1: Did our engineer (technician) contact you upon arrival
to site?............................................................................................... .34

2.1.2 Question 2: Did our engineer (technician) act in a professional
manner?.............................................................................................36
2.1.3 Question 3: Did our engineer (technician) provide sufficient
information about the completed works?......................................... .37
2.1.4 Question 4: Does our maintenance service meet your expectations?38
2.1.5 Question 5: Can you reach our Service Leader easily and does he
respond to your needs? ......................................................................39
2.1.6 . Customer satisfaction summary on trigger question……………….41
2.2 Net Promoter Score –NPS on Customer Satisfaction…………………42
2.3 Customer comment on Maintenance Service………………………….43
2.4 Recommendation………………………………………………………44
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION ..………………………………46
1. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….47
2. Possible future development… ………………………………………………..47

REFERRENCE…… ……………………………………………………………...49
APPENDIX A....................................................................................................................51


5

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Structure of Thesis
Figure 2: Relationship between Maintenance and Quality
Figure 3: Cost of conformance/non-conformance in relation maintenance
type
Figure 4: Net Promoter Score
Figure 5: Frame of NPS
Figure 6: Design of Questionnaire
Figure 7: Layout of Questionnaire

Figure 8: Q1 result Analysis
Figure 9: Q1 Analysis per Area
Figure 10: Q2 result Analysis
Figure 11: Q2 analysis per Area
Figure 12: Q3 result Analysis
Figure 13: Q3 Analysis per Area
Figure 14: Q4 result Analysis
Figure 15: Q4 analysis per Area
Figure 16: Q5 result Analysis
Figure 17: Q5 analysis per Area
Figure 18: Customer satisfaction in Summary
Figure 19: Dissatisfaction per Area
Figure 20: Positive comment
Figure 21: Negative comment


6

LIST OF TABLE
Table 1: Summary of Survey Result
Table 2: Average percentage of Customer Satisfaction
Table 3: Dissatisfaction per Area
Table 4: NPS result
Table 5: Customer comment summary


7

LIST OF ABBREVIATION
NPS: Net Promoter Score

MS: Maintenance Service
SL: Service Leader


8

INTRODUCTION
Customer satisfaction is the result of the correlation between a customer’s
assumption and a customer’s feelings. By way of explanation, customer satisfaction
is identified as the distinction between assumed quality of service and the
customer’s involvement or feelings after having perceived the service. Customer
satisfaction depends on such dimensions as assurance, responsiveness, reliability,
empathy and tangibles, and further components such as personal, price and
situational factors that may arise as the service quality. (Bateson & Hoffman, 2000.)
Customer satisfaction helps customers to communicate their needs straight to the
sellers. Customer satisfaction is very important because it helps to learn about the
business’s strengths and weaknesses. Business holders can just know their strengths
and weaknesses and make the progression. Not only this, also customer satisfaction
also helps to appropriate resources for eventual strike or satisfaction. Furthermore,
it supports to show calmness about making better quality of products and services to
both the employees and the customers. It does not help to learn about strengths and
weaknesses but helps it also to persuade competitive strengths and weaknesses.
Similarly, it helps to benefit more vision into the sources of frustration and areas
desiring progression. At last, customer satisfaction helps to accommodate a system
for informing management of problems or situations requiring actual promotion.
(ICR, 2011.)
While talking about business, it is not easy to establish this thinking but
everything needs to be set up everything from top to bottom and management also
exists there. Nature of business depends upon the size that was established, either in
the form of big-scale or small-scale. No business has been established without

thinking about the profit, and customers are the pillars of the business. So every
business’s stake holders always think about the satisfaction of the customers by
trying to meet the needs of the customer, which is the main responsibilities of the
business investor. As the task of the research is concerned with the importance of
customer satisfaction, some points have already explained this in the above section,
and some points are going to be explained here. Actually, customer satisfaction
helps to increase the profit for business investors so every such investor thinks that
to earn profit is not as easy. If the business is successful, and able to satisfy the
customers then customers will be happy, they buy more goods and the company
will be able to sell more goods and it helps to increase the profit. Similarly, it helps
to increase the sales, to reduce the production costs, and to enhance marketing and
advertising If the customers are fully satisfied with the goods and services provided
by the business company, they refer it to their friends and relatives
telling them that they are satisfied, and this helps to promote marketing and
advertising of the business. Similarly, it helps to improve the goodwill.


9

1-

Background information about Schindler and Maintenance Service
Department
Founded in Switzerland in 1874, the Schindler Group is a leading global
provider of elevators, escalators and related services. Its innovative and
environmentally-friendly access and transit-management systems make an
important contribution to mobility in urban societies. Behind the company's
success are over 48,000 employees in more than 100 countries.
Schindler manufactures, installs, services and modernizes elevators,
escalators and moving walks for almost every type of building requirement

worldwide. The company specializes in the latest-technology engineering, as well
as mechanical and microprocessor technology products designed and rigorously
tested for safety, comfort, efficiency and reliability.
Inspired by the vision of being the best service provider in the industry for its
customers, Schindler will continue in the future to develop highly innovative and
user-friendly mobility solutions and to deliver these to the world market.
In Vietnam, Schindler was one of the first foreign-owned elevator companies to
start operating, back in 1995. It is involved in importing, installing and maintaining
Schindler elevators and escalators. In 1998, Schindler started its own factory in
Vietnam, which produces brackets, beams and builder’s elevators for both local and
export purposes.
Schindler Vietnam is headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City with branches in Ha Noi
and Da Nang and representatives in Can Tho, Hai Phong and Nha Trang.
The installation and maintenance of Schindler elevators and escalators are carried
out by certified Schindler technicians with the full support of Schindler technical
experts.
At Maintenance service, Schindler’s committed to preventive maintenance
programs for elevators and escalators that will keep equipment running safely and
reliably. With trailblazing technology and highly trained technicians, this means
fewer callbacks and fewer inconveniences for your tenants or guests.
Schindler employee is over 100 specialist maintenance engineers and technicians
across Viet Nam. Where use latest-technology programs and systems to monitor
equipment remotely and to enable predictive intervention, including Schindler
Scorecard performance assessment and monitoring


10

technologies. Maintenance service philosophy is very straightforward: to keep all
equipment operating at optimum availability, maximum efficiency and absolute

safety
2-

Research problem and Research question

For Schindler, the Maintenance and Repair service represents a significant
proposal of turnover and in many cases it collects the overall profits of the business.
In recent years, the competition in maintenance and repair services of elevator has
increased dramatically and many strong competitors have entered the maintenance
and repair service of lift business in Vietnam. In order to hold the competitive
advantage in the changing market, it is important to deeply understand what is
customer’s need to ensure profits in the future as well.
Base on research problem above, the following research question are: what are the
most criterions that impact on customer satisfaction on maintenance service at
Schindler Vietnam and also find out the net promoter score of this service.
3-

Objective of the research
The research attempts to analyze the satisfaction of customers in the Existing
Installation Department at Schindler Vietnam. Moreover, a research objective is to
collect statistical information of the customers and their level of satisfaction in
maintenance service in Schindler Vietnam., It will be interesting to do research on
this topic in the form of structured Interview, quantitative survey and with the target
of the case study: Existing Installation Department at Schindler Vietnam.
4Plan of the research
In this chapter, customer satisfaction research in Maintenance department of
Schindler Vietnam, research questions are discussed above and research process is
defined in figure 1. And they are structured interview questions via phone. And in
the research process, 151 customers in HCM and Hanoi are taken for the interview
and their point of view is analyzed in Part 2 Analysis and Discussion.

The data was gathered through customer satisfaction survey, interview via phone.
Customer contact is available in maintenance contract portfolio. The author asked
the questions to the customers (questionnaire list is in survey sheet) to get the exact
answers. The interview is recorded, if customer said that they cannot freely give the
answers, so, the author has written in the note book and ask when author can re-call
to them, if after 3 time effort, customer refuse survey, it’s considered in not
response part . The questionnaires survey and structured interviews are used in
order to collect information how the maintenance services is going and whether the


11

customers are satisfied or not. The total amount of 151 survey was conducted in
April and May 2014. The customer were randomly chosen in contract portfolio but
it must be include 50% customer in HCM area and 50% customer in Hanoi .
5Structure of the research
This thesis has been divided into three parts. The introduction establishes the
research context and objectives. The second part introduces the theoretical
context of customer satisfaction management and also the customer satisfaction
in maintenance service, the definition of Net Promoter Score and framework of
customer satisfaction criterion which help to identify key elements of the
customer satisfaction on Schindler Vietnam’s existing installation quality
The third part of the thesis presents the methodology and research design.
It’s include the list of customer satisfaction factor and how to design of
questionnaire, layout of questionnaire, sampling, how to distribute survey and
how to analyze data. The analysis and discussion begin with part 3. This part
will analyze and discuss data; also research findings will be presented in this
part. SPSS is the tool evaluate if the data is valuable for analysis or not. Lastly,
Conclusion and recommendation will summary the key aspect of the research.
Furthermore, several recommendation and practical guidelines will be offered.

The limitation of this thesis, some comment and suggestion about future
research will also be discussed and provided.
The overall structure of thesis will illustrated in figure 1 which serve as a
guideline to reader


12

Figure 1: Structure of Thesis:


13

PART 1
RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND
LITERATURE REVIEW


14

1- Customer satisfaction: Overview and importance
Customer satisfaction is the result of the correlation between a customer’s
assumption and a customer’s feelings. By way of explanation, customer
satisfaction is identified as the distinction between assumed quality of service and
the customer’s involvement or feelings after having perceived the service.
Customer satisfaction depends on such dimensions as assurance, responsiveness,
reliability, empathy and tangibles, and further components such as personal, price
and situational factors that may arise as the service quality. (Bateson & Hoffman
2000.)
Customer satisfaction helps customers to communicate their needs straight to the

sellers. Customer satisfaction is very important because it helps to learn about the
business’s strengths and weaknesses. Business holders can just know their
strengths and weaknesses and make the progression. Not only this, also customer
satisfaction also helps to appropriate resources for eventual strike or satisfaction.
Furthermore, it supports to show calmness about making better quality of products
and services to both the employees and the customers. It does not help to learn
about strengths and weaknesses but helps it also to persuade competitive strengths
and weaknesses. Similarly, it helps to benefit more vision into the sources of
frustration and areas desiring progression. At last, customer satisfaction helps to
accommodate a system for informing management of problems or situations
requiring actual promotion. (ICR, 2011.)
While talking about business, it is not easy to establish this thinking but
everything needs to be set up everything from top to bottom and management also
exists there. Nature of business depends upon the size that was established, either
in the form of big-scale or small-scale. No business has been established without
thinking about the profit, and customers are the pillars of the business. So every
business’s stake holders always think about the satisfaction of the customers by
trying to meet the needs of the customer, which are the main responsibilities of the
business investor. As the task of the research is concerned with the importance of
customer satisfaction, some points have already explained this in the above section,
and some points are going to be explained here. Actually, customer satisfaction
helps to increase the profit for business investors so every such investor thinks that
to earn profit is not as easy. If the business is successful, and able to satisfy the
customers then customers will be happy, they buy more goods and the company
will be able to sell more goods and it helps to increase the profit. Similarly, it helps


15

to increase the sales, to reduce the production costs, and to enhance marketing and

advertising If the customers are fully satisfied with the

goods and services provided by the business company, they refer it to their friends
and relatives telling them that they are satisfied, and this helps to promote
marketing and advertising of the business. Similarly, it helps to improve the
goodwill.
2- Definition of Maintenance
Maintenance is an important organizational function that is needed to support
production related processes. Breakdowns in production directly affect the output of the
processes and thereby the profitability. Companies have different views on how
maintenance can be used. Traditionally it has been seen as a necessary evil and that
maintenance have complex relationships to other functions in the company (Ben Daya and
Duffuaa, 1995). Further, Ben Daya and Duffuaa (1995) argues that:
“In general terms, equipment which is not well maintained and fails
periodically experiences speed losses and/or lack of precision and, hence,
tends to produce defects. More often than not such equipment drives
manufacturing processes out of control. A process that is out of control
produces defective products and therefore increases the production cost
which amounts to less profitability which endangers the survival of the
organization.” (Ben Daya and Duffuaa 1995)

Figure 2 Relationship between maintenance and quality (Ben Daya and Duffuaa 1995)

Figure 2 above show the relationship between production output and
maintenance. Ben Daya and Duffaa (1995) clearly express the importance of
maintenance in relation to quality where other literature (Salonen and Deleryd,
2011;Dhillon and Liu, 2006) focus more on the direct costs and profitability. Quality can


16

express different things, two of the most common definitions are: The features of a product
that meet customer demand and Free from deficiencies (Juran, 1998). Regarding
maintenance, the definition of quality:
Free from deficiencies is perhaps the most fitting but it can also be argued that the
customer aspect is just as important in maintenance as in any other department. However,
the customer of maintenance might not be the consumer of the finished product, but
another department or company.
Dhillon and Liu (2006) separates maintenance and catogorize them as: preventive,
corrective and predictive maintenance. Preventive maintenance is often reffered to as
planned maintenance and is carried out regularly or after inspection in order to keep the
equipment in working condition (Dhillon and Liu, 2006). Corrective maintenance is done
to return the equipment to working condition after breakdown or after perceived
deficiencies (Dhillon and Liu, 2006). Lastly Dhillon and Liu (2006) describe predictive
maintenance as using technology to diagnose items’ or equipments condition during
operation. Predictive maintenance can also be the process of gathering information
about the state of the equipment (Niebel 1994). The information gathered is then used to
plan and schedule maintenance.
Preventive and predictive maintenance is closely related and are because of this often
treated in a similar way, which is also the case in the literature that have been used in this
report. According to Salonen and Deleryd (2011), preventive maintenance can be regarded
as value adding while corrective maintenance is regarded as waste. This relates to the fact
that facilities and machinery need regular maintenance to function in an optimal way.
However, stops due to breakdowns can relate to lack of preventive maintenance, human
error or other kinds of problems that can be avoided and hence are considered as waste.
More specifically the following model (Figure 3) can be used to categorize maintenance:


17

Figure 3 Cost of conformance/non conformance in relation to maintenance type (Ben Daya and
Duffuaa 1995)

Corrective maintenance is more costly than preventive since preventive can be planned and
therefore be executed at a preferred time and date (Campbell and Jardine 2001). Corrective
maintenance also implies that a company needs to quickly find material and personnel for
reparation which, according to Campbell och Jardine (2001), increases the cost. Campbell
and Jardine (2001) present a rule of thumb where corrective maintenance in general cost
50 % more than planned stops and breakdowns cost 200 % more than planned stops. The
cost aspect is a driving factor for producing companies to shift from corrective to
preventive maintenance. The ideal state is to only have preventive maintenance when
considering the numbers from Campbell and Jardine (2001), but as Salonen and Deleryd
(2011) shows in Figure 3 it is not always justified to do so. To create a well working
maintenance organization, both preventive and corrective is important (Dhillon and Liu
2006). Preventive
maintenance should be carried out to ensure a satisfying working condition while
corrective maintenance should handle random distributed errors and failures that are not
financially justified to prevent (Salonen and Deleryd 2011). Hence, both types of
maintenance are equally important parts to have in a sound maintenance organization.

3-

Customer satisfaction in maintenance service

Maintenance services is an important department in lift company as two thirds
from elevator and lift profits comes from maintenance services. Maintenance
services include all the services that take place after the lift has been installed.
Maintenance services are repair activities that include maintenance service and
other repairing; damage repair including spare part functions as well as all other
possible maintenance services. Nowadays by service it is meant creation of

intangible value and significance. Since the industrial product production has been
transferred to countries where salaries are significantly lower, service business has
become more significant for a large part of employees in the old industrial
countries. The society where we live today is a service society and most of the
employees and the work that is done are related to services. In today’s business life
the service innovations and developing new services is a process where customer
needs are linked to service providers’ resources. So, Customer satisfaction is an
important factor in the development of the maintenance process and customer
relationship. As Lift Company’s face-increasing competition, greater attention
continues to be placed on customer relationships and satisfied customers. Customer
satisfaction enables lift companies to differentiate themselves from their
competitors and create sustainable advantage. In order to measure customer
satisfaction in maintenance service, the main subjects must be identified. A
customer may be defined as the owner of the building, in simple terms, the
customer is the buyer of the product or service. In this paper, customer is considered
as a building owner, private house ( owner) or a building management team who
control all activities of building include lift operation.


18

4- Net promoter score (NPS)
Faced with competitive markets, companies are eager to focus their efforts on the
wishes and needs of the customers to retain old customers and to attract new ones.
While corporate communication directed at the customer is conducted by
advertisement, in store promotion, public relation efforts and a range of other
means, the flow of information and feedback from the customer to the company is
much more limited: for example, companies track customers’ behavior while
shopping or implement voluntary feedback system. Business consultant Fred
Reichheld (2003) proposed a single question as best and sufficient measure of

customer satisfaction. Customers are asked, ‘How likely is it that you would
recommend [brand or company X] to a friend or colleague?’, and they can respond
by choosing a number between 0 to 10, with 0 labeled ‘not at all likely’, 5 labeled
‘neutral’, and 10 labeled ‘extremely likely’. The responses to are then aggregated
and transformed into a single summary statistic, the Net-Promoter Score. Figure 4
to show the formula of NPS

Figure 4: Net Promoter Score formula
A company’s Net-Promoter Score is the difference between the proportion of
customers placing themselves at points 9 or 10 (called ‘promoters’) and the
proportion of customers placing themselves between 0 and 6 (called ‘detractors’).
Respondents on scale point 7 and 8 are called ‘passive’.


19

Figure 5: Frame of NPS

According to Reichheld and his collaborators the Net-Promoter question is all a
Company needs to ask in their customer satisfaction surveys. At most a follow-up
question should be used to elicit reasons for the selected response option
(Reichheld, 2003). Their conviction that likelihood to recommend is the best
measurement for businesses to understand the state of their customer relations is
quite strong: “an individual’s propensity for recommending a company to friends or
colleagues may be the most direct gauge of customer loyalty and ultimately,
financial success” (Satmetrix, 2004). The Net-Promoter question is the “ultimate
question” (Reichheld, 2003) and “the single most reliable indicator of acompany’s
ability to grow” (netpromoter.com, 2008).
Likelihood of recommending does fit well with concepts of custom satisfaction
and purchase behavior. Put simply, likelihood of recommendations leads to actual

recommendations, which leads to positive impressions in other potential customers
and ultimately to new purchases and growth in sales
The likelihood to recommend itself should be based on a positive attitude towards
the company. This attitude could be measured, for example, with a question on how
much the customer likes or dislikes the company and its products. The customer’s
past experiences with the company, exposure to communication in mass media such
as reviews and advertisement, and communication with other customers about the
company will primarily contribute to the construction of that attitude. Past
experience is reflected


20

in the satisfaction a customer feels in his or her interactions with the company. The
word of-mouth communication is reflected by how many recommendations are
given about a company and therefore is influenced by how many people report the
intention or likelihood of recommending the company and its products. To increase
sales, companies want to increase customer satisfaction, how much respondents like
their company, and
how many people are giving positive recommendations about their company when
talking to potential customers.
The customer-company interactions influence satisfaction, liking and the propensity
to give future recommendations. These three concepts are connected: if a customer
is satisfied he or she is more likely to give recommendations and probably increases
his or her liking of the company. Higher liking leads to more recommendations as
well. Higher liking and higher satisfaction turns directly into higher retention rates
for the company, but higher likelihood of recommendations would also measure the
amount of word-of-mouth promotion that might occur.
Reichheld (2006) describes the Net-Promoter score as a measure that both
reflects “the emotional and the rational dimensions” of the relationship between the

customer and the company. If liking and both satisfaction are precursors of the
likelihood of recommending, the question is whether they make any additional
contributions to increased sales beyond the measured likelihood of recommending
or whether likelihood of recommending is contributing something that is not
covered by asking simply about satisfaction and liking.
Likelihood of recommending might be a better measurement than simple
like/dislike questions or a measurement of satisfaction, because it asks the
respondent to make a commitment to future behavior. When a respondent gives
recommendations he or she is putting his or her own reputation as a trustworthy
source on the line. This commitment might even apply to the hypothetical measure
of likelihood of recommending (Reichheld, 2003). Therefore, respondents might
have higher incentives to give better, that is more valid and considerate, answers
than for inconsequential direct questions on attitude and satisfaction. Discussing
attitudes towards the business and the past experience with the business in terms of
recommendations also might be more natural than the abstract concept of
satisfaction, because of respondents regularly engage
in giving recommendations to other people as their everyday behavior.
Reichheld (2003) based his claims on initial research with data collected on
customers of 14 different companies across six industries. In 11 of those 14
companies he found that the Net-Promoter score performed better than other
measures of customers satisfaction in predicting actual purchase behavior on the
level of individual customers. Next, he and his collaborators conducted a large data
collection and investigated the relationship between growth indicators (growth in
revenue, growth in shipment, etc.) and aggregated Net-Promoter scores for different
companies. They found, across a variety of


21

industries, that the Net-Promoter score was a strong correlate with indicators of

growth(Satmetrix, 2004).

5-

Framework of customer satisfaction criterion in maintenance service
5.1 Customer oriented behavior

The conceptualization of customer orientation behavior is consistent. Customerorientation is the degree to which an organization or its employees focus their
efforts on understanding and satisfying customers. Brown, Mowen,
Donavan, and Licata (2007) defined that customer orientation behavior as a
tendency of employees to meet their customers¡ needs. Therefore, researchers have
defined customer orientation behavior as the extent to which frontline employees
try to satisfy their customer needs The intangible and interactive characteristics of
services means that employees behavior plays a key role on customer decision
making. Customer orientation behavior of frontline employees is important to create
long-term profit for service firms. In recent years, more and more companies have
invested remarkable resources to enhance customer orientation behavior of
employees. The emotional or affective responses of employees are often caused by
the nature of boundary spanning and it is important to study the factors that
influence customer orientation behavior of frontline employees. Previous researches
have indicated that emotional or affective responses of frontline employees, such as
job satisfaction and job stress, influenced their customer orientation behavior. The
customer orientation behavior of employees relies on the efforts that frontline
employees engage in while at work. Since frontline employees are emotional labors,
the researchers also discuss the roles of emotional intelligence.
5.2 Promptness in problem fixing
In order to achieve customer satisfaction, organizations must be able to satisfy
their customers needs and wants through prompt service delivery and hence, good
quality service (La Barbera and Mazursky, 1983). Customers become endeared to a
service provider or company due to many factors including the promptness with

which employees receive and serve clients - mindful of the fact that customers
increasingly generate more profits for a company by doing business with that same
company for a long time (Kumar and Menakshi, 2007). Similarly, no business or
organization can succeed without building customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Likewise, no person can make a good living without meeting the needs of his or her
customers. That is what people do in organisations: they serve others and succeed
through this (Timm, 2008).
According to Kumar and Menakshi (2007), prompt service delivery and
resulting customer satisfaction do not exist in a vacuum. Since the provision of a


22

service involves a face-to-face human contact, it is important that the frontline
employees have the time, the tools, the training, the support, and the backing and
encouragement not only to satisfy the customer then but to do it in a way that makes
the customer come back again and again - customer loyalty. Poor frontline
performance has huge adverse impact on customer satisfaction and probably
nothing can assuage a customer who has been treated shabbily by a frontline staff.
The work systems, policies, and procedures of the organization

should empower the frontline staff to do whatever is possible to please the
customer; hence, top- management vision is important
5.3 Operation reliability/ product quality
Product quality is product features matched with 8 dimensions namely:
performance, features, conformance, reliability, durability, serviceability,
aesthetics, and customer-perceived quality. Briefly, performance is the products
primary operating characteristic, features is mean to the additional features for the
product, conformance is representing the extent in which the product‘s design and
also its operating features met the established standards, reliability specifies the

probability that the product will be operating properly over a specific period of
time under the stated condition of used, durability is the means of the overall
amount of the consumers get to use the product before the product physically
deteriorates or until it need to be replaced, serviceability is referring to the speed,
competency, and courtesy if repairs, aesthetics is how the product appeal to the
five sense and lastly customerperceived quality indicates the customer s perception
of a product s quality, which it basically on reputation of the firm (Garvin, 1988).
Traditionally, quality has been defined in four categories namely excellence, value
for money, conformity to requirements and also meeting or exceed customers
requirements (Reeves and Bednar, 1994). A product based approach is used in
focusing on the performance, features and durability, user-based approach used in
focusing on aesthetics and perceived quality, and lastly manufacturing approach is
used in focusing on conformance and reliability (Garvin, 1984).
Product-based approach is based on its economical roots which the
differences of the elements or attributes infatuated by the product are being
considered as reflecting to the differences in quality (Garvin, 1984). The user-based
approach is where quality of products and services meets or surpasses customers
expectation. Quality was of two parts namely, the quality of design and also the
quality of conformance (Juran, 1951). Providing satisfaction to customers by the


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design the products to the needs of customer is referred to the “quality of design”
(Juran, 1974). In manufacturing- based approach has its origins from operation and
production management; hence it is called as conformance to specification. The
degree of the product meets certain standard designation it is called as quality of
conformance which it has internal focus on the contrary of external focus of the
user-based approached and quality is being reflected in outcome of engineering and
also manufacturing processes (Crosby, 1979). Lastly, value-based approached

compared quality towards the performance at the satisfactory price or conformance
at the affordable price which consumer uses price as the measurement to quality
(Feigenbaum, 1951). Besides that, quality set at a high level off product or services,
it expand reputation, increase customer retention, attracting new customer from the
word of mouth, and also increasing the financial performance as well ask
profitability (Julian and Ramaseshan, 1994; Zeithaml,1996). In value based
approach, quality is being defined as the product or services meet the consumers
need and wants or expectation. Quality of design and quality of conformance is the
origin of quality (Juran, 1951). The quality of design is used in addressing product
quality to the design which designated and met consumers needs (Juran 1974).
Meanwhile, in manufacturing approach conformance in the product
Meanwhile, in manufacturing approach conformance in the product meets
the formulated standards or specifications (Crosby, 1979). Based on value
approached, product quality is been define as the have fair relations between
quality with performance at an acceptable or affordable price. Always product
quality is being thought to contribute to the expansion of competitive advantage
whereas the product is to be designed and also manufactured to achieve customer
requirements in enhancing the product performance (Benson et al., 1991; Flynn et
al., 1994). Product attributes has become products quality s view where in
operations management, multiple dimension of quality has been determine which it
resulted in the fitness usage of the product which means does the product do as it
supposed to do and does the features meets customer s needs, reliability of the
product which means to what level the product is off from insufficiency
(Parasuranaman et al., 1988).
5.4 Price
Price is a factor that is playing neither an important role in affecting the
distribution of newly product nor services in the market. Hence, setting a price for
a new product in the market is difficult (Foxall, 1984).
Price is one of the element in marketing mix, which it is very plays a very
heavy role because marketers uses price as communication medium with customers

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where the message is being clearly perceived by customer as what it meant to the
marketers (Dickson and Sawyer, 1990; Monroe and Lee, 1999). A product price is
one of the main decision methods for both customer and also retailers as now the
market is very competitive, price has made its position and role in differentiate in
designing marketing and business strategies. Price resulted to be the main point for
customer to judge what is offered in the market (Monroe, 2003; Oliver, 1997). Price
is also a main factor in transaction relationship where it is one of the medium used
by marketers to counter the market, either in attracting or in retaining customer or
as a element in competing with competitors (Summerour, 2000; Patton, 2002; Beck,
2000). In making a reasonable and affordable price for a product in depth
information from what does a customer perceive is needed (Munnukka, 2005).
Consumers center of concentration in developing the distinctive of price and the
cognitive is the element on which the price information to be elaborated and kept
(Xia, 200s5). Price does not only as an element of financial sacrifice but as well as a
determination of product quality (Monroe, 2003).
Customer satisfaction resulted as an evaluation which is being reflected after
product or services usage. Therefore, customer satisfaction is evaluated by positive
perception perceived which have similarity to the meaning of customer value
package that are from price, product quality, service quality, innovation and
corporate image (Fredericks and Salters, 1995) Price is one of the elements in
measuring customer satisfaction where price or value is a similar in considering it
is a important factor in influencing and assisting in building up customer
satisfaction (Getty and Thompson, 1994).
5.5 Spare part availability
Spare parts availability plays an important role in achieving the desired plant
availability at an optimum cost. Presently, the industries are going for capital

intensive, mass production oriented and sophisticated technology. The downtime
for such plant and machinery is prohibitively expensive. It has been observed in
many industries that the non-availability of spare parts, as and when required for
repairs, contributes to as much as 50% of the total down time. Also, the cost of
spare parts is more than 50% of the total maintenance cost in the industry. It is a
paradox to note that the maintenance department is complaining of the nonavailability of the spare parts to meet their requirement and finance department is
facing the problem of increasing locked up capital in spare parts inventory. This
amply signifies the vital importance of spare parts management in any
organization.