Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards vat cach port`s service quality

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY

STUDENT NAME: ĐẶNG TUYẾT MAI

DISSERTATION
GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS

SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT’S SERVICE QUALITY

HAI PHONG – 2015


MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY

STUDENT NAME: ĐẶNG TUYẾT MAI
CLASS: GMA02

DISSERTATION
GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS

SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT’S SERVICE QUALITY

Supervisor:

Vu Thi Thu Hang

Division:

Global Studies and Maritime Affairs

Faculty:

Economics

HAI PHONG – 2015


Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

PREFACE
The work outlined in this dissertation was carried out at Vat Cach port, where
I undertook in internship, over the period from August 2015 to the end of
September 2015.
I declare that this report is my own unaided work. It has not been
submitted before.
If violated, I am solely responsible for and bear the punishments of the
Institution and University.

Student Name and Signature

Đặng Tuyết Mai

Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02

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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This internship report would not be completed without the help and
cooperation of the following people. First of all, I would like to express my sincere
appreciation and gratitude to Ms. Vũ Thị Thu Hằng andMr. Vũ Lê Huy for the
guidelines given, which were very helpful for me to understand and prepare the
structure of the report.
And I would like to thank all staffs of Vat Cach Port joint stock companywho
gave me necessary help, support and information to complete this report
successfully.

Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02

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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ......................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................... ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... v

LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ vi
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1
The importance of research ...................................................................................... 1
Target and research scope ........................................................................................ 2
Methodology ............................................................................................................ 2
Research results ....................................................................................................... 2
Layout of the dissertation......................................................................................... 2
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 4
1.1.Service quality and Port service quality ................................................................ 4
1.2.1. Service quality ............................................................................................... 4
1.2.2. Port service quality ........................................................................................ 4
1.2.Customer satisfaction ............................................................................................ 5
1.3.Relation between customer satisfaction and port service quality.......................... 6
1.4.RATER model ....................................................................................................... 7
1.5.Important - Performance matrix .......................................................................... 10
CHAPTER 2: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT‟S
SERVICE QUALITY .................................................................................................... 12
2.1. Introduction about Vat Cach Joint stock company ............................................ 12
2.1.1. General information .................................................................................... 12
2.1.2. Main services ............................................................................................... 13
2.1.3. Facility ......................................................................................................... 13
2.1.4. Organizational structure of Vat Cach Port .................................................. 15
2.2. Evaluation of Customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality .. 17
2.2.1. Research method ......................................................................................... 17
2.2.2. Analysis of customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality 20

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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT‟S SERVICE QUALITY ........................................... 28
3.1.Identifying and analyzing prioritized factors that need to be improved.............. 28
3.1.1.Factor REL3: “The port always provide service in a consistent manner” ... 29
3.1.2.Factor REL5: “The port always produces error-free invoice and related
documents” 29
3.1.3.Factor A3: “The staff uses the technology quickly and skilfully” ............... 29
3.1.4.Factor RES2: “The port always provides satisfactory answers towards any
comments” 31
3.2.Suggestions to improve the service qualityofVat Cach Port ............................... 31
3.2.1.Factor REL3: “The port always provides service in a consistent manner” .. 31
3.2.2.Factor REL5: “The port always produces error-free invoice and related
documents” 32
3.2.3.Factor A3: “The staff use the technology quickly and skilfully” ................. 32
3.2.4.Factor RES2: “The port always provide satisfactory answers towards any
comments” 33
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 34
REFERENCE ................................................................................................................ 35
APPENDIX – QUESTIONNAIRES ............................................................................. 37

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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Vat Cach port's wharf system ...............................................................13
Table 2. Quay system ...........................................................................................14
Table 3. The number of equipment of Vat Cach Port JSC ................................ 14
Table 4. List of variables .....................................................................................18
Table 5. Summary of the customers’ expectation score .....................................20
Table 6. Summary of the customers’ perception score ......................................23
Table 7. Summary of gap score between expectation and perception ...............25

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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Importance-Performance Matrix ........................................................11
Figure 2. Vat Cach JSC headquarter .................................................................12
Figure 3. Organizational Structure of Vat Cach Port JSC ................................ 15
Figure 4 . Distribution of the expectation score of these variables ....................22
Figure 5. Distribution of the perception score of these variables ......................25
Figure 6. Importance-Performance matrix of individual variables ..................28

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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

INTRODUCTION
 The importance of research
It goes without saying that seaports play a vital role in the regional and
national economy. They are not only the places of loading/unloading cargoes
onto/from vessels but also the distribution centers where value-added services take
place. With the advantage of locating near the international maritime route,
maritime transportation plays a crucial role in foreign cargo trading of Vietnam. In
recent years, because of the Government‟s open policies as well as the high growth
rate of national economy, the amount of cargoes traded through ports in Vietnam
has increased dramatically. The number of ships docking at Vietnamese ports also
rose, leading to the high demand for services supporting for those ships. Although
the volume of exporting and importing cargoes through Vietnamese ports increased
rapidly, especially containerized cargoes, majority of Vietnamese ports are still
considered not to utilize their capacity. The location of port, quality of equipment
and facility as well as the production management in port and transportation are the
elements causing the delay of ships docking at Vietnamese ports, reducing cargo
handling capacity, hence reducing the attraction of Vietnamese ports to ships from
outside. In addition, Vietnamese ports also reveal several drawbacks, namely the
outdated equipment and facility which have been used for years without being
invested to upgrade or improve. Consequently, those equipment and facility are
easy to be broken and cost a long time for repairing. Other related factors can be
named as the relatively high price and staff with insufficient ability in handling
cargoes, causing loss or damage to cargoes and low level of satisfaction among
customers.
During the time doing internship at Vat Cach Port Join Stock Company, by
interview and through self-observation, I noticed that the company is well aware of
the importance to improve service quality in order to acquire higher satisfactory
level among their customers. However, there has not been any researches on this
fields before. Therefore I decided to choose this issue of improving customer

satisfaction towards Vat Cach Port‟s service quality to be my topic for dissertation.
Contemporarily, there have already been a number of researches looking into
topics such as, the importance of seaports in general or the measurement of port
efficiency. However, research on the impacts of port service quality‟s constituents
on customer satisfaction has not yet been well-investigated. Therefore, researches
on port service quality in general and customer satisfaction towards port service
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Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality

quality in particular when conducted are significant in both theory as well as
practice.
 Target and research scope
Target of dissertation: This paper will assess the level of customer satisfaction
towards Vat Cach Port‟s service quality and offer some suggestions to improve the
situation.
Scope of dissertation: This paper focuses only on the port service in Vat Cach
Port, Haiphong city and uses data in 2015.
 Methodology
This report uses the RATER Model to create the list of variables and evaluate
the quality of the service. After that, an I-P matrix will be used to determine which
factors should be prioritized for improvement.
The data used in this paper was collected from both secondary data and
primary data.
 Secondary data includes the information and figures provided by Vat Cach
Port.
 Primary data includes the assessments through the surveys completed by Vat

Cach Port‟s customers for the port service quality.
 Research results
The results of the analysis carried out showed that the services provided by
Vat Cach Joint Stock Company has not met the expectation from their customers as
the expectation score exceeded perception score. And from the I-P matrix, there are
4 prioritized factors for improvement.
 Layout of the dissertation
Chapter 1: Introduction about Vat Cach port
Chapter 2: Methodology
Chapter 3: Evaluation and suggestions to improve Vat Cach port‟s service
quality

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