AN ASSESSMENT OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE COURIER SERVICE INDUSTRY
Introduction
The world of work and organization has become increasingly demanding and turbulent. There are eight major challenges currently facing organizations. These are globalization, responsiveness to customers, increasing revenue and decreasing costs, building organizational capability, change and transformation, implementing technology, attracting and developing human capital, and ensuring fundamental and long-lasting change. In courier industry, LBC, FedEx, DHL and TNT are offering different add on services to enhance their competitive advantage. Unlike before majority of courier businesses are now offering services over the internet through their websites. Actually, the courier businesses should promised to offer prestige service to manage their customers’ need effectively. With this, this research tends to evaluate the current service quality offered by the courier businesses to attain and meet special needs of their customers/clients.
Background of the Study
In all countries around the globe, courier and express services are of vital importance to the efficiency and growth of the economy. With regards to the geographical position of a country, fast and effective delivery services are essential for their businesses involved in international trade. Despite the recent global economic slowdown, the courier and express industry shows competitive growth. In addition, since then the courier services sector has outperformed the express logistics sector in terms of turnover growth (Frost, 2006). The demand for courier and express services is derived from businesses in the manufacturing and services industries. Therefore, the economic performance of these industries strongly affects the success of the courier and express industry. Advances in technology and the increasing use of e-commerce, combined with the courier and express sector’s commitment to investing in IT, and have cushioned the industry from the worst effects of the recent global slowdown (Frost, 2006).
This is because it has been able to offer added-value services and retain key customers at the top end of the courier and logistics market. The courier services sector has been benefiting from the recent growth in demand for home deliveries generated from Internet retail sales. Rising demand for air courier services to developing economies has also boosted the sector in recent years.
However, increased security measures for air freight have increased costs for the sector’s air freight operations. The express logistics sector, through its added-value services, has fared better than the road freight industry. Nonetheless, a raft of government measures to tackle environmental pollution and congestion have increased costs for the, largely road-based, express logistics sector.
In the short to medium term, the courier and express industry is likely to grow steadily, in line with the rest of the country’s economy. Increasing use of Internet shopping services is likely to boost demand for home deliveries. However, problems of congestion on the roads and in the skies, along with the range of new environmental controls currently being introduced for road transport, are likely to create extra costs for the industry.
Aims and Objectives of the Study
While the research questions only refer to the information that the researcher intended to question. The objectives, however, will focus on the necessary problems and objectives that should be clarified in order to gather the intended information and also be able to derive specific information that are not limited by the previous questions. With these objectives, the study will be able to attain the necessary information that can help derive further conclusions and proper recommendations. The study intends to evaluate the customer satisfaction and service quality in selected courier businesses around the globe. The study intends to get the appropriate data to help in making the proper assessment. There are other aims and objectives of the study. This includes
Methodology
The study shall use survey using questionnaires to gather pertinent data (Creswell, 1994). The questionnaire will be made in such a way that the selected courier businesses clients will spend less time in answering it. Moreover, the study shall also use previous studies and compare it to its existing data in order to provide conclusions and competent recommendations. Survey can be done either by personal survey, telephone survey, self administered questionnaire, mailed questionnaire, and email questionnaire.
The study will initially gather information that will serve as introductory part of the study. These kind of information helps the reader what the study is about, what it intends to do and what will be its result. The study will then gather related literature to prove the need for conducting the study. The literature review can help in determining what are the studies already done, what study needs to be corrected. The study will then determine the methods and means for data to be gathered and analyzed. In this part the data is being readied to be gathered and analyzed but the method to gather it will first be determined. The next part of the study is gathering, presenting and interpreting the data. In this part the validity of the hypothesis and ideas about the study will be proven. The last part of the study will be the part where conclusions and recommendations will be stated. In this part final statement about the study will be done.
References
Creswell, JW 1994, Research design: qualitative and quantitative approaches, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.
Frost, M 2006, Expand and Deliver, Daily Express, April 19,2006
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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