The characteristic of services as an effort carried out in a "moment of truth" implies a risk for failures. This study sheds new light on how alternative offerings that customers are initially exposed to can affect satisfaction and loyalty in the service failure and recovery context. More specifically, two aspects of the initial offering are studied: promised general service quality and the presence of a promise about a specific product attribute. Based on a presentation of the main theoretical perspectives, hypotheses are formulated and a scenario-based experiment in a hotel setting is designed to explore these. The results indicate that a higher level of promised service quality can result in more positive evaluations of satisfaction and stronger word-of-mouth intentions than for a lower level of promised service quality.

Vår sociologiska studie är baserad på intervjuer och en enkätundersökning. Vårt syfte är att öka allmänhetens förståelse för arbetsförmedlares yrkessituation. Vi intervjuade både arbetsförmedlare och arbetssökande med utgångspunkt att undersöka hur relationen dem emellan påverkas av lagar och regler. Vi har använt oss av kvalitativ metod då det är en förutsättning för att besvara vår problemformulering. Vi har även ett kvantitativt inslag i form av enkäter för att få bredd och generaliserbarhet. Vi har analyserat vårt resultat utifrån sociologiska teorier.

Problem: The corrugated board industry is highly affected by customer uncertainty, various demands and short delivery times. In combination with a complex multi-step production process managers have to be able to identify bottle-necks and gain knowledge and understanding of how different changes in process will affect the production output. <br/><br/>Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is twofold, (1) to examine applicability of complexity theory through agent-based modelling on a production process (2) to identify improvement areas in order to increase the production output at SKS production site in Eslöv, by modelling and simulating the production process through an agent-based model. <br/><br/>Method: The chosen method of this study is a combination of a case study and a complex system approach. The empirical data was collected through interviews, observation and document studies which were analysed through an agent-based simulation model.

Relationsmarknadsföring består av att antingen skapa, upprätthålla eller avsluta relationer gentemot företagets kunder. Betydelsen av att upprätthålla relationer med befintliga kunder har ökat under de senaste åren, mestadels på grund av en ökad global konkurrens. Frågan är då hur ett företag upprätthåller relationen med kunden, när det väljer eller tvingas avveckla en distributionskanal vilket begränsar möjligheten till fysisk närvaro gentemot kunden. Denna uppsats syftar därmed till att utreda hur ett företag kan bibehålla kundrelationen när den fysiska kontakten gentemot kunden begränsas. I syfte att undersöka detta utfördes två fallstudier på Scandinavian Airlines System, SAS och Zytt.

This report summarize a simple and efficient way to convert 2D into 3D designs. It explains the benefits of a 3D design compared with 2D, and how those benefits may be used.It will also give the reader a presentation of the company Clean Air Technologies, which for the most part constructs cleaning facilities for power plants. How to create 3D-libraries for some of those facilities will be introduced in this composition.The collaboration with Clean Air Technologies has resulted in several 3D animated movies and rendered images. This has increased the quality of the companies offer presentations, which has made it easier for the prospective customer to get an improved overall image of the power plant design..

This paper sets out to investigate how companies can create advertisement that focus not only on selling but also on entertainment. The research is based on seven TV-commercials produced by the Swedish food chain ICA. The commercials were analyzed according to the methods of discourse analysis, semiotic analysis and rhetorical analysis. Furthermore, the research compares the analysis made with the thoughts and ideas of Tobias Karlsson, Head of marketing and communications development at ICA to find out how the comprehension of the commercials correlate with the original intentions made by the company.The study shows that ICA creates a commercial that contains the perfect mix of rhetorical approaches, communication strategies and entertainment mixed with gravity. The study also shows that ICA fails with its primary goal which is to sell selected products; however, by producing the entertaining commercials, they manage to strengthen their brand.

Background: The real estate market has previously been subsidized by the government. The construction has been characterized by standardization and large scale complex. In the current situation there are other conditions on the real estate market, subsidies do not occur at the same degree and the market is more competitive. Customer influence has also changed. Today the customers want to customize their apartment by personal needs and lifestyle.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security. In order to study usability, a test group of ten persons have been used to evaluate the usability of the system.

Background: The real estate market has previously been subsidized by the government. The construction has been characterized by standardization and large scale complex. In the current situation there are other conditions on the real estate market, subsidies do not occur at the same degree and the market is more competitive. Customer influence has also changed. Today the customers want to customize their apartment by personal needs and lifestyle.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how health care providers, working at care facilities providing maintenance treatment programs for opiate dependence, perceive and manage the legal framework governing the treatment. The study is limited to a few particular rules within this framework which over the recent decade have been the subject matter of debate regarding i.a. their alleged lack of relation to scientific research and their frequently disastrous implications for program participants. The empirical material consists of interviews with five respondents working at four different care facilities and has been analyzed by using Lipskys theory on street-level bureaucrats as policymaking agents. The results of the study show that the rules are looked upon and dealt with in a liberal fashion and that the primary loyalty of the maintenance treatment staff is clearly directed towards promoting the well-being of their patients and helping them reach their treatment goals rather than strictly following the rules..

In my work I have received a lot of concrete advice about improving the cooperation between landscape architects and contractors. Here is a list of suggestions from both cathegories: Landscape architect's advice: ? Be humble, show respect. ? A practical approach makes cooperation easier. ? Call together a startup meeting with all the consultants and builders. ? Establish a network of contacts with serious contractors whom you can recommend to customers. ? Don't hesitate to ask the contractor for advice; they often have lots of useful knowledge. ? It is important to have clearly written and thoroughly worked out documentation. ? Never let a newly graduated landscape architect visit the buiding site without the company of an experienced colleague.

Our purpose with this research is to highlight that there is a scope for increased value creation in the experience room during concerts, and how value-enhancing strategies can be a competitive advantage for different venues. In our investigation of this we have worded the following research question: How is the perceived customer value affected during a concert in the experience room and its physical environment? With the background in this question we have identified three key concepts that we believe are the influence of the total concert experience which are; sensory experiences, interaction and identity. From these concepts we have drafted a number of propositions to test the reality by our empirical data collection. .

Den här studien demonstrerar vilka effekter en säljares kompetens, serviceprestation och etiska beteende har på relationskvaliteten till kunder inom fastighetsmäklarbranschen, samt vilka effekter ett företagets rykte och prestation har på relationskvaliteten till kunder i fastighetsmäklarbranschen. Undersökningen genomförs för att få en förståelse för hur relationerna fördelar sig på företagen och försäljarna. Med en kvalitativ metod har undersökningen gjorts i form av intervjuer, med tio stycken kunder som har sålt deras bostäder inom de senaste två åren. Resultatet visade att kunderna har starkare relation till fastighetsmäklarna än till företagen. De flesta kunderna har inte upplevt någon relation alls till företagen, när kunderna står inför att sälja sin bostad, väljer de oftast fastighetsmäklaren oberoende av vilket företag dessa arbetar för.

Background: Change factors have appeared in advertising and customer understanding has grown among companies, which have led to important competitive advantages. Advertising agencies are not the only ones benefiting from this expertise anymore, but companies are starting to thus take clients from advertising agencies. They are also taking intermediaries, such as production, over more and more jobs from advertising agencies. This has led to an even tougher competition in the market and that advertising agencies are losing their jobs. The increased competition in the market, has also led many companies choosing to change its advertising agency, to think in new and changing strategies in the enterprise.

This essay has been made on behalf of the co-operative society Mäster Grön, which is selling ornamental plants to retailers in Sweden. The aim of this study has been to find out what added value Mäster Grön gets from their co-branding with the Swedish Seal of quality. The main topic of discussion was; how much value added does this co-branding give to Mäster Gröns pot plants? Are there differences from a customer point of view in value added between a garden center and a retail store? How much weight does the costumer put on the branding when buying a plant? Does the customer know what the values of Mäster Grön and Swedish Seal of quality mean? Two questions of lesser worth were asked to the consumers about what they thought about the protective plastic around the plant, and if they were interested in getting more information about the origin as well as the method of production of the plant. The study was divided into two parts, one in which customers were observed and one where the customers answered a survey.