Service branding is a subject that has been excluded from the traditional branding theory. Our main purpose with this paper is to distinguish what characterizes service branding. To do this, we have looked in to both service marketing theory as well as branding theory. We have also looked at the existing theory concerning service branding. Six qualitative interviews have been performed to explain what characterizes service branding.

As self-service technologies become more common in service provisions, a deeper understanding is needed of how customer satisfaction is affected by automated service encounters. Drawing from theories of customer satisfaction, human interaction, and the dynamics of complex service provisions, the differences between automated and interpersonal service encounters in the initial part of a service provision are examined in terms of customers? evaluation of the service encounter itself, overall satisfaction, as well as the service encounter?s impact on global evaluations and evaluations of other non-dependant service encounters. The study was performed on people travelling by air on Swedish domestic routes. Passengers were asked to evaluate the airline?s performance on different attributes of the air travel they had undertaken, as well as to form an overall evaluation of the service.

This paper examines the relationship between the experienced quality in the offering of a brand, emotional attachment and consumer commitment. The study aim to explore several dimensions of the experienced quality in the offering of a brand. Further we examine two conceptualizations of emotional attachment - Brand Attachment and Brand Love - and intend to declare the two of being two separate phenomena. We then conduct a relationship-based analysis wherein the mediating ability of Brand Attachment and Brand Love, between the experienced quality in the offering of a brand and consumer commitment, is examined. Therefore we conduct a focused quantitative study, wherein 171 customers of the fashion retailer H&M have responded to a comprehensive survey both online and in-store, to examine this fun-damental relationship and its components.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how companies offering tailor made products on the internet, can work with their marketing and their customer relationships. The study will answer the purpose from a service management perspective and there will also be presented theories from an Electronic Commerce perspective.The starting point for this study was the qualitative method. The essay builds its empirical material from interviews with knowledgeable persons in the subject and the owner of the company whose products are tailor made and sold on the internet. It was conducted seven interviews, four of which were face-to-face, two conducted by mail and finally there was made a telephone interview.Conclusions have been drawn based on the empirical material and theory. The study has been able to identify three concepts that are central to this type of product: Site-building, customer involvement and promotion & relationship management..

Every business is subject to service failures. The process of correcting these failures and turning disappointed customers back into happy ones is called service recovery. This is particularly important in the hotel business, where there are many moments of truth where customers may become dissatisfied. To further complicate things, service recovery is a process where you may have to correct errors of others - people beyond your control. The research field is relatively new and there are no turn-key solutions as to how to systematically work with service recovery.

The aim with this study is to identify and discuss discourses in public service policy documents to clarify that public service policy is political and not self-evident. The study's theoretical as well as methodological starting point is the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, which ontological position is that all meaning is constructed by discourses. In the studied material, two discourses have been identified in policy concerning the content in public service media. The responsibility-discourse construct meanings of what content the policy wants to see in public service media and in the quality-discourse meanings of how the content should be is constructed. Public service policy is consistent over the period that has been studied and the study shows that there is consensus in the parliament about the regulation of the content in public service media.

Executive summary This master thesis was originally based on a specific assignment given to the authors from ABB Full Service, a unit specializing in providing maintenance outsourcing: ?How can ABB Full Service expand its offering of providing fundamental maintenance by seamlessly incorporating the business concept with competencies and solutions from other ABB divisions?? The academic issue was developed throughout the thesis, resulting in the following formulation: ?From an organizational perspective; how can service providers bring continuous added value to intra-organizational outsourcing partnerships?? Many of the key findings of this thesis are reflected in the issue. The term intra-organizational outsourcing is a proposed addition to the terminology in the academic discourse on outsourcing. The definition of the term is: ? Where an organization outsources a business process interlinked with the physical operations, requiring the service provider to take over a preexisting unit and its employees.This is an accurate description of the form of outsourcing that ABB Full Service is engaged in.

The increased specialisation and complexity in products and services has created the need for Swedish companies to focus more on their core businesses. This has resulted in them opting to buy services and products that lie outside of their core business from consultancy businesses or other types of suppliers. When companies describe their offers in internal and external marketing it is done often in terms of company or service attributes that are not based on customer value or offered value for the customer. The reason for this is that companies have not adapted their services to the different needs of their customers. As a result of this, they run the risk of offering the same services as their competitors and communicate values that the customers either do not understand or experience as value adding.

The purpose of this thesis is to compare if a charter company's attitude and vision of service can be reconciled with the attitudes and visions that the customers have in the same area. In order to carry out the study a qualitative approach is used. The data has been collected by interviews, focus groups and observations. The framework is theories on the subject of customer satisfaction, quality of service at customer meetings, Self-Service technologies, quality assurance and gap in service.The study has concluded that the approach to service is relatively equal between the company and customers, but the future visions differ. Focus group participants have been thinking bigger and further into the future, while the company focuses more on specific functions.

Since companies have realised the importance of customer loyalty and since the service sector has gained higher significance in recent years, we found it interesting to study what leads to customer loyalty in service companies. The theories we have chosen to consider are customer loyalty, service quality, service guarantees, affinity marketing, loyalty programmes and customer clubs, the customer in focus and other factors that influences customer loyalty. To find out how service companies are working with cus- tomer loyalty, we have conducted a case study within three service companies. Our findings are that customer loyalty has a significant importance for the companies we studied. Quality and personnel were the factors we found had the greatest impact in service companies concerning customer loyalty.

The aim of this thesis is to describe how service companies through adjustment of the customer?s zone of tolerance can influence customer?s perception of the service during the processes of service delivery and create customer satisfaction. The method used was case study approach utilizing personal interviews, which were conducted at two service companies. The study showed that the aspects of the service that have greatest importance for the customer?s assessment of the service and customer satisfaction among others are personal treatment and that personel behave in the way that makes the customer feel itself taken good care of and unique.

The use of subscription services directed towards customers has become a common phenomenon in a vast number of different industries. We have noticed a clear trend of new businesses emerging solely offering subscriptions, and existing companies altering sales of their products to become parts of subscriptions. But research has not caught up with this trend yet, especially regarding why it occurs and how it affects existing businesses internally. The purpose of this study is to examine the driving forces for change and examine how existing businesses have to change parts of their business models to offer subscription services. The premise of this study has been Vargo & Luschs (2004) Service Dominant Logic with their foundational premises and Business Model Canvas by Osterwalder et.

Title: The impact of service quality on customer loyalty - when a service changes from being free to become surcharged Authors: Carl Johan Olsson, Marcus Johansson and Victor Carlsson Supervisor: Hans LundbergCourse: Bachelor thesis in business administration, 15 Credits (15 ECTS) Keywords: Service quality, customer loyalty, price movementPurposeThe purpose of this essay is to increase the understanding if the perceived quality by the service users correlates with a future loyalty to a service when it cease from being free, to become charged.? Does the perceived quality of a service by the service users affect a future loyalty to a service, when it cease from being free, to become charged?MethodIn this essay we have chosen to implement a quantitative research method based on a survey. This choice was made in order to reach a sufficient large amount of service users and empirical data to answer our problem.ConclusionsAccording to the theory, customer satisfaction can be expressed through a comparison between customer?s expectations and the experience of using a service, and there are also positive correlations between service quality and customer satisfaction. Additionally, loyalty is based on service quality and customer satisfaction.

The mobile jukebox is an idea for a new kind of smartphone application that would allow users to dictate the music playing at various establishments. The mobile nature of the innovation allows for the possibility of a more ubiquitous service. Conducting a quantitative as well a qualitative study, the authors have found significant interest in this innovation service among potential users and potential distributors of the service. Furthermore, it is shown what aspects are important for decision makers to make a decision on whether to integrate the service into the operation of potential distributors of the service.  .

The increased specialisation and complexity in products and services has created the need for Swedish companies to focus more on their core businesses. This has resulted in them opting to buy services and products that lie outside of their core business from consultancy businesses or other types of suppliers. When companies describe their offers in internal and external marketing it is done often in terms of company or service attributes that are not based on customer value or offered value for the customer. The reason for this is that companies have not adapted their services to the different needs of their customers. As a result of this, they run the risk of offering the same services as their competitors and communicate values that the customers either do not understand or experience as value adding. By using the theory on the data collection from the case company we have an understanding and shown how the customer values can be developed from a service company?s internal and external prerequisites and competitive advantages.