International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR) eISSN: 2710-6276 | Vol. 4 No. 2 [June 2022]
Journal website: http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijssr
THE STUDY OF CUSTOMERS’ SATISFACTIONS TOWARD SERVICES AT SAMARAHAN DISTRICT COUNCIL
Gloria Panit1*, Mohd Rashidee Alwi2, Noraini Sa’ait3 and Awang Izhad Firdaus Awang Zaidi4
1 2 3 4 Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Cawangan Sarawak, MALAYSIA
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Article Information:
Article history:
Received date : 2 June 2022 Revised date : 6 June 2022 Accepted date : 7 June 2022 Published date : 15 June 2022 To cite this document:
Panit, G., Alwi, M. R., Sa’ait, N., &
Awang Zaidi, A. I. F. (2022).THE STUDY OF CUSTOMERS’
SATISFACTIONS TOWARD SERVICES AT SAMARAHAN DISTRICT COUNCIL. International Journal of Social Science Research, 4(2), 108-120.
Abstract: Local government is the main elements that pertinently work in the hierarchy of Malaysia government. In Malaysia, there are three branches of government bodies which include Federal, State, and Local Authorities. The position of local government or authorities in Malaysia is stated in Federal Constitution.
Here, local authorities have wide power to control the local authorities and to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness. Rapid development in Samarahan in this recent year in term of increase in population and housing development has become a major challenge of local authority. Fast pace is changing in business environment, event, house development, demographic and others in Malaysia has made the local authorities the need to improve their role, economies, environment and quality of life of the residents in local communities.
The importance of customer satisfaction and services is growing all the time in the private and public organization. The main objectives of this study were to find out the level of customers satisfaction and services in Samarahan District Council Office, and the possible aspects for improvements. Using SERVQUAL instrument, this study was able to help the public organization identify important areas for improvement in its service delivery. Therefore, based on the findings revealed that employees and customers did not have significant differences in opinions in terms of the gaps between their perceptions and expectations of the council. This study was therefore able to highlight how important it is for an organization, be it a public sector organization, to conduct a survey and consider the opinions of its customers and its identifying areas for service quality improvements.
1. Introduction
Local government is the main elements that pertinently work in the hierarchy of Malaysia government. In Malaysia, there are three branches of government bodies which include Federal, State, and Local Authorities. The position of local government or authorities in Malaysia is stated in Federal Constitution. Here, local authorities have wide power to control the local authorities and to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness. Rapid development in Samarahan in this recent year in term of increase in population and housing development has become a major challenge of local authority. Fast pace is changing in business environment, event, house development, demographic and others in Malaysia has made the local authorities the need to improve their role, economies, environment and quality of life of the residents in local communities (Tajuddin, 2013).
The importance of customer satisfaction and services is growing all the time in the private and public organization. Many researches have been made to find out the effect the customer satisfaction and services have in the productivity of the organization. This paper is about the customer satisfaction and services of the departments in Majlis Daerah Samarahan, Sarawak.
The purpose of the study is to find out which factors could be improved in Majlis Daerah Samarahan and how to make customer enjoy the service contribute by all of the departments.
The main objectives were to find out the level of customers satisfaction and services in Majlis Daerah Samarahan, and the possible aspects for improvements.
1.1 Background of Samarahan District Council
Samarahan District Council was established in early 27 December 1984 under the Local Government Act 1976 that are the lowest level in the system of government in Malaysia.
Chairman of the council also is known as Wali-Kota, leader Samarahan District Council under The Local Authority Ordinance. Samarahan District Council has the power to collect tax (in the form of assessment tax), to create laws and rules (in the form of by-law) to grant licenses and permits for any event and trade in its area of jurisdiction, in addition to providing basic amenities, collecting and managing waste and garbage as well as planning and developing the area under its jurisdiction. Watching as the division grew over the years, Frederick Bayoi, Chairman of the Samarahan District Council has witnessed the expansion of Kota Samarahan, developing from just a small village, to now an upcoming booming location.
Samarahan District Council also has collaboration with Pejabat Residence, Jabatan Kerja Raya and Pejabat Daerah Samarahan, Pejabat Daerah Asajaya, and Pejabat Daerah Serian in order to improve Samarahan to become a better place to live. In 2015, Samarahan District Council will change to Samarahan Municipal Council. Huge achievement of Samarahan nowadays where it becomes educational hub for Sarawak, where it has a concentration of universities and educational facilities that is Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Institute of Teacher Education (Tun Abdul Razak Campus), Industrial Training Institute (ILPKS) and The Institute of Tadbiran Awam Negara (INTAN).
Keywords: Customer Satisfaction, SERVQUAL, Public Sector.
1.2 Problem Statements
Based on the hierarchy in the Samarahan District Council, there are seven departments that serve the people or customers in all around Samarahan, Asajaya, and Sadong Jaya. It includes management department, account and financial department, public works department, public health department, tax and valuation department, public library department and security department.
All of the departments are concerned about a customers’ trust and the relationship with their alliances. Customer trust, loyalty and security concerns are the issues that will impact all of the departments in order to provide the best service to their customers and alliances.
Nowadays, there are many complaints and bad statements filed by the people due to delays in taking action and providing services to them by the Malaysian public organizations. The customer expects good services that can satisfied them but the public organizations failed to deliver a quality service as been expected. As a taxpayer, the customer wanted a positive return by the organization through understanding their needs and wants.
Generally, customer satisfaction is assumed to be an important determinant of repeat sales, word of mouth and customer loyalty. The satisfied customers will decide their buying behavior in sort of return again and purchase more, making good perceptions and spread their experiences to the externals (Tsiros & Schlesinger, 2018).
The problem occurs in the management of government sector become more crucial and formidable than in the previous years. In order to cope with the problem, the government become more pressure to find the best solutions that are suitable for this modern and social world. However, there is still no obvious scenario of customer views on the quality services provided by Samarahan District Council to their customer. According to my interview with Mr Wan Beng Tee, the Head Department Officer of Public Work at Samarahan District Council, there are always a problem occur in the office such as customer was not fully satisfied from what did they get specifically from services provided by the government sector and service quality is still did not reach the focal point of success.
After literature search, there is no evidence that showing this kind of study conducted in Samarahan District Council. Therefore, this study is conducted to clarify the service quality of Samarahan District Council to their customer. The finding of this study will be useful for Samarahan District Council to plan and implement strategies aimed at improving customer satisfaction.
1.3 Research Questions
a) Are the customers satisfied with the services in Samarahan District Council Office?
b) What are the most important dimensions of service quality that affect the customer satisfaction of Samarahan District Council Office?
c) Does Samarahan District Council Office provide excellent customer services?
1.4 Research Objectives
a) To investigate the customer satisfaction in Samarahan District Council Office.
b) To find the most important dimensions of service quality that affect customer satisfaction of Samarahan District Council Office.
c) To determine the level of services provided by Samarahan District Council Office.
2. Literature Review SERVQUAL
The most dominant instrument in measuring service quality is SERVQUAL. It was proposed by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithmal in 1985 which comprised of 10 dimensions with 97 items and later reduced to 5 dimensions with 22 items. The dimensions are tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. In the year of 1988, Parasuraman has come up with five dimension of service quality: they are tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Tangible will look at the physical quality of the subject matter like physical appearances, dressing style for human quality and graphically organized for website quality.
Responsiveness is how quick the service reacts toward customer’s request; reliability is how far the service can be trusted; assurance is until what extent the service provider able to ensure customer’s privacy is well protected and lastly empathy is to see how far the service provider understand the customer’s needs. The dimension developed by Parasuraman (1988) is called SERVQUAL dimensions where it is widely used to be the scales to measure service quality.
SERVQUAL takes into account the perceptions of the customers of the relative importance of the service dimensions. The data are collected via surveys of a sample of the customers. In these surveys, the customers would respond to a series of questions based around five key service dimensions: tangibles, reliability responsiveness, commitment and empathy. The five dimensions provide a diagnostic tool for organizations to identify weaknesses in their service delivery systems (Hashim, Rasid, & Ismail, 2011)
Customer Satisfaction
Client fulfilment happens when one's knowledge of an administration offering matches the desires. Encounters that go astray from desire are for the most part perceived and recollected.
An inclination of discord happens when knowledge of administration misses the mark concerning desires. Alternately, clients are awed when they get more than they expected. The clients who accept more than they expected will probably purchase from that organization once more.
Living for clients, or putting the client to begin with, is about making positive move to comprehend and consistently meet client necessities. The entire organization must be included if complete client fulfilment is to be given. Each office and representative must know who their clients are and what they require. What's more the more information recovered of clients' needs, the better the organization have the capacity to react. Measures are climbing constantly. Clients are getting additionally requesting. To contend, the mindful organization needs to keep up.
These methods have a ceaseless stream of data about client necessities and data accessible to everybody in the organization. Yet, workers might be extremely inaccessible from the end client. Data arriving at them may be second-hand, inadequate and in the dialect of organization, not client, issues. It is hard for these individuals to react specifically to client needs. It is simpler
for them to acknowledge that the constrained learning they have is everything they need, and that a restricted reaction is all administration accepts essential.
Not just those whose occupation it is to stay in contact with clients require direct data. Each chance ought to be taken to expand the number of individuals customarily reaching. For instance, the Hewlett Packard approach of conveying research and assembling designers pays profits. Just workers in charge of a specific part of our administration can get that part 'right first time'. Numerous ways are interested in individuals who need to get some answers concerning client fulfillment, for example, individual meetings, where colleagues make arrangements with their clients and make inquiries.
Figure 1: The Relationship between SERVQUAL Dimension and Samarahan District Council Service Quality
In this research, the framework is use to test the relationship of independent variables toward the dependent variables. There are five independent variables to be tested against the dependent variable, including the tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, commitment and empathy. The dependent variable is Samarahan District Council Service Quality. The main objective of service quality is to achieve customer satisfaction by forming long term and mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and its customers (Selvi, 2007). Even several studies have discovered that service quality has positive link and significant effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty (Colgate and Danaher, 2000; Ndubisi, 2007; Ekiyoret al., 2010) but none being done specific to thus work is highly needed to ascertain the existence and strength of the connection.
The study not only attempts to identify the key dimensions of service quality within the the organization but also determine it correlation with customer satisfaction and loyalty. Figure 1 below illustrates a theoretical framework for SERVQUAL dimension (independent variable) and customer satisfaction (dependent variable). It is proposed that there is a positive and significant linkage from dimensions of SERVQUAL through service quality to create customer satisfaction.
Independent Variables
i. Tangibility ii. Reliability iii. Responsiveness iv. Commitment
v. Empathy
Samarahan District Council Service Quality
Dependent Variables
3. Research Methodology Research Design
The descriptive research attempts to describe, explain and interpret conditions of the present, for example, “what is”. The purpose of a descriptive research is to examine a phenomenon that is occurring at a specific places and time. Descriptive research is concerned with conditions, practices, structures, differences or relationship that exists, opinions held, processes that are going on or trends that are evident. Descriptive research attempts to describe systematically a situation, problem, phenomenon, service or programme, or provides information about, say, living condition of a community, or describes attitudes towards an issue (Kumar & Ranjit,2005).
Research design is a brief explanation on how the research to be conducted. In this research, the research is properly designed and conducted based on the questionnaires that will be distributed to the respondents. Before the questionnaires will be distributed to the respondents, first and foremost the pilot study is conducted. After the questions already constructed, it will be distributed to ten (20) random selected persons to answer the questionnaire. The objective of conducting pilot study is to make sure each question in the questionnaires is understandable by the respondent.
The reliability test will be conducted to test the reliability level of the questionnaires using cronbach alpha. Reliability test is conducted to make sure that all the result from the questionnaires is reliable to be the data presented on the table. Next, the respondents will fill in the questionnaires and return it back to the researcher. The researcher will then analyse the questionnaires using SPSS and transform the result into table. The result will be presented right after they are ready.
Sampling
Sampling is the process of selecting the right individual to represent the population. In this research, 375 potential respondents will be identified by distributing the questionnaires randomly in Samarahan District Council. This method of collecting data is known as simple random sampling techniques. The sampling will be determined through Krejcie and Morgan formula. According to (Freedman, 2003), a good size example, e.g, 200-500, is needed for the sampling.
The sample size should be appropriate for the analysis that is planned. Simple random sampling is often practical for a population of business records, even when that population is large.
According to the official website of Majlis Daerah Samarahan, the population of people in Kota Samarahan is 46,966, population in Asajaya is 28,513 and population in Sadong Jaya is 75,476.
Table 3.1: Operational Variables
Variable Dimension Indicator Scales
Section A Background Information
Section B Satisfaction level (Parasuraman et al.,
1988) Section C
(Expectation)
(1) Tangibility • Availability of kids corners, parking spaces, recreational facilities, food courts.
• Cleanliness, ambience, maintenance etc.
• Range of products, layout, shelves, aisles, display signs, promotional islands, and assortments.
(Oberoi and Hales, 1990; Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996)
(2) Reliability • Speed of Service.
• Accuracy of Transactions
(Parasuraman et al., 1988)
(3) Responsiveness • Speed of Response to complaints
• Concern and Desire for Assisting
(Fisher, 1997)
(4) Commitment • Responsible for Customers
• Staff attitude and effort
• Security for transactions, parking etc.
(Mowdayet al., 1982)
(5) Empathy • Ease of Communication
• Attention and Patience of the sales staff
(Greenberg and Greenberg, 1983;
Sager and Ferris, 1986).
Section D (Perception)
(1) Tangibility • Availability of kids’ corners, parking spaces, recreational facilities, food courts.
• Cleanliness, ambience, maintenance etc.
• Range of products, layout, shelves, aisles, display signs, promotional islands, and assortments.
(Oberoi and Hales, 1990; Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996)
(2) Reliability • Speed of Service.
• Accuracy of Transactions
(Parasuraman et al., 1988)
(3) Responsiveness • Speed of Response to complaints
• Concern and Desire for Assisting
(Fisher, 1997)
Data Collection Method
Customer satisfaction surveys are a questionnaire-based information collection tool to determine the level of satisfaction with various product or service features. In this research, most of the data are collected through primary sources. Primary data is collected from questionnaires where the data is collected directly from the customers. To make sure the data is accurately collected, the respondents will be identified very carefully before distributing the questionnaires. Simple random sampling techniques used and based on the respondent selected, only half of quality respondent will be selected as the final respondents.
Besides, another important source of data is from secondary data is collected mostly from Emerald journal and Samarahan District Council office website. Apart from that, some data also collected from self-observation and experiences
Draft Questionnaire
The results from the survey form suggested a series of relevant customer satisfaction evaluation criteria. A content analytic approach will be employed to code the qualitative data obtained.
Feedbacks from the survey form were initially tabulated in the form of field notes, then sorted and analyzed based on key ideas and common themes.
A literature review together with survey form will provide the basis for generating items for inclusion in the draft questionnaire. The items will be presented randomly as statements on the questionnaire, with the same rating scale to be use throughout. The items will be measured on a five-point Likert-scale whereby 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree. In addition to the main scale addressing individual items, respondents will also be asked to provide perceived relationship quality (level of satisfaction towards foodservice outlet and level of trust) and level of loyalty. There will also be open ended questions allowing respondents to give their personal views on how any aspect of relationship marketing could be improved.
Pilot Study
The draft questionnaire shall be administered for pilot testing with approximately 10%
representative patrons from 3 types of districts which are Samarahan, Sadong Jaya and Asajaya.
These pilot respondents will be asked to answer the questionnaire and provide comments or suggestions on any perceived ambiguities, omission or errors concerning the draft questionnaire, and consequently changes shall be made accordingly. The results from the pilot test were analyzed using SPSS software and a series of test were undertaken to determine the reliability of the measure or instrument.
Cronbach’s alpha test will be employed for the variables in the draft questionnaire to identify a consistency of the instrument. The objective of conducting pilot study is to make sure each question in the questionnaires is understandable by the respondent (Kothari & C.R, 1985).
The population of Kota Samarahan is 46,950, Sadong Jaya is 75,480 and Asajaya is 28500.
The total of the 3 districts is 150,930 and it will be changed to 150000 according to the formula of Krajcie and Morgan. The sample will be amounted 375 where Kota Samarahan comes with 117 samples, Sadong Jaya comes with 187 sample and lastly, Asajaya comes with 71 samples.
Full scale survey
After getting the expert feedback and making any changes the next step will be the full-scale survey. The final questionnaires together with a cover letter will be mailed to the appointed enumerator who will distribute it to the selected customers. The profile of the customers or respondents based on gender, race, profession and income level will be determined by the researchers to ensure sampling representativeness. The cover letter ensured respondent’s confidentiality and emphasized the independent nature of the research.
4. Analysis
Table 3.2: Satisfaction Gap
DIMENSIONS TOTAL
PERCEPTION
TOTAL
EXPECTATION
GAP
TANGIBILITY 1 15 30 -15
TANGIBILITY 2 12 8 4
TANGIBILITY 3 10 18 -8
TANGIBILITY 4 10 13 -3
TANGIBILITY 5 12 30 -18
TANGIBILITY 6 10 18 -8
RELIABILITY 1 175 245 -71
RELIABILITY 2 12 11 1
RELIABILITY 3 14 10 4
RELIABILITY 4 13 13 0
RESPONSIVENESS 1 14 14 0
RESPONSIVENESS 2 12 12 0
RESPONSIVENESS 3 13 13 0
RESPONSIVENESS 4 16 10 1
COMMITMENT 1 10 7 3
COMMITMENT 2 12 3 9
COMMITMENT 3 9 8 1
COMMITMENT 4 12 3 3
EMPATHY 1 10 12 -2
EMPATHY 2 11 9 2
EMPATHY 3 10 18 -8
EMPATHY 4 20 8 28
The gaps that presented in table 3.2 were been calculated accordingly to the SERVQUAL from (Parasuraman et al 1988). SERVQUAL score = Perception – Expectation. The level of the service quality depends on the score. The higher the positive score, the better the Service Quality Level. The results from table 3.2 show that minority of the items has negative scores and majority of it have positive scores. This means that there were more than half of the dimensions reached the customers’ expectation level. Any differences between customer expectations and the organization’s perception of customer expectation of quality were
Samarahan District Council needs to improve more on the tangibility part because most of the negative scores obtained from the tangibility dimension. The highest negative scores were come from one of the questions inside the reliability dimension (reliability 1 = -71) but it was just contained only one. And, a little bit adjustment needs for empathy to increase minor negative scores that showed inside the dimension. If an organization is not aware of its customers’ and employees’ requirements, it cannot devote resources effectively to improve those areas that may have the most significant impact on customer satisfaction. Therefore, to reduce these gaps, Samarahan District Council needs to make an improvement to those areas.
As were said before, the negative scores were shown inside each dimension. This clearly shows that Samarahan District Council must give training or motivation to their subordinates to improve their attitude towards the needs and wants of the customers and the importance of finding a suitable specific time to overcome problems. The gap shows a negative score on the operating hours for serving the customers and providing services as promise.
The researcher had performed a descriptive analysis to analyze the mean of the responses and to also track the minimum and maximum responses of each perspective on an average.
Empathy has the highest add up score which was 1555.00 points. The next important dimension for the customers was commitment which it reached 1264.00 points. Furthermore, the third dimension goes to responsiveness and followed by reliability which both of them scored 1141.00 and 940.00 respectively. Obviously, tangibility was not a very important dimension among customers at Samarahan District Council. Tangibility dimension add up to 890.00 points and it was the lowest score compared to the other dimensions. Customers had the highest expectations on the on the level of comfortability, accuracy, time, sympathy, attention, informative result, attitude and security of issues. The lowest customer lowest expectations are the hygiene, physical maintenance, advertising and responsibility.
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
Servqual is a concise multiple-term scale good reliability and validity that retailers can use better understand the service expectations and perceptions of consumers and, as a result, improve service. By its concept, SERVQUAL has been designed as a generic measure that could be applicable across a broad spectrum of services. In order to bridge the gap between customers’ perception of service delivery in the public service in Samarahan District Council, they need to provide more training to the employee to enhance their customer service skills.
The training should focus on employee ability to help customers resolve their queries and problems quickly. In the process of resolving such problems, they should show a caring, courteous attitude and a sincere interest in helping customers. Furthermore, the employee should improve their knowledge and skills so that they can provide a fast and reliable service to their customers. When they promise to do something for the customer within a certain time, they must fulfill the promise. More importantly, service enhancement through customer orientation will provide the public sector with an opportunity to gain confidence from the tax- paying public. In Samarahan District Council, there a quite large number of males whose satisfied and also dissatisfied and they are Malay people who are only educated within SPM level.
For the descriptive result, the customers’ perception towards service quality level provided was average for their expectation. Samarahan District Council should increase more sympathetic attitude among their workers and high quality for their physical surrounding.
Customers have a highest satisfaction level on the level of comfortability, accuracy, time, sympathy, attention, informative result, attitude and security of issues. The lowest customer lowest expectations are the hygiene, physical maintenance, advertising and responsibility.
Improvement that can be done by the management includes:
1. Samarahan District Council should motivate their staff to manage a good time for themselves and the customers. This can make them become very responsibility for serving the customer within a specific time that eventually arranged by the workers or the customers themselves.
2. Other than that, Samarahan District Council should renovate their physical surroundings into a quality and comfortable place. This can change customer perception towards them in sort of comfortability.
3. Samarahan District Council must give training or motivation to their subordinates to improve their attitude towards the needs and wants of the customers and the importance of finding a suitable specific time to overcome problems. The gap shows negative score on the operating hours for serving the customers and providing services as promise.
References
A. Parasuraman, (2010), “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implications for Future Research”, Journal of Marketing vol. 49, 42.
Dawson, and Catherine. (2002). Practical Research Methods. New Delhi, UBS.
Dwyer, F.R., Schurr, P.H. and Oh, S. (1987). Developing buyer-seller relationships. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 11-27
Eklof, J. and Westlund, A. (2002), “The pan-European customer satisfaction index programme- current work andthe way ahead”, Total Quality Management, Vol. 11 No. 8, pp. 1099-106.
Finch, E. (2004), “Facilities management”, in Clements-Croome, D. (Ed.), Intelligent Buildings: Design Management and Operation, Thomas Telford, London, in press
Graham, R.C. and Frankenberger, K.D. (2000), “The contribution of changes in advertising expenditures to earnings and market values”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 50 No.
2, pp. 149-55
Greenberg, J. (1987), “Reactions to procedural injustice in payment distributions: do the means justify the ends?”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 72, pp. 55-61
Gundlach, G.T., Achrol, R.S. and Mentzer, J.T. (1995). The structure of commitment in Exchange. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 59 No. 1, pp. 78-93.
Haenlein, M., Kaplan, A.M. and Schoder, D. (2006), “Valuing the real option of abandoning unprofitable customers when calculating customer lifetime value”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 70 No. 3, pp. 5-20.
Hashim, H., Rasid, S. Z., & Ismail, W. K. (2011). Customer Service Quality in A Public Agency in Malaysia: Towards A Customer-Focused Public Organization. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 1777.
Hooley, G.J., Greenley, G.E., Cadogan, J.W. and Fahy, J. (2005), “The performance impact of marketing resources”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 58 No. 1, pp. 18-27.
Hozier, G.C. and Schatzberg, J.D. (2000), “Advertising agency terminations and reviews: stock returns and firm performance”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 50 No. 2.
Kothari, & C.R. (1985). Research Methodology-Methods and Technique. New Delhi, Wiley Eastern Limited.
Krejcie, R.V., & Morgan, D.W., (1970). Determining Sample Size for Research Activities.
Educational and Psychological Measurement.
Kumar, & Ranjit. (2005). Research Methodology- A-Step-by-Step Guide for beginners, (2nd.ed). Singapore, Pearson Education.
Lee, R.L. and Grewal, R. (2004), “Strategic responses to new technologies and their impact on firm performance”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 68, October, pp. 157-71.
Lehmann, D. (2004), “Metrics for making marketing matter”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 68, October, pp. 73-5.
Luo, Y. (2005), “Do insiders learn from outsiders? Evidence from mergers and acquisitions”, Journal of Finance, Vol. 60, November, pp. 1951-82.
McColl-Kennedy, J. and Schneider, U. (2000), “Measuring customer satisfaction: why, what, and how”, Total Quality Management, Vol. 11 No. 7, pp. 883-9.
Moorman, C., Zaltman, G. and Deshpande´, R. (1992). Relationships between providers and users of market research: the dynamics of trust within and between organizations. Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 314-28.
Morgan, R.M. and Hunt, S.D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing.
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58, pp. 20-38.
Mowday, R., Porter, L. and Steers, R. (1982). Organizational linkages: the psychology of commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 14, pp. 224-47.
O’Sullivan, D., Hutchinson, M.C. and O’Connell, V. (2009), “Empirical evidence of the stock market’s (mis) pricing of customer satisfaction”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 154-61.
Pauwels, K., Silva-Risso, J., Srinivasan, S. and Hanssens, D.M. (2004), “New products, sales promotions, and firm value: the case of the automobile industry”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 68 No. 4, pp. 142-56.
Peter C. Verhoef, Katherine N. Lemon, A. Parasuraman, Anne Roggeveen, Michael Tsiros, &
Leonard A. Schlesinger. (2009). Customer Experience Creation: Determinants, Dynamics.
Journal of Retailing, 32.
Rao, V.R., Agarwal, M.K. and Dahlhoff, D. (2004), “How is manifest branding strategy related to the intangible value of a corporation?”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 68 No. 4
Reichheld, F.F. and Teal, T.A. (1996), Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
Sager, J. and Ferris, G. (1986). Personality and sales force selection in the pharmaceutical industry. Industry Marketing Management, Vol.15, pp. 319-324.
Sin, Y.M.L., Tse, C.B.A, Yau, H.M.O., Lee, S.Y.J., and Chow, R (2002). The effect of relationship marketing orientation on business performance in a service-oriented economy.
Journal of Services Marketing, Vol.16, No.7, pp.656-676.
Singh, M., Faircloth, S. and Nejadmalayeri, A. (2005), “Capital market impact of product marketing strategy: evidence from the relationship between advertising expenses and cost of capital”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 33 No. 4
Sorescu, A.B., Chandy, R.K. and Prabhu, J.C. (2007), “Why some acquisitions do better than others: product capital as a driver of long-term stock returns”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 44, February, pp. 57-72.
Srivastava, R.K. and Reibstein, D.J. (2005), “Metrics for linking marketing to financial performance”, Marketing Science Institute Report No. 05-200, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA
Szymanski, D.M. and Henard, D.H. (2001), “Customer satisfaction: a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 16- 35.
Tajuddin, A. F. (2013). Impact of environmental scanning on the organizational performance of local authorities in Malaysia. Journal of Organizational Psychology, pg.2 -5
Tsirosc, Micheal and Schlesingerd L.A (2018). Customer Experience Creation: Determinants, Dynamics and Management Strategies. Journal of Retailing 85, pp. 31–41
Wilson, D.T. (1995). An integrated model of buyer-seller relationships. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 335-45.
Zeithaml, V.A., Berry, L.L. and Parasuraman, A. (1996), “The behavioural consequences of service quality”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60, April, pp. 31-46
