The aim of this presentation is to examine what drives employee engagement and worklife happiness across the globe. What differences and similarities do we find between countries and how does this indicator of societal trends interact with wider social values, macro economic conditions and corporate expectations? Using the findings the presentation elaborates on how homogeneous or heterogeneous global corporate employee policies need to be to achieve success. The data source for this presentation is a 23-country study conducted by the IriS network of independent research agencies.
This paper covers the factors which drive satisfaction or dissatisfaction with service events (such as fault repairs or complaints) where the customer has had contact with BT. It considers how the company can increase satisfaction through improved call handling, increased speed of conducting work and improved communication with the customer. The paper also examines an approach for placing service event- handling in context with other factors influencing customer perceptions and loyalty, such as corporate image, to help assess the extent to which additional resources should be devoted to improving BT's handling of events.
There can be little doubt that the influence of technology is fundamentally changing the nature of the relationship between our High Street banks and their customers. In the United Kingdom, this is most graphically illustrated by the growth in the availability of automatic telling machines and the number of withdrawals going through them. This paper describes developments in home banking over the last ten years and argues that for the foreseeable future, the telephone is likely to remain the predominant delivery medium for financial services into the home. It concludes with a warning to financial institutions that not only should they carefully research the full cost versus benefit picture before venturing into new areas of service provision and capitalising on new technologies, but that the longer term consequences of possible customer alienation and loss of brand loyalty need to be carefully evaluated before committing wholeheartedly to the brave new world of electronic service delivery.
BS 5750 in the UK is a quality assurance system creating a set of procedures designed to document and improve practices to maximise the quality of a company's output. In the UK it was initially conceived for manufacturing industry, but in the last two or more years its relevance to service industries such as market research has been perceived, and a number of market research agencies have achieved BS 5750 accreditation. FDS was one of the first of these, and our purpose in presenting this paper is to share that experience from the initial concept through the process of gaining accreditation to our experience of it in practice. BS 5750 and its international equivalent, ISO 9000 is here to stay; increasingly its possession is going to be a necessary qualification for supplier consideration. BS 5750 when positively implemented is an indication of a commitment to a management philosophy of Total Quality Management and a necessary step to that goal. BS 5750 is not a system conceived externally and imposed on a company's operation. It is created by the company itself in the light of the company's current operating practices, and helps the company to achieve and maintain best practice. Achieving BS 5750 is an arduous and lengthy process. It is not to be undertaken lightly and successful implementation requires the commitment of everyone in the company, both in the process of acquiring it and of maintaining it once accredited. This is how FDS did it.
This paper is divided into three parts. The first part describes the background to British Telecoms Customer Satisfaction Measures Programme (CSM), with a description of the history of its predecessor (Telcare). The second part discusses the evolution of the program. And the third part discusses its uses and applications.
New Product Development in the FMCG market is well documented and there are a number of volumetric forecasting models available. However since most of these rely on measures of trial and repeat purchase they are of little use in markets where the purchase cycle is long and sporadic. This is obviously TRUE of the travel and tourism market. The theme of this paper will be that whilst the travel and tourism market is so different and diverse that traditional NPD techniques may not be appropriate, nevertheless there are general principles that can and should be observed. The paper will look at a number of ad hoc new product development projects in the travel and tourism markets and two particular case histories will be covered in detail. Both studies were designed to assess the potential of new products in these markets using very different techniques. The first was a purpose-built submarine that was designed to enable tourists to go on a trip below the waves and view in the sea life. Similar tourist submarine trips have been operating successfully in the Caribbean and now the Mediterranean was being considered. The research technique was used to present the concept in two forms to potential Mediterranean holidaymakers in the UK and Germany. Respondents were given a written description, promotional material and a were shown a video. Since the capital outlay for the project was significant it was also important to ascertain the optimum price that tourists would be prepared to pay in order to calculate over what period the investment would be liquidated.
This paper discusses in practical terms the problems which can affect research in the area of product optimisation and flavour development, as viewed from the standpoint of an agency researcher specialising in food and drink research. The conventional approach to product development tends to rely on consumer tests, such as product placement or taste tests, to identify perceived strengths and weaknesses of the product via rating scales and spontaneous comments. This information is used by technical personnel to guide product development, and one or two new formulations are subsequently tested and, if 'better', they are progressed. At best this approach will identify a possible product improvement, but at its worst it can be unproductive as technical personnel struggle to achieve viable improvements. The weakness underlying this approach is that it assumes a direct relationship between a product formulation and the consumer response to it: there is no such relationship. I will go on to explain why this is so. I argue, therefore, that the use of consumer opinions, as expressed via rating scales and spontaneous comments, to guide product reformulation, is unsatisfactory. We should instead ask the consumers to do only what they are really competent to do: to say how much they like something, and perhaps to say which product they prefer. This determines that we must identify the factors to assess in the research and to test these systematically and in a controlled way. I will go on to give examples of how this can be done. It should be noted that I will not attempt to discuss specific aspects of product testing, such as the difference between blind and branded tests, nor the merits of various types of semantic rating scales. The argument I present is concerned with product development and as such does not touch on other types of research such as concept and placement tests - within these limits, however, I feel the ideas I present are valid across a range of product types and situations, and do not depend on very specific aspects of detail research design.