| “Our department researches the marketing of
services. The service sector always involves an
interaction between people, so this field lies on the
border between economics and psychology.
We examine the way in which staff deal with
customers and analyse customer satisfaction.
In our research we try as far as possible to create a
relationship between science and marketing
practice and therefore we undertake many projects
for the business sector and attract external
research resources.
We study the performance of, for example, bank
employees, service electricians and call centre
employees and analyse how they work together
and what they could do to improve their service.
We look at what happens in teams of workers and
look at progress and other issues over time. We
have discovered that workers in the service sector
perform better and are more customer-friendly if
they are given more responsibility. They can then
identify more with their organisation and form a
bridge between the organisation and the customer.
We also analyse interactive markets, such as
e-commerce and the application of new
technologies to improve the service to customers.
One finding was that web communities on
company websites could provide community spirit
and a sense of responsibility towards other visitors.
Customers help each other entirely selflessly and
solve problems faster than a service centre of the
company would be able. There is still much
research to be carried out in this area. All our
research is focused on improving services within
the Netherlands, but in other countries as well. Our
results offer companies and other organisations
the opportunity to improve their services, so that
not only customers benefit, but the organisation
itself benefits.” |
