THE MEANING AND USES OF CUSTOMER SERVICE IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS MARKETS (LOGISTICS, PHYSICAL DISTRIBUTION).

摘要

This research examined the meaning and uses of customer service strategy in six diverse industrial products markets. A mail questionnaire was sent out to over seven hundred firms, resulting in one-hundred sixty-nine useable responses. The mail questionnaire consisted of sixty-one customer service attributes, rated on a seven point scale in terms of importance, and a set of five organization structure characteristics which reflected the logistics and service activities of typical industrial products firms.;Cross-tabulation of the five characteristics with each other and against the customer service attributes constituted the second portion of the study. Major findings in this area indicated that the majority of firms regardless of type or industry did not have a written customer service policy statement though most respondents indicated that they used customer service as a competitive weapon. In comparing different categories of respondents, the research showed that manufacturer's typically assign higher importance to a set of common service attributes than firms classified as customers. Also, firms which indicated that they used service as a competitive tool, or especially if they had a written service policy, translated such sentiment into a greater customer service orientation by assigning relatively high scores to respective service attributes.;Finally, the research showed that while respondents are willing to use customer service as a competitive variable, they are slow to implement organizational changes to reflect the increased importance of the customer service dimension. In fact, the vast majority of customer service activities are administered through marketing or sales departments as opposed to a centralized physical distribution or customer service unit.;Factor analysis of the service attributes, achieved a more parsimonius definition of the underlying nature of the data and demonstrated that there is a common core of customer service activities across industries. Likewise, the results of factor analysis on an intra-industry and manufacturer/customer classification showed discernible differences leading the researcher to conclude that customer service activities are contingent on industry or firm type.