Due date management to improve customer satisfaction and profitability

摘要

Customer satisfaction (CS) is recognised as an important source of competitive advantage in business. Consideration of CS is particularly important in a scheduling context, given that both the probability of getting a request for order quotation and the probability of winning the final order strongly depend upon CS and the reputation of the firm. While capturing the rudiments of CS, previous scheduling research has generally obscured the drivers of CS and has failed to relate CS to repeat business and market share. This paper makes use of classical theories from the economics, service quality, and consumer decision making literature to develop an enhanced due date management model that includes the antecedents and consequences of CS from a scheduling perspective. Simulation experiments reveal that due date management policies have significant impact on CS and subsequently on net profit. Finally, the research suggests that a dynamic due date quotation policy performs significantly better than several other policies previously tested in the literature.