View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Göteborgs universitets publikationer - e-publicering och e-arkiv International Business Programme Master Thesis No 2003:53 CREATING SUSTAINABLE SERVICE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE POST-MODERN CONTEXT A case study of Svenska Handelsbanken David Kling-Wahlby & Ana Lulic Graduate Business School School of Economics and Commercial Law Göteborg University ISSN 1403-851X Printed by Elanders Novum ABSTRACT Today it is arguably so that we live in a post-modern society. This is said to have effects on the customers’ behaviour and, if so, the companies must adapt to this. At the same time it can be seen that the service sector is becoming larger and sometimes mature and over- supplied. Further, new technology has also increased the possibilities for service companies to offer their service through impersonal communication channels. All this has led to companies adapting a more relational, rather than transactional, approach towards the customer. Consequently, the purpose of the study is to develop a model that explains how and in what ways a service company can create sustainable relationships and illustrate how service offerings could be delivered to customers within a post-modern context. In order to visualise this relationship process a theoretical model has been developed. Our model is based on theories regarding post-modernism, service marketing, relationships, resources & capabilities and service quality. This model indicates that the prerequisite for a relationship to exist is that the customers perceive that there is service quality in the company’s offering. This will in turn enable the customer to feel the existence of relationship quality, which in turn leads to loyalty and consequently, a sustainable relationship. Further, by merging the approach of the resource based view with services marketing we seek to determine what resources in the company that contributes to the customer’s perception of high service quality. To be able to test this model, a case study using Svenska Handelsbanken as case company was conducted. Numerous interviews were carried out with both employees at the bank, as well as customers. These interviews enabled us to determine the customers’ perception of the bank’s service quality, as well as how the bank utilised their different resources in order to create service quality in their relationship to the customers, in the post modern context. Through our empirical findings and analysis it has been establish that there exist two main forms of relationships, the personal and impersonal. Further, it could also be seen that the customer chooses to have either an impersonal or a personal service delivery based on their perception of uncertainty and involved risk. It was also found that the customer perception of service quality clearly affects the relationship, and it is our understanding that the criteria attitudes and behaviour, reliability and trustworthiness and reputation and credibility are most important for the customers. All the post-modern conditions were identified to affect the service company and it is understood that the condition loss of commitment represents the biggest threat to the relationship. Our overall conclusion is that a service company must focus on each individual’s needs in order to satisfy the customer and, thus, enable a relationship. This is done by placing the employee, supported by the other company resources, as close to the customer as possible, both in terms of physical and mental distance. Keywords: Relationships, service quality, post-modern, services, services marketing, resources, banking, Handelsbanken. ACKNOWLEGEMENT First and foremost we would like to express our deepest gratitude towards our tutor Eva Ossianssion. Her support and inspiration have meant extremely much for us and this thesis. At any time, both day, late evenings and weekends Eva has always been available and willing to help as well as encourage us and therefore we would also like to thank her family as well, for letting us “borrow” her from time to time. We also feel that her ability to always question our decisions in a constructive manner has greatly improved this thesis. We will always remember her questions such as “who says this?” “Why do you say that?” and “what do you think? Take a stand!” with a smile. Further, our discussion outside the actual thesis subject has been enormously supportive and sometimes extremely fun. Eva, please remember: show flesh, shop at H&M and keep ruling the kids during meetings. Also, we would like to thank our professors Jan-Erik Vahlne and Claes-Göran Alvstam for their support, as well as enabling our extensive knowledge base in order to conduct this study. We would also like to thank Svenska Handelsbanken, and all the employees contributing to our result, for allowing us to use them as a case company in this study and for providing us with information. A special thanks goes to both Martin Björnberg and Johan Widerberg who always took the necessary time and effort to answer our questions, even when having very busy schedules. There are numerous individuals that have supported us during our thesis work. We would of course like to thank our families and friends and other persons close to us for giving us the emotional support needed as well constructive feedback and suggestions for the thesis. In this case we would like to pay special tribute to Kristina Pettersson, Paula Garrido and especially Ramsin Yakob for the constructive suggestions that have enabled us to stay on track, not wandering of into the dense and dark research jungle. Further, Kristina and Paula have also contributed to our thesis by taking part in our advanced computer watch guard system, which have enabled the four of us to always have access to computers without needing to rise at four a clock in the morning in order to grab a computer, but instead at eight, nine and ten o’clock in the bunker. This thesis would probably never have been completed if it was not for 7-Eleven next to Handelshögskolan. The large number of coffees bought, the enormous amount of candy consumed and all the sandwiches and sausages eaten, have given us the energy to stay focused and also probably increased the store’s profit ten times. Finally, we would like to express our deepest gratitude towards our Kinder-egg collection that has always been there to support us and other thesis groups during the most difficult times. Göteborg 2003-12-30 Ana Lulic David Kling-Wahlby TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 DEFINING THE PROBLEM.............................................................................................. 6 1.2.1 Sub questions..................................................................................................... 9 1.3 PURPOSE.................................................................................................................... 10 1.4 DELIMITATIONS......................................................................................................... 11 1.5 THESIS OUTLINE ........................................................................................................ 13 1.6 TERMINOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 14 2 METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................... 15 2.1 RESEARCH STRATEGY................................................................................................ 15 2.2 SCIENTIFIC APPROACH............................................................................................... 16 2.3 CASE DESIGN ............................................................................................................. 17 2.4 CASE COMPANY SELECTION....................................................................................... 17 2.5 THEORY DEVELOPMENT............................................................................................. 18 2.6 RESEARCH PROCEDURE ............................................................................................. 18 2.7 RESEARCH METHOD................................................................................................... 20 2.8 DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................... 20 2.8.1 Primary data collection .................................................................................. 21 2.8.2 Secondary data collection............................................................................... 22 2.9 ANALYSIS.................................................................................................................. 22 2.10 SOURCES OF ERROR .............................................................................................. 22 2.11 EVALUATION ........................................................................................................ 23 2.11.1 Construct validity............................................................................................ 23 2.11.2 Internal validity............................................................................................... 24 2.11.3 External validity.............................................................................................