Client Satisfaction Survey 2002

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Survey 2002

This report details the results of an internal survey that was completed for OZNET INTERNET SERVICES during July 2002. The questionnaire was designed to meet eight research objectives that are detailed and outlined below. Essentially the survey attempted to determine which drivers were important in selecting and staying with an ISP and to gauge the current levels of customer satisfaction among respondents. The report found that generally customers are satisfied rather than dissatisfied with the service that they are receiving. The report finds that the most important priority for management is to ensure the delivery of a fast service as this was considered to be the most important service attribute. Further research will need to be conducted to identify suitable target markets and to develop optimal positioning strategies.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Among customers using services provided by OZNET INTERNET SERVICES the objectives of this market research survey are to: -

Measure current levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with billing procedures, range of services and price of services
Measure perceptions of service quality
Measure levels of support service performance
Measure overall disconfirmation
Measure importance-performance of service attributes
Assess the company image
Measure the likelihood to recommend
Make a limited demographic profile of respondents

PROCESS AND METHODOLOGY

The survey was designed according to the methods outlined by Churchill (1999) and Lovelock et al. (2001).

The survey was administered on the Internet. 3000 clients were requested to complete the survey via an email message, and there was a response rate of 38%, which is fairly low.
No problems were encountered by administering the survey on the Internet and this is a suitable method for collecting further data from customers.

The data was collected and entered into an SPSS database file for analysis. The researcher ensured that the data contained no human errors through visual checking. Missing data was coded appropriately.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Objective 1: Levels of satisfaction with service processes

Respondents were asked to indicate their levels of satisfaction with three service processes, billing, range of services and price, these were measured on a five point scale from very dissatisfied to very satisfied. The results showed that there were higher levels of satisfaction than dissatisfaction among respondents. Statistical tests were conducted to identify whether there was a relationship between a respondents satisfaction/dissatisfaction level and their evaluation of the overall service quality received. The results of these tests showed that a respondents satisfaction with billing procedures and the price of the services was not related to the overall service quality rating. A positive but weak relationship between satisfaction with the range of services offered and the overall service quality rating was identified (gamma .28).

Objective 2: Perceived Service Quality

Respondents were asked to indicate the overall level of service quality on a five-point scale from poor to excellent. Perceived service quality (PSQ) measures the customer’s judgment of service quality across multiple service encounters. The data indicated that respondents consider the overall quality of the service that they receive to be extremely high with a cumulative percent of 48.2 indicating that the overall service quality was either very good or excellent. No relationship between a respondents length of time with the company and the overall service quality rating was identified. There was a positive, moderate relationship between the overall quality rating and a respondent’s likelihood to recommend.

Objective 3: Measure Perceptions of the Support Service

In order to measure the performance of the support service, respondents were asked first to indicate whether they had used the service and then to rate three aspects of service performance, overall quality, level of assistance given and response time using a five point scale from poor to excellent. 58.9% of respondents had used the service and 41.1% had never used the service. Data on the performance questions are based on data supplied by 34 respondents. Respondent perceptions of the performance of the support services were positive rather than negative. 15.2% of respondents felt the support response time was poor, a possible area for improvement. A cross tabulation showed a strong and positive relationship between the overall service quality rating and the support service quality rating (gamma .799), this indicates that the support service is used by customers to evaluate the overall service quality performance. There was a strong and positive relationship between a respondent’s likelihood to recommend the service and the support service quality rating (gamma .632). Both results indicate that support service performance is an important driver of customer satisfaction, and likelihood to recommend.

Objective 4: Disconfirmation of Expectations

Respondents were asked how well their expectations of service had been met. This was measured on a five-point scale from much worse than expected to much better than expected. Expectations play a crucial role in the formation of satisfaction judgments.

The results showed that the majority of respondents (51.8%) felt that the service received was about as expected, 30.4% felt it was better than expected and 8.9% felt it was much better than expected. A cumulative percent of 8.9 felt that it was much worse or somewhat worse than expected. A cross tabulation showed a significant, positive but moderate relationship between how well expectations had been met and the likelihood to recommend the service (gamma .546). There was a significant, positive and strong relationship between the overall service quality rating and how well expectations had been met (gamma .860), indicating that finding out what a customers expectations of service performance are and then meeting them should be a key outcome.

Objective 5: Importance-Performance

Of the following attributes:

(1) Leader with new services

(2) Low charges

(3) Convenient hours

(4) Handles my complaints well

(5) Has a wide variety of services

(6) Fast Service

(7) Gives me enough information

(8) Friendly personnel

(9) Makes few errors

(10) Modern

Respondents were asked questions about how important the attributes were in selecting and staying with a service provider, they were then asked to supply a performance rating for OZNET for each attribute. The responses given were then combined to form an attitude score for each respondent. A stepwise regression analysis was carried out in order to identify which attributes were important to respondents in assessing the overall service quality. The results showed that the constant predictor in the model was attitude fast service. This means that providing a fast service was deemed to be the most important of the ten attributes to respondents in evaluating the overall service quality.

Objective 6: Company Image

In order to assess how customers viewed OZNET, respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement on a five-point scale form strongly agree to strongly disagree on ten aspects of the service. The data was then combined to yield results of agree, neutral or disagree, these are shown in the tables below and show positive perceptions of the company on most aspects.

Recalling the results of objective 5 (attitude to service quality is formed from perceptions of the speed of delivery) there is an indication that close attention should be paid to this area of service delivery. The result findings are reiterated in a 2000 JD Power survey, which showed speed was the most important factor driving customer satisfaction in the US market.

By looking at the percentage breakdown of responses to this question, it becomes apparent that only 24.4% of respondents strongly agree that OZNET provides a fast service.

Oznet provides a fast service

	Frequency	%	valid %	Cumulative %
strongly agree	240	21.4	21.4	21.4
agree	440	39.3	39.3	60.7
neither agree or disagree	300	26.8	26.8	87.5
disagree	60	5.4	5.4	92.9
strongly disagree	80	7.1	7.1	100
Total	1120	100	100

Objective 7: Likelihood to Recommend the Service

A respondent’s likelihood to recommend a service is a strong indicator of that respondents satisfaction with the service provided. The top-two box score is used to describe respondent’s answering the chance that they would recommend the service as 80% or 100%, these scores are combined to form the closest intention to recommend. When using intention questions researchers tend to adjust their figures to account for the fact that respondents do not necessarily act in the way their intentions indicate in a survey situation. 60.7% of the 56 respondents interviewed indicated an 80 or 100% chance of recommending the service, by adjusting the figure to 25% (Crawford; Benedetto: 2000: 177) we can assume that 15.2% of respondents will recommend the service to others.

Objective 7: Demographic & User Profiles

In this instance the researcher choose to ask limited demographic questions. The survey was carried out internally and was the first of its kind; a fair assumption was made that respondents would be disinclined to give personal information to the company that was generally unrelated to measuring satisfaction.

Gender: Of the 56 respondents, 45 were male and 11 were female. There was no relationship between a respondent’s gender and whether they used the service for business or recreation.

Geographical Profile: Of the 56 respondents the majority 94.6% resided in Australia, the survey was flawed in the fact that it was not inclusive of those not residing in Australia and this accounts for missing data of 1 respondent that did not include their country of residence in the "comments" section. 50% of respondents resided in NSW.

Age: Of the 56 respondents only 1 choose not to disclose their age. The age group of respondents was evenly spread, 63.6% of respondents were aged 40 or above.

User Profile: 66.1% of respondents use OZNET services for business purposes, 33.9% for recreation. No relationship between perceptions of service quality and a respondent’s length of time with the company was found.

LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH

The survey was pre-tested on one individual, having collected the data it is the opinion of the researcher that there were some flaws in the final draft of the survey which may have been ruled out if a more extensive pre-test had occurred. In particular, a number of respondents failed to give a response to Q6& 7 (10). It is the opinion of the researcher that this might be because the word "MODERN" is elusive and respondents may have had difficulty in determining exactly what was meant. This is an assumption only. Further research should use a revised version of the survey.

RECOMMENDATIONS

An information system detailing customer complaints and queries as well as data gathered from ongoing surveys is required in order for OZNET to build a strong service satisfaction information system.
Results indicated that providing a fast service is an important driver of satisfaction. Links were also found between perceived performance of the support service and the overall service quality rating, indicating that providing customer’s with the necessary technical support is an important element of service delivery.
Business users comprised the majority of the sample. This is a suitable target to position the service offering at. Small businesses value participative relationships with service suppliers (Ennew; Marlin: 1999), and building relationships with customers appears to be a key strength of OZNET, a large proportion of respondents agreed that OZNET provided a friendly service.

Comments: ‘Not only does a real person answer the phone when I call, he can answer all my questions. You seem available at all hours. The service you provide is what attracted me to OZNET and is also what keeps me there.’