Customer survey

Quantitative data collection was utilized in form of customer survey related to the satisfaction and usage of the case company´s current e-services regarding the after-sales and spare part ordering process. The customers to be surveyed were chosen by the case company´s after-sales management since the management has the most extensive knowledge about the customer structure and which customers provide the most valuable insight. Surveys are “useful to compare results and attitudes within the same context” (Stuart et al. 2002, 421). By conducting the customer survey, potential problematic areas and shortcomings in the e-services from the customer perspective are illuminated and made comparable. Surveys are prevailing methodologies in marketing (Petrescu & Lauer 2017). And since the customer satisfaction and customer perception of the electronic after-sales services are borrowed from the marketing domain, the survey method was found to be suitable. The survey questions were verified and approved by the after-sales management before the survey was sent to the customers.

The span of the survey comprised various regions of the case company´s operations and included dealers, service workshops as well as end-customers. Some of customers, who were contacted, are from the same company. However, the end-result indicates that only two answers were from respondents of the same company. The sampling size constitutes 61

customers (Table 9). Prior to the distribution of the questionnaire, the structure of the chosen customers – who is dealer, service workshop or end customer – was unbeknownst.

Total

Table 9: Survey distribution and respondents

The response rate for exclusively complete responses accumulates to around 44 %. A complete response indicates that the respondent accomplished the entire survey flow until the end and answered the majority of questions. In fact, 26 respondents answered all questions.

One respondent completed the entire survey flow but marked not all fields of some multiple-choice questions. The responses of unanswered fields were marked as IDK (I don´t know) or as if the respondent does not use the inquired services.

For the collection of the survey data, online questionnaire was used. The questionnaire was designed by the author at www.qulatrics.com. The survey was conducted in four different languages, namely English, Finnish, German, and Russian. The survey responses were all translated into English for the analysis by the author and the translations were validated by native speakers.

The questionnaire was divided into five main question blocks. The first question category comprised details about the respondents. Then, respondents were invited to comment on their experience on online spare part stores. Thirdly, the questionnaire conducted inquiry about content and information richness that is provided by Company K in electronic form. The fourth question block considered the process of spare part ordering process. Last but not least,

general follow-up questions were asked. Table 10 presents the survey flow and the corresponding question categories. The original copy of the questionnaire in English language can be found in appendices (Appendix 2).

Question Category Questions

Amount

Complete Answers per question

A Respondents information and contact details 3 27

B Experience on electronic spare part stores (Q1-Q3) 3 27

C Content and information richness in electronic format (Q4-Q9)

6 27

• Current satisfaction

• Online information

• Online instructions and training

D Ordering spare parts (Q10-Q18) 9 27 (26)

• Current satisfaction with e-services

• Media usage

• Service and tools preferences

E Final follow-up (Q19-Q21) 3 27

• Potential problems

• Comments

Table 10: Survey flow

Closed and open-ended question types were integrated. Majorly, closed questions offered multiple choices. The questionnaire integrated Likert scale where the responses are rated on a scale between 1 and 5. The advantage for this method is the ability to record opinion and feelings of the respondents in a quantitative form and make the responses statistically comparable (Beech 2015). In addition to the Liker scale the option “I don’t know” was added to

avoid false and forced answers if the respondent lacks related experience or knowledge. Open-ended questions were formulated in such a way that respondents could express own ideas without predetermined choice options. Some of the questions were locked so that the respondent could not proceed before providing an answer; others were not locked and respondent could continue without giving an answer. The reason for this is to prevent customer from false answers if he or she cannot answer the question for example due to lack of experience or knowledge. Moreover, there was often an option to comment on the questions in own words. This should ensure wider scope of answers and more insights could be gathered while the survey could remain structured. Moreover, respondents were given the opportunity to raise comments in a final open-ended question to ensure that all topics were covered adequately.

Answers to the open-ended questions were revised and inadequate responses were reassessed by the author and sorted using Qualtrics.com. The analysis of the customer survey is based on the e-service quality dimensions adopted from DeLone & McLean (Table 8) which are outlined in chapter 5. For the content analysis of open-ended questions mainly NVivo software and Microsoft Excel were employed for coding and for the presentation of the data.

For closed questions Qualtrics.com and Microsoft Excel was utilized.