Key words:

Customer service, quality, provided services quality, transportation quality measurement,  services quality evaluation methods

 Chapter objectives:

• getting acquainted with the terms: customer service and quality,
• understanding the meaning of the term of provided services quality,
• getting acquainted with transportation quality measurement,
• acquiring knowledge about services quality evaluation methods.

 Time required to study the chapter: 8 hours

 Interpretation:

Customer service:

Customer service is defined as a measure of how well the logistics system works in terms of generating the utility values through time and space with a focus on external customers.

Customer Service Components:

Customer service components are divided into 3 basic groups:

• Pre-sale,
• Sale,
• After-sale.

 

Quality:

Quality is an essential determinant that distinguishes objects or phenomena from other objects or phenomena, expressing the sum of properties (attributes) that cannot be separated from the object or phenomenon.

 

Provided services quality:

The quality extent of each process, even transportation of goods by road freight transport or transportation of passengers by public passenger transport, is a sum of its features (attributes), which are demonstrated by its functionality in real time. These features include reliability, accuracy, flexibility, safety, minimization of environmental impact and others.

Demand for transportation is a demand derived from demand for products, substrates, products of general and specific consumption.

Factors influencing the quality of transportation process can be divided into two groups:

    1. Subjective factors - they can be influenced (affected),
    2. Objective factors - they cannot be influenced.

 

Services quality evaluation methods:

The person authorized to evaluate the carrier or forwarder in terms of an extent to which he fulfills or fails to meet his own requirements for the quality of consignment carriage (transportation). Emphasis is placed especially on compliance with the agreed delivery time, not damaging the consignment and its packaging.
 

Evaluation methods can be developed (processed) by the organization itself, it can be completely taken over, or taken methods can be modified to their own conditions.

 

General procedure to implement the measurement and evaluation of transportation quality:

A) Defining the quality characters

B) Allocation of points, or point span to individual quality characters

C) Determining the weight of importance of quality characters

D) Ideal scoring of quality characters

E) Specifying the ideal score of quality characters

F) Determining the ideal value of transportation quality

G) Scoring the quality characteristics of particular transportation in terms of their fulfillment

H) Determining the actual score of quality characters for particular transportation

I) Determining the transportation quality value

J) Comparing the ideal value of transportation quality and the quality of particular transportation

K) Conclusions

L) Graphical representation of quality values of realized transportations

A. Methods of determining the weighting criteria:

First of all, most methods of the multi-criteria evaluation of variants require to specify the weightings of individual evaluation criteria that express the importance of these criteria.

These methods include:
A) the Pairwise comparison method
B) 100-point allocation method
C) the Method of determining the preferential order of the criteria
D) Saaty's method
E) the Progressive weighting method
F) other methods (especially multi-criteria analysis methods)
 

B. Methods of comprehensive evaluation of services quality (transportation):
Comprehensive quality evaluation, alternatives evaluation, and alternatives ranking represent the final and main phase of the solution (decision-making).

These methods include:

1. Indexing methods,
2. Method of complex utility function,
3. Methods of determining the value (utility) of alternatives,
4. other methods (multi-criteria analysis methods - AHP, WSA, PRIAM, TOPSIS, ELECTRE).

 Study materials:

Basic literature:

DOLEŽELOVÁ, H., HALÁSEK, D. Služby v obecném hospodářském zájmu v EU - Komparace České republiky a Německa. Department of Public Economics Faculty of Economics VSB-Technical University Ostrava. Czech Republic. 2011. ISBN 978-80-248-2371-3.

KONEČNÝ, V. NÁSTROJE A METÓDY MANAŽÉRSTVA KVALITY. Návody na cvičenia z predmetu manažment kvality. 1. ed., Publisher-University of Žilina, Slovak Republic. 2012. 136 p. ISBN 978-80-554-0601-5.

Recommended study materials:

LAMBERT, Douglas M, James R STOCK a Lisa M ELLRAM. Logistika. ed. 2. Brno: CP Books, Czech Republic. 2005. 589 p. In: Praxe manažera. ISBN 80-251-0504-0.

VAŠTÍKOVÁ, M. Marketing služeb. Grada Publishing, Prague, Czech Republic. 2008., 232. ISBN 978-80-247-2721-9.

  

Questions and tasks

 1.    Customer service components are divided into 3 basic groups. These do not include:
Pre-sale 
Purchase 
After-sale

2.    Demand for transportation is a demand:
derived 
primar 
basic

3.    Factors influencing the quality of transportation process can be divided into two groups, these include:
Objective and subjective
Classic and modern
Monomodal and intermodal

4.   Methods of comprehensive evaluation of services quality do not include:
Specific multi-criteria analysis methods
Methods of determining the value (utility) of alternatives 
10-point allocation method

 

 

Key to solve the questions:

1. B
2. A
3. A
4. C
5. B