Service Quality in Customer Relationships:

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of 205 service-related critical incidents in customer relationships in mechanical engineering companies. Information has been gathered from 15 Swedish companies, including Asea Brown Boveri Robotics, Atlas Copco, Bofors, Carlamo, Zander & Ingesttorn and Wennmec. The selection has been made so as to obtain a spread as regards both tine of production and size of company. The overall aim of the inquiry has been to increase the understanding of service-related critical incidents in the perspective of long-term, interactive customer relationships. What lies behind these situations? What effect do they have on the development of the selling process? How are customer relations affected? Critical incidents directly connected with the price or the hardware have not been included in this study. ‘Critical incident’ means a problematic, unpleasant situation which places special demands on the service-producing company's resources, especially on its personnel: for example, a customer meeting that fails to avoid friction. The customer may demand customer adaptation of the hardware, special training, special terms of guarantee, short delivery time or a special financing model. Other examples of critical incidents are agreements that have not been kept and missing or incorrect information.