paper 2 peer comments

Hi

introduction & methods, Oct 24, 2018

Introduction

Customer satisfaction index is the abbreviation of customer satisfaction survey system in service industry. It is a relative concept, reflecting the degree of match between customer expectations and customer experience (Edvardsson, B., & Enquist, B., 2002). In the marketing process, customer satisfaction reflects the recognition of customers on the product or service, which directly affects the business profit and future growth trend of the enterprise. Therefore, higher customer satisfaction is important for the enterprise becoming thriving and prosperous (Gera, R. Mittal,S. Bartra, in prasad,B. , 2017).

Ikea from Sweden is committed to provide consumers with household products whose advantages are multi-function, innovative design, reasonable prices and reliable quality (Dahlvig, A., & Goteman, I, 2003). It is well-known that Ikea possesses outstanding product quality, good service and outstanding customer satisfaction. On the other hand, Ikea performed brilliant strategies: standard rules, diversity of design styles, excellent services and orderly management systems. These extraordinary measures are conducive to meet the customers’ need and enhancing the company's reputation (Jin-Yuan, Y. U. A. N., Miao, W. A. N. G. ect, 2016).

Therefore, it is significance to determine the influencing factors of Ikea's customer satisfaction, analyze the strength and weakness of Ikea's customer management and put forward relevant suggestions and measures to promote service quality. This research focuses on Ikea's current consumer satisfaction situation and the ways to improve it.

Method

Participants

This study is aimed at the independent consumers who are over 18 years old and shopping in IKEA on Iowa. It includes all walks of people to achieve the diversity of samples and keep the balance on the gender. The survey avoided young customers who are under the age of 18 and elder customers over the age of 70, because they are not representative. 

Procedures

In order to comprehensively and carefully grasp the degree of consumer satisfaction, this survey is mainly quantitative research, using questionnaire survey method. There are some multiple choices in the questionnaire, which are related to brand recognition, product quality and service assessment.

Data Analysis

In the process of analyzing data, the main concerns are three levels, brand, product and service. Through sorting out the scores and drawing a table, comparing and analyzing the results longitudinally according the monthly income or gender. Finally, summarize the results and try to find out the relationship among these factors

References

Dahlvig, A., & Goteman, I. (2003). Ikea ceo anders dahlvig on international growth and ikea's unique corporate culture and brand identity. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), 17(1), 31-37. DOI: 10.5465/ame.2003.9474809

Edvardsson, B., & Enquist, B. (2002). 'The IKEA Saga': How Service Culture Drives Service Strategy. Service Industries Journal, 22(4), 153-186. https://doi.org/10.1080/714005098

Gera, R., Mittal, S., Batra, D. K., & Prasad, B. (2017). Evaluating the effects of service quality, customer satisfaction, and service value on behavioral intentions with life insurance customers in India. International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology (IJSSMET), 8(3), 1-20.DOI: 10.4018/IJSSMET.2017070101

Jin-Yuan, Y. U. A. N., Miao, W. A. N. G., & Xiao-Ming, Y. U. A. N. (2016). Analysis for Cost Leadership Strategy and Core Competitiveness Points of IKEA CO. DEStech Transactions on Economics, Business and Management, (iceme-ebm). DOI: 10.12783/dtem/iceme-ebm2016/4157

Survey questions and synthesis charts, Oct 22, 2018

1. Are you male or female?
a. Male   b. Female
2. Your monthly income?
a. Low   b. Middle   c. High
3. Are you familiar with IKEA brand?
1     2     3     4     5
4. Can you clearly distinguish IKEA from other brands?
1     2     3     4     5
5. Is the quality of IKEA products very good?
1     2     3     4     5
6. Are you satisfied with the pricing of IKEA products?
1     2     3     4     5
7. Is the safety of IKEA products very good?
1     2     3     4     5
8. It is easy for you to move furniture home.
1     2     3     4     5


Annotation: The grading range from 1 to 5 is worst to best.

Authors	What phenomenon	What they found	Application
Edvardsson, B., & Enquist, B.	With the development of the economy, sustainable development has increasingly become a necessary strategy for today's society.	IKEA has the following values: customer experience, brand marketing and corporate value.	IKEA has a high degree of consumer satisfaction because of its high quality goods and nice service.
Emily Heller	Amazon has launched a series of home products that contain many great innovations.	People can buy the designed, multi-functional, and reasonable furniture through Amazon and it is very convenient, compared to IKEA	IKEA faced the economic threat when Amazon expanded its business in furniture.
Ngai, S. B. C., & Falkheimer, J	IKEA caught up in a scandal because of a toy image conflicting with executives.	IKEA turned this negative accident into an opportunity through social media and traditional media.	In the home retail industry, IKEA has a strong ability to turn the dilemma, even though it faces great competition in the market.
Jin-Yuan, Y. U. A. N., Miao, W. A. N. G., & Xiao-Ming, Y. U. A. N.	IKEA is successful in furniture retail industry.	IKEA has great strategies: standardized strategy, design style diversity, service and marketing, management systems and logistics	Higher customer satisfaction is conductive to the increasing reputation of the enterprise for the long time.

proposal for paper 2, Oct 17, 2018

I want to use the customer satisfaction with IKEA in this research. As we know, IKEA as one of the most valuable furniture retailer brands in the world, is widely praised and respected because of its marketing model. In general, its excellent customer satisfaction is conducive to improve the customer loyalty, increase the repeat purchase rate and promote the enterprise performance. Therefore, an effective analysis or study of IKEA's customer satisfaction is a great significance to the marketing strategy.

Two research questions:
What is IKEA's current consumer satisfaction?
How to improve IKEA's consumer satisfaction?

I want to finish this research with a questionnaire survey, and it is apply to IKEA's consumer who are over 18 years old in the IKEA shopping mall of Iowa. Through sorting out the scores and drawing a table, compare and analyze the results  according to the monthly income or gender, I will summarize the results and give recommendations.

I was prepared 11 survey questions... (I will update if I come up with more questions)

1. Are you male or female?
a. Male   b. Female
2. Your monthly income?
a. Low   b. Middle   c. High
3. Are you familiar with IKEA brand?
1     2     3     4     5
4. Can you clearly distinguish IKEA from other brands?
1     2     3     4     5
5. Is the quality of IKEA products very good?
1     2     3     4     5
6. Do IKEA products have good functions?
1     2     3     4     5
7. Are you satisfied with the pricing of IKEA products?
1     2     3     4     5
8. Is the safety of IKEA products very good?
1     2     3     4     5
9. Will you communicate with the service staff during the purchase process?
1     2     3     4     5
10. It is easy for you to move furniture home.
1     2     3     4     5
11. Can the services provided by IKEA meet your needs well?
1     2     3     4     5

how the genre of IMRaD report is different from an argument-based research paper, Monday, 10/15/2018

     We are going to write an IMRaD report for the second paper, and there are clearly indicated that we need to write abstract, introduction, methods, results and recommendations in the word document. So, I think the main difference between IMRaD report and normal research paper is the structure of paper.

     For normal research paper, we don't have to talk about what methods we used and what results for this research, and we can only describe and analyze the social phenomenon. However, ImRaD report has clear division of structure, so we need to follow the requirements to describe the research at first, talk about the methods we used for the research, the consequences for the social phenomenon, then give audiences some suggestions.Moreover, we need to use some graphs or tables to help analyzing the research. The IMRaD report like academic paper, and argument-based research paper like non-academic paper that we don't need to write too professionally.