Preliminary Research Design Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Preliminary Research Design - Assignment Example However, once a business has been operating for an amount of time, they begin to rely on their customers to help their business continue to strive. Of course, customers are only a small part of the business, but the way that customers are treated will have a direct impact on the way that the business grows. Many businesses understand the relationship of customers to loyalty, but many do not see that it makes much difference in the way they do business. In the old days, there was a phrase that everyone seemed to use: "The customer is always right." But today, this may not be the case for every business. Customer satisfaction will automatically lead to customer loyalty if customers are treated well. Theoretical Framework Most business people understand that the relationship that they build with their customers will either bring them back to the business or make them go to someone else. The most important factor for them to remember is that there is a relationship between customer satis faction and loyalty. The idea of customer satisfaction can be defined in many different ways. ... Some researchers suggest that defining customer satisfaction means that quality of the product is important to customer satisfaction. Although this is one component that points to customer satisfaction, it is not the only one that can be seen in developing this concept. In order to define customer satisfaction, a research must look a several issues that create good customer service. Roethlein and Wicks (2009) suggest that one of those components is quality. Whether it is a product or a service, there are certain elements of quality service that most customers will expect. Customers satisfaction connects to customer loyalty which in turn connects to costumer retention. In each situation, customers are the major part of why a business or service works well and continues to thrive, especially in difficult economic times. According to Dubrovski (as cited in Roethlein and Wicks, 2009), consumer satisfaction is the most important aspect of profit because it is through customer satisfaction that profits are made. In other words, the more satisfied customers are, the more they want to purchase from the company. Kumar, Petersen, and Leone (2010) suggest that when customers are satisfied with a product or service, they will tell other people about it and they will refer them to the business. They devised a formula to decide what customers had the highest value for referrals and applied it to their research. They found that customers who had a high level of referral possibility only needed to have one form of advertising come to them because if they liked the business enough, they would automatically refer people to it. These different theories of how researchers see customer satisfaction makes it difficult to devise a strong independent or dependent variable for what

Is apple iPhone really worth buying Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Is apple iPhone really worth buying - Essay Example 2. Procedure In order to gather information for this report the method used was the review of books from academic libraries, online journals, newspaper articles and reviews given on IPhone and competing mobile devices. This is the most appropriate method bearing in mind the smart phone industry is very dynamic and the internet is the only reliable source of up to date information. Moreover, there being little time to carry out a primary research and the high expenses associated with it, literature review was the most appropriate secondary research method. 3. Introduction on IPhone Inc In 2007, Apple, under the leadership of Steve jobs introduced the IPhone which turned out to be one of the most revolutionary mobile gadgets of the century, over the course of the next two years; the IPhone 3G was also launched into the smartphone market (Richie, 2013). The devices offered better technology at significantly reduced prices and effectively took command of the huge portion of the smart pho ne market beginning the smart phone revolution that persist to-date. The smart phone evolution was taken up a level higher by the subsequent introduction of the IPhone 4 and 5 and Apple currently ranks as the second biggest producer and market of smartphones globally. The initial smart phone cost $499 and although the debut price was considerably high, it was not the priciest phone on the market and it cost substantially less than some of the older but less developed mobile device on the market. However, this price proved too high to penetrate the mainstream market and as a result, the phones were mostly limited to an upper and middle class corporate and personal clientele. The second IPhone flagship model was the IPhone 4 series that offered significant improvements from the earlier 3G, and through it Apple introduced optical lamination, an interplane switching effectively scaled over the matching display sizes offered by the completion (Richie, 2013). Despite the challenges the de vice faced in the marketing as well as some technical difficulties, it was stated as the best smart phone ever by many. The latest model of IPhone, IPhone 5 was introduced in 2012 September (William 2013), and it was bigger smarter, lighter faster and the firm had used the experience from the glitches in previous IPhones to make the new one as flawless as possible. Customers received it enthusiastically and although its sales did not match rival Samsung galaxy III, they still performed considerably well on selling their phone (Gruman 2012). 4. Challenges facing the IPhone 4.1 Radical and Regular Upgrades Apple releases a new IPhone every year but despite that, many customers do not upgrade, but a significant number of customers have retained their IPhone 4 models owing to economic or speculative reasons (Swift 2010). Therefore, this problem is likely to keep affecting many of the firm’s clients and when they decide to make a shift, they may opt to buy a phone from a different firm such as Samsung or Microsoft. Apple customers often have to struggle to catch up with the firm’s rapid and on occasion drastic hardware upgrades (Associated Press 2013). Apples upgrades vary form one model to the other; however sometimes, the changes can be very subtle such that the newer is only slightly different or