Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards vat cach port`s service quality

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY STUDENT NAME: ĐẶNG TUYẾT MAI DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT’S SERVICE QUALITY HAI PHONG – 2015 MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY STUDENT NAME: ĐẶNG TUYẾT MAI CLASS: GMA02 DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT’S SERVICE QUALITY Supervisor: Vu Thi Thu Hang Division: Global Studies and Maritime Affairs Faculty: Economics HAI PHONG – 2015 Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality PREFACE The work outlined in this dissertation was carried out at Vat Cach port, where I undertook in internship, over the period from August 2015 to the end of September 2015 I declare that this report is my own unaided work It has not been submitted before If violated, I am solely responsible for and bear the punishments of the Institution and University Student Name and Signature Đặng Tuyết Mai Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page i Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This internship report would not be completed without the help and cooperation of the following people First of all, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to Ms Vũ Thị Thu Hằng andMr Vũ Lê Huy for the guidelines given, which were very helpful for me to understand and prepare the structure of the report And I would like to thank all staffs of Vat Cach Port joint stock companywho gave me necessary help, support and information to complete this report successfully Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page ii Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES vi INTRODUCTION The importance of research Target and research scope Methodology Research results Layout of the dissertation CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1.Service quality and Port service quality 1.2.1 Service quality 1.2.2 Port service quality 1.2.Customer satisfaction 1.3.Relation between customer satisfaction and port service quality 1.4.RATER model 1.5.Important - Performance matrix 10 CHAPTER 2: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT‟S SERVICE QUALITY 12 2.1 Introduction about Vat Cach Joint stock company 12 2.1.1 General information 12 2.1.2 Main services 13 2.1.3 Facility 13 2.1.4 Organizational structure of Vat Cach Port 15 2.2 Evaluation of Customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality 17 2.2.1 Research method 17 2.2.2 Analysis of customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality 20 Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page iii Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT‟S SERVICE QUALITY 28 3.1.Identifying and analyzing prioritized factors that need to be improved 28 3.1.1.Factor REL3: “The port always provide service in a consistent manner” 29 3.1.2.Factor REL5: “The port always produces error-free invoice and related documents” 29 3.1.3.Factor A3: “The staff uses the technology quickly and skilfully” 29 3.1.4.Factor RES2: “The port always provides satisfactory answers towards any comments” 31 3.2.Suggestions to improve the service qualityofVat Cach Port 31 3.2.1.Factor REL3: “The port always provides service in a consistent manner” 31 3.2.2.Factor REL5: “The port always produces error-free invoice and related documents” 32 3.2.3.Factor A3: “The staff use the technology quickly and skilfully” 32 3.2.4.Factor RES2: “The port always provide satisfactory answers towards any comments” 33 CONCLUSION 34 REFERENCE 35 APPENDIX – QUESTIONNAIRES 37 Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page iv Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality LIST OF TABLES Table Vat Cach port's wharf system .13 Table Quay system 14 Table The number of equipment of Vat Cach Port JSC 14 Table List of variables .18 Table Summary of the customers’ expectation score .20 Table Summary of the customers’ perception score 23 Table Summary of gap score between expectation and perception .25 Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page v Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality LIST OF FIGURES Figure Importance-Performance Matrix 11 Figure Vat Cach JSC headquarter 12 Figure Organizational Structure of Vat Cach Port JSC 15 Figure Distribution of the expectation score of these variables 22 Figure Distribution of the perception score of these variables 25 Figure Importance-Performance matrix of individual variables 28 Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page vi Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality INTRODUCTION  The importance of research It goes without saying that seaports play a vital role in the regional and national economy They are not only the places of loading/unloading cargoes onto/from vessels but also the distribution centers where value-added services take place With the advantage of locating near the international maritime route, maritime transportation plays a crucial role in foreign cargo trading of Vietnam In recent years, because of the Government‟s open policies as well as the high growth rate of national economy, the amount of cargoes traded through ports in Vietnam has increased dramatically The number of ships docking at Vietnamese ports also rose, leading to the high demand for services supporting for those ships Although the volume of exporting and importing cargoes through Vietnamese ports increased rapidly, especially containerized cargoes, majority of Vietnamese ports are still considered not to utilize their capacity The location of port, quality of equipment and facility as well as the production management in port and transportation are the elements causing the delay of ships docking at Vietnamese ports, reducing cargo handling capacity, hence reducing the attraction of Vietnamese ports to ships from outside In addition, Vietnamese ports also reveal several drawbacks, namely the outdated equipment and facility which have been used for years without being invested to upgrade or improve Consequently, those equipment and facility are easy to be broken and cost a long time for repairing Other related factors can be named as the relatively high price and staff with insufficient ability in handling cargoes, causing loss or damage to cargoes and low level of satisfaction among customers During the time doing internship at Vat Cach Port Join Stock Company, by interview and through self-observation, I noticed that the company is well aware of the importance to improve service quality in order to acquire higher satisfactory level among their customers However, there has not been any researches on this fields before Therefore I decided to choose this issue of improving customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach Port‟s service quality to be my topic for dissertation Contemporarily, there have already been a number of researches looking into topics such as, the importance of seaports in general or the measurement of port efficiency However, research on the impacts of port service quality‟s constituents on customer satisfaction has not yet been well-investigated Therefore, researches on port service quality in general and customer satisfaction towards port service Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality quality in particular when conducted are significant in both theory as well as practice  Target and research scope Target of dissertation: This paper will assess the level of customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach Port‟s service quality and offer some suggestions to improve the situation Scope of dissertation: This paper focuses only on the port service in Vat Cach Port, Haiphong city and uses data in 2015  Methodology This report uses the RATER Model to create the list of variables and evaluate the quality of the service After that, an I-P matrix will be used to determine which factors should be prioritized for improvement The data used in this paper was collected from both secondary data and primary data  Secondary data includes the information and figures provided by Vat Cach Port  Primary data includes the assessments through the surveys completed by Vat Cach Port‟s customers for the port service quality  Research results The results of the analysis carried out showed that the services provided by Vat Cach Joint Stock Company has not met the expectation from their customers as the expectation score exceeded perception score And from the I-P matrix, there are prioritized factors for improvement  Layout of the dissertation Chapter 1: Introduction about Vat Cach port Chapter 2: Methodology Chapter 3: Evaluation and suggestions to improve Vat Cach port‟s service quality Đặng Tuyết Mai – GMA02 Page ... Page iii Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS VAT CACH PORT‟S SERVICE QUALITY ... Evaluation of Customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality 17 2.2.1 Research method 17 2.2.2 Analysis of customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality 20... – 2015 Suggestions to improve customer satisfaction towards Vat Cach port‟s service quality PREFACE The work outlined in this dissertation was carried out at Vat Cach port, where I undertook in