Table of ContentsIntroductionCustomer ServiceChapter SummaryIntroductionThis chapter attempts to review the essential basic themes and topics of this study. It will critically review the existing literature on this topic, providing in-depth analysis in relation to the aims and objectives of the project. The section will explore the elements of customer service – service improvement practices, customer relationship management and staff training – followed by an assessment of consumer purchasing behavior which includes elements of customer satisfaction and loyalty. customers. Finally, a summary of the chapter will be given, presenting below the hypothesis and the theoretical framework of this study. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the Original Essay Customer ServiceCustomer service can simply be defined as the relationships that an organization's employees have with its consumers. It covers a wide range of areas that include pre-, during- and after-sales service (Kursunoglu, 2014). Different companies adopt different levels of customer service. While some businesses place a high value on their customers putting their wants and needs ahead of anything else, other organizations are simply looking to make a profit any way they can. The types and level of customer service provided depend on the individual organization, as well as the market in which it operates (Batra, 2017). Acquiring competitive capabilities is essential for businesses to compete in any competitive market. Competitive capabilities can be viewed as the actual or realized strength of a manufacturer relative to its competitors. Companies must meet the specific requirements required by customers to try to keep them away from the competition. With increasing competition and the rise of technology, customer requirements have evolved to include not only high-quality products but also exceptional customer service (Hong et al. 2014). There are a number of factors that contribute to effective customer service. A service improvement practice (SIP) is a method, process or way of doing things to improve customer service processes by increasing service delivery performance. Companies that adopt the greatest number of customer service improvement practices are more likely to continually improve the quality of their customer service (Dickson, 2015). As an illustration, some organizations offer repair and replacement services, provide various gestures of goodwill to customers on a daily basis (Law, 2016), as well as continuously collect and analyze customer complaints, which is vital because it focuses directly on the customer. needs and wants (Dickson, 2015). Jebarajakirthy and Sivapalan (2017) believe that high service quality is a source of competitive advantage for organizations. They established that by maintaining high service quality, customers' repurchase intention will be enhanced, allowing companies to maintain a long-term relationship with their customers. This is further reinforced by Prakash and Mohanty (2013) who argue that higher levels of service quality lead to increased customer satisfaction and sales growth. Although many strategies can generate such results, if service quality is created in a distinct way, it is difficult to imitate. This can offer a unique selling point to organizations over their competitors. By adopting better SIPs for customers,businesses will improve their quality score, enabling them to create improved customer value and inevitably increase loyalty to their organization. Although effective customer service can be achieved in a countless number of ways, service outages can have detrimental effects on successful and profitable customer relationships (Cambra-Fierro et al. 2015). When services fail to meet customer expectations, they are considered service failures. This can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth or customer defection which can consequently lead to a loss of customers to competitors (Koc et al. 2017). According to Cheung and To (2017), an organization's response to service failures determines whether a strong brand image is built or whether its previous efforts are threatened, thereby harming the organization's reputation. This is supported by Andreea (2015), who argues that organizations that establish particular recovery strategies after service outages can create significant advantage. Although service outages are considered inevitable, the most important factor for organizations is their customers' confidence in the company's ability to turn the situation around and inevitably produce a satisfactory solution. By responding correctively to service failures, organizations are able to maintain customer trust, thereby encouraging customer loyalty. Customer relationship management (CRM) can be defined as the basic organizational processes that focus on establishing, maintaining and improving long-term associations with customers in an attempt to increase satisfaction, customer loyalty and retention (Herrhausen and Schögel, 2013). The purpose of CRM is to connect with customers in order to understand their wants and needs. It is increasingly recognized as a means of developing innovation capabilities and building sustainable competitive advantage (Bhat and Darzi, 2016). According to Tseng (2016), CRM can be classified into analytical and behavioral CRM. Analytical CRM means how a business collects and reviews valuable information through communication with its customers. The information is developed into modified strategies that attempt to meet and exceed customer wants and needs. Behavioral CRM refers to the integration of a company's connection channels with its customers. The various channels such as stores, customer service, and website for which customer purchase and service records are documented help businesses understand the purchasing behavior of their customers (Tseng, 2016). CRM is therefore used to recognize and prioritize the most suitable customers in accordance with numerous scoring procedures, illustrating clear goals and objectives for the business. However, Bhat and Darzi (2016) believe that CRM is a concept composed of four different elements: complaint resolution, customer knowledge, customer empowerment and customer orientation. Complaint resolution is how a company resolves customer complications, while customer insight considers how an organization collects, manages, and shares information to, from, and about customers (Ashnai et al. 2010). Customer empowerment looks at how a business gives its customers the power/authority to make decisions, with customer centricity referring to a set of beliefs that put customers' interests first. By adopting these four concepts, businesses can instill CRM at the highest level, leadinginevitably to customer loyalty and competitive advantage (Bhat and Darzi, 2016). The importance of training is increasingly recognized as a means of intensifying the organization's level of customer service. . Training can be expressed as a continuous process of guidance, correction and improvement at each level of performance. It is a fundamental element of any organization because it allows the accumulation of human resources which are crucial assets for the success of a company (Sharma, 2014). Lee (2012) believes that training improves the knowledge, skills and abilities of employees, enabling individuals not only to perform better, but also to implement organizational practices that meet required standards. Additionally, Currie (2010) asserts that coordinated communication and employee training are essential to internal organizational success, as well as the quality of service provided to customers. This is supported by Zumrah (2015), whose study demonstrated a positive relationship between training and customer service offerings. However, there are other factors overlooked by these studies that need to be taken into account. For example, an individual's skill level and interpersonal skills can have a large influence on the quality of service provided. Ro and Mattila (2015) found that unhappy customers can be identified by organizations by recruiting individuals with valuable interpersonal skills and authentic friendliness traits. Compassionate employees are able to identify the personal characteristics and communication styles of customers, thus being able to correctly assess a particular situation and ultimately decide on the appropriate action necessary to meet the customers' wants and needs . Additionally, Punia and Kant (2013) recognized elements that influence the effectiveness of training, thereby shaping the level of service offered. They stated that lack of support from senior management and colleagues, individual employee attitudes, job-related factors as well as gaps in training programs all have an immeasurable effect on the effectiveness of training . By regulating these factors, companies can provide effective training, thereby providing optimal customer service. Consumer buying behavior refers to the purchasing behaviors of customers before, during and after a sale. Consumers are influenced by organizations on distinctive levels, including administrative communication, the atmosphere within stores as well as the qualities of each individual brand (Elg and Hultman, 2016). As we know, each individual has their own preferences regarding the items they purchase, as well as where they purchase them. Organizations therefore adopt distinct marketing strategies to attempt to influence consumers' individual purchasing behaviors, thereby attracting them to their business. It is important for companies to create value for customers to boost their satisfaction, loyalty and profitability (Kumar and Reinartz, 2016). In doing so, businesses can find ways to influence their customers' purchasing behaviors, building loyalty and loyalty, and ultimately increasing the long-term success of the business. Customer satisfaction can be considered as an individual's perception of the performance of a product or service in relation to their expectations (Torres and Kline, 2013). This is about meeting end-of-service needs. Although each customer will have a distinct level of satisfaction with different services, satisfaction can simply be viewed as an evaluationthe extent to which a company can meet or exceed customer expectations (Kursunoglu, 2014). Customer satisfaction is essential for any competing business as it is the main determinant of the level of success in today's competitive business world (Marinkovic and Kalinic, 2017). A satisfied customer is very likely to share their experiences with family and friends, encouraging them to purchase a product/service. Similarly, a dissatisfied customer could potentially switch brands and possibly disperse information about their negative experiences, thereby harming an organization's reputation and therefore its sales (Evans et al. 2009). Additionally, a customer's repurchase intention is strongly linked to customer satisfaction (Marinkovic and Kalinic, 2017), demonstrating the high importance of the topic for organizations and marketers. Much research has been conducted on customer satisfaction. According to Isac and Rusu, 2014, customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction is based on an individual's ability to learn from past experiences. Expectancy disconfirmation theory explains that an individual compares their post-purchase perceptions to their prior pre-purchase expectations. The resulting gap between expectations and performance results in disconfirmation (Van-Ryzin, 2013). For example, when a company's perceived performance exceeds customer expectations, positive disconfirmation is created, thereby leading to customer satisfaction. Additionally, if a company's perceived performance does not meet customers' expectations, negative disconfirmation may occur, thus leading to customer dissatisfaction (Petrovsky et al. 2017). Additionally, assimilation theory states that consumers attempt to avoid dissonance by adjusting their perceptions of a certain product/service with the aim of bringing it closer to their expectations. Customers can reduce the uncertainty caused by the difference in anticipation and performance, either by changing their expectations to match the perceived performance of the product or by increasing the level of satisfaction by minimizing the importance of disconfirmation ( Isac and Rusu, 2014). However, some argue that these theories may have many potential drawbacks. First, both approaches hypothesize a link between expectation and satisfaction, but do not specify how disconfirmation of expectations can lead to satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Second, assimilation theory posits that individuals are sufficiently motivated to regulate either their expectations or their perception of product performance. Adjustment to actual product performance can lead to a positive relationship between expectations and customer satisfaction, thus predicting that this could only occur if expectations were negative to begin with (Isac and Rusu, 2014). Customer loyalty can be described as an intentional solution by the user to build a relationship with a company over a long period of time (Išoraitė, 2016). Businesses are increasingly recognizing the importance of greater loyalty as it can lead to a number of benefits such as reduced marketing costs, expanded prospects for brand extension, as well as increased market share (Evans et al., 2009). Popular organizations can retain their customers to such an extent that they become engaged to the point of sharing the company's purpose and values, thereby providing a unique and powerful customer experience (Grewal et al., 2017). It is one of the greatest intangible assets a company can possess, providing not only vast potential for differentiation, but also a source of advantagecompetitive (Cossío-Silva et al. 2016). According to Evans et al. (2009), loyal customers are a good source of positive word of mouth and illustrate great resistance to competing offers. Customer retention is of vital importance to organizations. The costs of treating loyal customers are significantly lower than the costs of attracting new customers, as loyal customers are more likely to pay for products or services to other potential customers (Cossio-Silva et al 2016). Additionally, individuals loyal to a company are less sensitive to price changes and also purchase more often and in large quantities from companies, demonstrating the crucial nature of customer loyalty to companies (Alves et al. 2016). The concept of customer loyalty has been extensively studied by several researchers. Beck et al. (2015) assert that customer loyalty is made up of two theoretical elements: attitudes and behaviors. First, behavioral loyalty is simply a perception that desires a particular entity. Individuals are viewed as information processors who collect information to form attitudes. Collecting robust positive attitudes through systematic assessment influences many customer-related behaviors. Even without repeat purchases, recommending suppliers from one customer to another demonstrates the presence of behavioral loyalty (Cossío-Silva et al. 2016). Second, behavioral loyalty involves repeat purchases, which originate from an individual’s habit (Beck et al. 2015). Loyalty is seen as a way of behaving, with “repeat purchases” being an indicator of loyalty. Behavioral loyalty is fundamental, while behavioral loyalty is considered a cognitive perception. Research indicates a positive relationship between behavioral loyalty and behavioral loyalty (Cossío-Silva et al. 2016). However, Fraering and Minor (2013) indicated a four-step process necessary to build customer loyalty, formed by cognitive, affective, conative and action loyalty. The initial stage is cognitive loyalty which arises from an individual's knowledge from previous or recent experiences, followed by affective loyalty which refers to an emotional bond that forms between the customer and the product (Ordun, 2016) . The third stage is conative loyalty, where repurchase becomes a behavioral intention like impulsive buying, followed finally by action loyalty where customers not only have the intention to buy, but also the motivation to repurchase. Loyal customers' commitment to action is considered immutable, regardless of competitors' movements (Fraering and Minor, 2013). This four-step process is also supported by Han et al. 2011, which attempted to test previous work based on loyalty. Their results illustrated a strong connection between the four stages and found that the theoretical framework had a convincing ability to predict the final stage of loyalty. While customer loyalty brings rewards to businesses, it also brings benefits to customers. Switching costs are considered one-time costs that customers associate with the process of switching from one supplier to another. When individuals leave an entity, they face several different switching costs (Chebat and Haj-Salem, 2014). By sticking to a single provider, individuals won't have to offset these costs. Additionally, most organizations offer loyalty programs and loyalty cards. Not only does this generate profits for organizations, but it also allows individuals..