4. SECOND STAGE SURVEY
The second stage of the survey employed direct questions requesting selected shippers to indicate the degree of perceived importance and satisfaction associated with each service feature presented in Table 1. Specifically,the respondents were requested to rate the importance and satisfaction of service elements on a seven-point scale. The scale ranged from 1 (the least important/satisfied) to 7 (the most important/satisfied). The target respondents at this stage of survey were shippers who had earlier responded to the first stage.Through face-to-face interviews and mail surveys with follow-up phone calls made to clarify the questionnaire, 19 and 15 responses were received from suppliers of automotive parts and Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.5, October, 2003 2227 consumer goods respectively. It appeared that there were few shippers who had previously participated in the first stage survey but did not respond to the second stage survey. This was perhaps attributed to the fact that the questionnaire used in the second stage survey demanded respondents to deal with an exhaustive list of service attributes. To encourage participation from the shippers, future studies may have to consider limiting the number of service features to be incorporated in the questionnaire.In the analysis of the responses, the mean and the standard deviation of the importance and satisfaction scores of each attribute were computed. Statistical tests were subsequently applied to categorize the service elements into statistically different groups according to the level of perceived importance. Table 2 reported the service elements found to be statistically most vital. They are listed in the decreasing order of mean importance scores Shippers appeared to value service quality over price. Both shipper groups placed the top priority to "reliability of on time delivery" and "delivery completeness" while prices were many places lower in the list. It is noteworthy that the importance given to total transit time is not as high as one usually expects.The information provided by the analysis of importance scores may not be sufficient for carriers to identify specific areas that offer the greatest opportunity for strategic improvements. Certain attributes may be perceived by shippers as highly vital but shippers may have already been satisfied with the current service quality of these attributes. There is,therefore, no immediate need for carriers to invest resources and efforts to improve these attributes. Alternative,carriers should be concerned with attributes that are of moderate importance but with which shippers have not yet been satisfied. To identify specific service Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.5, October, 2003 2228 elements that need further enhancement,we created importance-satisfaction maps that simultaneously take into account both the observed importance scores and the satisfaction scores. Figures 1 and 2 show the resulting importance-satisfaction maps for automotive parts and consumer goods respectively. Each map is divided into a two-by-two matrix with the horizontal axis representing the degree of importance and the vertical axis indicating the level of satisfaction. Given the importance scores,service attributes were classified into two groups - "quite important" and "not quite important". The average of the mean importance scores across the service attributes was used as the cut-off value. Similarly, attributes were classified into "quite satisfied" and "not quite satisfied" with the average of the mean satisfaction scores being used as the cut-off value. Immediate carriers' attention should be paid to attributes falling in the bottom-right cell of the importance-satisfaction maps. These attributes were relatively vital but the shippers were not delighted with them. For the delivery of automotive parts, immediate improvements were necessary in the areas of "competitive rate" and "damage prevention". "Transit time" and "promptness in returning delivery receipts" were two attributes representing potential for improvements in the delivery of consumer goods
4. สองขั้นสำรวจThe second stage of the survey employed direct questions requesting selected shippers to indicate the degree of perceived importance and satisfaction associated with each service feature presented in Table 1. Specifically,the respondents were requested to rate the importance and satisfaction of service elements on a seven-point scale. The scale ranged from 1 (the least important/satisfied) to 7 (the most important/satisfied). The target respondents at this stage of survey were shippers who had earlier responded to the first stage.Through face-to-face interviews and mail surveys with follow-up phone calls made to clarify the questionnaire, 19 and 15 responses were received from suppliers of automotive parts and Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.5, October, 2003 2227 consumer goods respectively. It appeared that there were few shippers who had previously participated in the first stage survey but did not respond to the second stage survey. This was perhaps attributed to the fact that the questionnaire used in the second stage survey demanded respondents to deal with an exhaustive list of service attributes. To encourage participation from the shippers, future studies may have to consider limiting the number of service features to be incorporated in the questionnaire.In the analysis of the responses, the mean and the standard deviation of the importance and satisfaction scores of each attribute were computed. Statistical tests were subsequently applied to categorize the service elements into statistically different groups according to the level of perceived importance. Table 2 reported the service elements found to be statistically most vital. They are listed in the decreasing order of mean importance scores Shippers appeared to value service quality over price. Both shipper groups placed the top priority to "reliability of on time delivery" and "delivery completeness" while prices were many places lower in the list. It is noteworthy that the importance given to total transit time is not as high as one usually expects.The information provided by the analysis of importance scores may not be sufficient for carriers to identify specific areas that offer the greatest opportunity for strategic improvements. Certain attributes may be perceived by shippers as highly vital but shippers may have already been satisfied with the current service quality of these attributes. There is,therefore, no immediate need for carriers to invest resources and efforts to improve these attributes. Alternative,carriers should be concerned with attributes that are of moderate importance but with which shippers have not yet been satisfied. To identify specific service Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.5, October, 2003 2228 elements that need further enhancement,we created importance-satisfaction maps that simultaneously take into account both the observed importance scores and the satisfaction scores. Figures 1 and 2 show the resulting importance-satisfaction maps for automotive parts and consumer goods respectively. Each map is divided into a two-by-two matrix with the horizontal axis representing the degree of importance and the vertical axis indicating the level of satisfaction. Given the importance scores,service attributes were classified into two groups - "quite important" and "not quite important". The average of the mean importance scores across the service attributes was used as the cut-off value. Similarly, attributes were classified into "quite satisfied" and "not quite satisfied" with the average of the mean satisfaction scores being used as the cut-off value. Immediate carriers' attention should be paid to attributes falling in the bottom-right cell of the importance-satisfaction maps. These attributes were relatively vital but the shippers were not delighted with them. For the delivery of automotive parts, immediate improvements were necessary in the areas of "competitive rate" and "damage prevention". "Transit time" and "promptness in returning delivery receipts" were two attributes representing potential for improvements in the delivery of consumer goods
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