Customer orientation as corporate culture for improving customer satisfaction: evidence from the local authority sector

Abstract

Customer orientation is recognised as one of the most important elements within any business management strategy. Understanding customers and providing exceptional value and satisfaction, even to the point of exceeding expectations, are crucial and the public sector is no exception to this rule. The aims of this paper are: 1) to critically examine the relationship between corporate culture and customer orientation as a means of providing consumer satisfaction and loyalty; 2) to establish how this relationship works within a local authority context compared to private organisations; 3) to establish the importance of this relationship for public service success and outline any key barriers for being customer orientated within this sector. The methodology outlines the qualitative research methods utilised for gathering data. This research is designed as a pilot study to inform future research on a larger scale.