I am satisfied!

Has the course so far lived up to my expectations?
Well the short answer is YES! J

I had to remind myself what my expectations were. I wrote in my first blog that “I hoped that the course would help me to build a network to help me and my colleagues to reflect on our company’s challenges, and I also hoped to get a better platform of knowledge”.

The course so far has not only helped me to build a network outside of work (which is great), but above all a network within the organization. I have a colleagues that has joined the open course out of interest (and perhaps one more that will join). We now have interesting discussions about the different theories. I also have colleagues that are interested in what I study and are following my blog. This also gives me new opportunities to reflect upon theories in the context of company challenges.

My satisfaction judgement of this course has been experience based and not based on quality of the course as I would have thought before learning about the theories behind.

I have learned through the theories that quality of a product/service and satisfaction judgement is different concepts which needs to be considered within the organization, especially when working towards having “the most satisfied customers” like my organization do. To be able to increase customer satisfaction our company need to consider what actually influence satisfaction. We need to be aware of the difference between quality judgement and satisfaction judgement.  Traditionally we have measured rational parameters, interpreted in my organization to speed of our BB, design of the modem, surf uptime etc, and now we also have to add perceived or subjective quality, for instance if speed is good enough for my own consumption over internet, for streaming the films that my friends do or playing the games that my friends play etc. (regardless of what speed it is). Is my BB working at the time of day when I am chatting with my friends? (Not if it is working 99,8% or 99,9% of the time).

I set the expectations on the course after reading about the course content. But, while reflecting on my expectations I realize that my own expectations was described according to measurable parameters, but in fact I was not only expecting a new network, but a new network relevant for me that I felt confident to use and that I trust. In fact I was not even aware of my own expectations, or I did not know what I could expect or what made me satisfied before my studies started. Anyway performance has over delivered compared to expectations and disconfirmation has arisen and lead to satisfaction, (according to the disconfirmation model).

From the way I talk about this course I can relate to the theory that word of mouth, loyalty and repeated purchase is a consequence of satisfaction. I talk well about the course, I intend to continue my study and if there will be a continuing course I will definitely look over the possibility to take that one too.

Gabriella Elias

How emotions influenced me not to buy "the apartment of my dreams"!

Last week I was at a preview of an apartment. I was overwhelmed, and I really could see myself live there with my family.

Therefore I immediately went home to my family to tell them about how perfect this apartment was, how much I wanted to move there and so forth. I also started to calculate if we could afford this apartment. The broker made a great impression so we even contacted her and asked her to evaluate our apartment.

Two days after, me and my husband decided to make an offer on the apartment before the original display. The broker was very interested to hear our offer. It was well above the accepted price for the apartment. Without asking the seller she turned our offer down though explaining that they already had indications of an even higher amount from some other speculators. AND that the seller wanted to have a traditional bidding process. Why then did she even listen to my offer?? This is where my emotions changed from being excited to me being upset with the broker’s ignorance and later her lack of competence.

Theory discloses that our emotions will influence the purchase decision and our loyalty. It did.

My purchase decision took a U-turn. I went to the next display of the apartment, but this time I ended up finding fault in the apartment. My calculations ended up being less risk averse. I had a lot of contact with the broker and I experienced our contact as vague, not straight forward and her really pushy. I explained the situation to her, that we were not that interested any longer. I felt she pushed me to make another offer. I did not. I could have seen between fingers for all of those things if my emotions at that time was not affected. I ended up being critical towards the apartment and the broker. We canceled the meeting with the broker regarding our own apartment. And we ended up pulling us out of the bidding before someone even made a bid on the accepted price.

In the end we made a more thoughtful decision, with less risk, and perhaps better for us.
Yet they lost a potential buyer.

Overall a bidding is quite stressful for anyone participating in it. This area could definitely benefit from a CX overview.

The experience of having lunch at my daughters school

Last week I planned to visit my daughter at school and have a pleasant lunch with her. She just started a new school in a preschool class. I wanted to see how everything worked in the new environment, what the food tasted like, meet her classmates and her new teachers.


Unfortunately my lunch at school did not live up to my expectations (even though spending time with my daughter was as wonderful as ever).


I found the environment really stressful. I meet them out on the schoolyard, and before entering the cantina the children should gather up, walk to another building, wash their hands, gather up again and walk to the cantina. The adults were continuously on the children about standing in the line, walking faster, following the other classmates tempo, moving away from the corridor where the elderly pupils were running their errands, hurrying up to stand in another line, not walking to slow etc.


When finally arriving at the cantina, about 30 kids, their teachers, and me, had 30 minutes to find our seats in the cantina, then wait for our turn to take food ourselves and then go back to our seats. The children are 5 or 6 years old. It took 17 minutes before all of us had food on our plates. Then we had another 13 to eat and clean the table, meaning that all of us should bring back our tray with the plate, cutlery and glasses on. Adults normally have about 1 hour to finish their lunches at work.


The teacher had a chant saying "1, 2, 3,4 ,5 ,6, 7, everyone quiet now" ("1, 2, 3,4 ,5 ,6, 7, alla tysta nu."). After that was said everyone had to sit quiet for 5 minutes to have time to eat. Have you ever sat with your colleagues at lunch quiet? That felt quit awkward.


Before everyone was ready and out of the cantina a new class had lined up outside the door to the cantina to begin with the same procedure as we just had. The food lady controlling the cantina had a few busy rounds to go.


After lunch all of us went out to the schoolyard. The kids had the chance to play there for about 10-15 minutes before they had to line up again. This time a day they did a trip to a playground a few hundred meters away. The reason was that the pupils from class 6 was soon to enter the schoolyard, and that could be a little bit "hectic" for the kids. Isn’t the schoolyard there for all pupils to feel safe and play?? Do we have to take our coffe at work somewhere else than in the coffee room just because the environment there is to hectic?


Let´s just say that I was not very happy with my visit at the school. I know that what is a bad experience for someone might be good for someone else. I just hope that my daughter and I do not share the same experience from this lunch together.




Worried mum
Gabriella