The influence of cell phone users' relationship intentions on expectations and perceptions of service recovery

With the first-time cell phone user market quickly shrinking, it is becoming increasingly important for South African cell phone network providers to retain customers by building long-term relationships with them and consistently offering quality service. Despite cell phone network providers' best intentions, service failures do occur. Not all customers want to build relationships with cell phone network providers, and therefore it is important to consider the influence of customers' relationship intentions within a service failure and recovery setting. The purpose of the study was to determine the influence of relationship intention on expectations and perceptions of two service recovery scenarios within the cell phone industry. Non-probability convenience sampling was used to collect data from 605 cell phone users residing in Gauteng. Results indicate that as respondents' relationship intentions increase, so do their expectations that their cell phone network providers should take service recovery action. It was also found that respondents with high and moderate relationship intentions perceived service recovery strategies of their cell phone network providers including an acknowledgement, apology, explanation and rectification of the problem more favourable, compared to a service recovery strategy only rectifying the problem, than those respondents with low relationship intentions.http://www.journals.co.za/content/journalam2016Marketing Managemen

The influence of relationship intention on cell phone users’ attitudes towards complaining and complaint

In any service environment, there is a strong possibility that customers’ expectations and the actual service delivery are not in unison. When service failures do occur, customers’ attitudes towards complaining directly infl uence their actual complaint behaviour. As not all customers want to build relationships with service providers, it is imperative that service providers gain a deeper understanding of the behaviour, and specifi cally the complaint behaviour, of those customers who do have relationship intentions. The purpose of this study was to determine the infl uence of relationship intention on customers’ attitudes towards complaining and complaint behaviour following a service failure within the cell phone industry. Convenience sampling was used, and 605 respondents participated in the study. The results indicate that the majority of respondents who participated in this study had a propensity to complain, and that respondents with high relationship intentions are more likely to voice a billing error to their cell phone network provider than respondents with low relationship intentions. Furthermore, relationship intention should be considered as a variable that could infl uence customers’ attitudes towards complaining and complaint behaviour. The results make a valuable theoretical contribution and have managerial implications for service providers in the cell phone industry.http://www.unisa.ac.za/sabusinessreviewam201

The influence of relationship intention and population group on South African cell phone users’ positive attitude towards complaining

As most customers do not voice their dissatisfaction to service providers following service failures, it is important to identify those customers most likely to do so. Since customers with positive attitudes toward complaining are the most likely to voice their dissatisfaction, identifi able customer characteristics – such as customers’ relationship intentions and population group – infl uencing such attitudes can be an effi cient way to acquire feedback from customers. This study accordingly investigated the infl uence of relationship intention and population group on cell phone users’ positive attitude towards complaining to their cell phone network providers. By means of non-probability convenience sampling, 605 respondents from South Africa’s Johannesburg metropolitan area participated in this study. The results indicate that population group as well as relationship intention practically signifi cantly infl uence respondents’ positive attitude towards complaining. Despite this fi nding, no interaction effect was found between respondents’ population group and relationship intention on positive attitude towards complaining.http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=257842017-10-31am2016Marketing Managemen

Young adults’ relationship intentions towards their cell phone network operators

Marketers use relationship marketing to establish mutually beneficial long-term relationships with their customers as a means to retain them in the competitive market environment. Relationship marketing should not be used to target every customer as not all customers want to build long-term relationships with organisations. In order to identify the most profitable customers for relationship marketing, organisations should consider their customers’ relationship intentions to form long-term relationships with them. The primary objective of this study was to determine young adults’ (aged 18 to 25) relationship intentions towards the South African cell phone network operators they use, namely Vodacom, MTN or Cell C. Five constructs (involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss) were used to measure relationship intention. Data was collected from 315 respondents at a tertiary education institution in South Africa by means of a non-probability convenience sample. Findings indicate that a relatively high percentage of respondents have a high relationship intention towards their cell phone network operator and that respondents with high relationship intentions are more Involved with and Fear losing their relationship with their cell phone network operator than respondents with low relationship intentions.This article was co-written by P.G. Mostert before he joined the University of Pretoria.am2016Marketing Managemen

The association between prior statin usage and long-term outcomes after critical care admission

Background: Statins may have immunomodulatory effects that benefit critically ill patients. Therefore we retrospectively examined the association between survival and the prescription of statins prior to admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), or high dependency unit (HDU), as a result of major elective surgery, or as an emergency with a presumed diagnosis of sepsis. Methods: We retrospectively studied critical care patients (ICU or HDU) from a tertiary referral UK teaching hospital. Nottingham University Hospitals has over 2200 beds, of which 39 are critical care beds. Over a five-year period (2000–2005) 414 patients were identified with a presumed diagnosis of sepsis, and 672 patients were identified with a planned ICU/HDU admission following elective major surgery. Patients prescribed statins prior to hospital admission were compared with those who were not. Demographics, past medical history, drug history, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) scores were examined. Univariate and multivariate analyses were applied using the primary endpoint of survival at five years after admission. Results: Patients prescribed statins prior to critical care admission were, on average, older, with higher initial APACHE II scores and more pre-existing comorbidities. Statins were almost invariably stopped following admission to critical care. Statin usage was not associated with significantly altered survival during hospital admission, or at five years, for either patients with sepsis (9% v 15%, P=0.121; 73% v 84%, P=0.503 respectively), or post-operative patients (55% v 58%, P=0.762; 57% v 63%, P=0.390). Conclusions: Prior statin usage was not associated with improved or worsening outcomes in patients admitted to critical care after elective surgical cases or with a presumed diagnosis of sepsis

Supersymmetric CP Violation in B→Xsl+l−B \to X_s l^+ l^- in Minimal Supergravity Model

Direct CP asymmetries and the CP violating normal polarization of lepton in inclusive decay B \to X_s l^+ l^- are investigated in minimal supergravity model with CP violating phases. The contributions coming from exchanging neutral Higgs bosons are included. It is shown that the direct CP violation in branching ratio, A_{CP}^1, is of {\cal{O}}(10^{-3}) for l=e, \mu, \tau. The CP violating normal polarization for l=\mu can reach 0.5 percent when tan\beta is large (say, 36). For l=\tau and in the case of large \tan\beta, the direct CP violation in backward-forward asymmetry, A_{CP}^2, can reach one percent, the normal polarization of \tau can be as large as a few percent, and both are sensitive to the two CP violating phases, \phi_\mu and \phi_{A_0}, and consequently it could be possible to observe them (in particular, the normal polarization of \tau) in the future B factories.Comment: 14 pages, latex, 5 figure

Exploring flavor structure of supersymmetry breaking from rare B decays and unitarity triangle

We study effects of supersymmetric particles in various rare B decay processes as well as in the unitarity triangle analysis. We consider three different supersymmetric models, the minimal supergravity, SU(5) SUSY GUT with right-handed neutrinos, and the minimal supersymmetric standard model with U(2) flavor symmetry. In the SU(5) SUSY GUT with right-handed neutrinos, we consider two cases of the mass matrix of the right-handed neutrinos. We calculate direct and mixing-induced CP asymmetries in the b to s gamma decay and CP asymmetry in B_d to phi K_S as well as the B_s--anti-B_s mixing amplitude for the unitarity triangle analysis in these models. We show that large deviations are possible for the SU(5) SUSY GUT and the U(2) model. The pattern and correlations of deviations from the standard model will be useful to discriminate the different SUSY models in future B experiments.Comment: revtex4, 36 pages, 10 figure

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters