Bernd Stauss – författare

This practice- and research-based book caters to the needs of executive managers who see customer satisfaction as their primary goal. The authors identify the need for an effective complaint management strategy that prevents the loss of dissatisfied customers. Dissatisfied customers are at risk of migrating; accordingly, neglecting professional complaint management poses a considerable threat to customer relationships, sales and profits.

The book offers a comprehensive management concept, which emphasizes direct contact with the complainant by employing complaint stimulation, acceptance, processing and reaction. Further, it discusses the relevant ‘backstage’ tasks involved in using complaint information to achieve quality improvements and cost reductions through complaint analysis, controlling and reporting.

The service sector has dominated advanced economies for years. In many countries, it accounts for more than 70% of gross domestic product, and approximately the same percentage of all employees work in this sector. To reflect the economic relevance of the service sector, services science must be established as an academic discipline. But the path in pursuit of this goal is riddled with challenges, especially in the fields of services research, service-oriented education and service-related collaborations. This book includes detailed articles and short statements on each field, written by academics and experts. They explain which challenges need to be met by research and academic training in the services community of the 21st century. The contributions contained in this book reflect the content of presentations and statements given at the first German Services Science Conference.

Gift-giving is an economically significant area of consumer behavior. For we are constantly buy gifts: for Christmas and Mother’s Day, for birth and baptism, for the start of school and exams, for engagements and weddings, for birthdays or as souvenirs. Moreover, gift-giving is a very important psychological phenomenon, based on voluntariness, but also representing a duty and requiring compliance with rules. Thus, gift giving is by no means always associated with joy, but also with stress in the search for a perfect gift and disappointment when gifts fail.

The book presents central results of psychological research on gift-giving. These provide answers to the following questions, among others:

·         What ‘secret’ rules of giving and receiving do we follow? 

·         What messages do we send with our gifts? 

·         How do certain characteristics- such as the amount of the price or empathy - influence satisfaction with a gift? 

·         What mistakes should we avoid when giving gifts in romantic relationships? 

·         When is a monetary gift appropriate and when is it not? 

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. em. Bernd Stauss held the Chair of Service Management at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

The presentation of psychological gift-giving research is supplemented by references to gift-giving episodes in fiction by authors such as Paul Auster, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Mitchell, and Thomas Mann. These illustrate the scientific findings and allow us to emotionally comprehend the experience of giving and receiving.

The Author

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. em. Bernd Stauss held the Chair of Service Management at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.