Kundtillfredsställelse på en studentnation : en fallstudie på Norrlands nation i Uppsala

Abstract: The 26th of February 2009 the Swedish government gave a referral to the council of lawregarding the removal of a law concerning mandatory membership at a student union andstudent nation while studying at a university or college in Sweden. This has led to adiscussion amongst the student nations in Uppsala as to how this proposed change will affectthe nations’ future operations. Some, including the chairwoman for Kuratorskonventet,Therez Olsson, and the 1Q for Norrland’s student nation, Jon Stridh, have expressed theirworries that this could lead to a decrease in members. This in turn would have bigconsequences for the nations as the members fee represents a great source of income and themembers themselves are the work force that enable the activities at the nations.Customer focus is a successful strategy that many companies use today to generate loyaltyamongst their customers. The aim of this paper has therefore been to study if student nationsare characterized by such conditions that enable them to use customer focus as a means tosecure operations in the future. The study has been carried out as a case study at Norrland’snation in Uppsala and is divided into two parts. The first part is a review of the theoriesconcerning customer focus that explains how it can, through customer satisfaction, result inloyal customers that inflict positive effects on the organization they are loyal to. Theconditions that must prevail for this to happen are summarized. The lack of change barriersand the possibility to find a sense of belonging together within the organization are two ofthese conditions. This theoretical review has then been used as a base for the second part ofthe study which is a qualitative interview study. Three focus group interviews focused on themembers’ usage of the nation as well as how they see their relationship with the it and howsatisfied they are with it. The results of these interviews have shown that the members’relationship with the nations is indeed to a great extent characterized by the conditions thatmust prevail for an organization to be able to benefit from customer focus. The conclusion istherefore that Norrland’s nation, according to the theoretical framework used, has theconditions to use customer focus as a means to secure future operations. Some measures arethough required for this to be possible in practice of which an improved dissemination ofinformation and an increased involvement from members are two of them.