Customers Satisfaction Research
Eline van Maanen on her internship at LAP&P, July 2008.
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“As part of the master track SBB, I fulfilled an internship. I had no problem finding a position. I wanted to do an internship that related to my M.Sc. profile Living Matter (LS&T). My first choice was LAP&P, where I successfully sent an open application to.
LAP&P offers consultancy services in the area of (advanced) pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modelling to the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry. LAP&P is a small CRO (11 persons), operating internationally. The customers are pharmaceutical companies from Japan, Europe and the USA.
As LAP&P is a relatively young organization, this was the first time they had an intern. In an internship period of four months, my primary activity was customer satisfaction research. LAP&P does not have a marketing department or a marketing manager. My activities were performed independently, supervised by the CEO, so I had my own responsibilities. My ideas and remarks were taken very seriously.This was the first customer satisfaction research carried out at LAP&P. I used the theoretical deepening to obtain more knowledge on issues relating to the customer satisfaction research. The customer satisfaction research consisted of a customer survey and a mirror survey. The goal of the customer survey was to identify key issues where improvements can be made in LAP&P’s services. The mirror survey was used to see if LAP&P’s own staff has a good idea of what is important to the customers and how satisfied they are.
In the analysis of the customer survey, I expected to find cultural differences between participants from Japan, Europe and the USA in their response to the questions. However, the expected differences were not observed.
The service buying behavior in a business-to-business environment is very complex. The fact that the customers are pharmaceutical companies further complicates matters, as they have to deal with a lot of internal and external regulations. It is very important for LAP&P to be aware of the individual needs of their customers.Segmenting the customers is not so straightforward and cannot be based solely on the results of the customer satisfaction survey. The customer satisfaction survey could be a starting point to implement a marketing planning process and an integrated marketing communication plan at LAP&P.
Using my SBB fundamentals knowledge and skills in practice, I think that SBB Fundamentals is a really good business education. All education received at the TUDelft during LS&T compulsory courses (DOT, MVO, Design) was also useful. During my master profile Living Matter and research internships I learned to think in terms of models, which helped me comprehend the services of LAP&P. I really enjoyed my SBB internship at LAP&P.Find more information on SBB internships and more SBB internship experiences on our website.
