Assessing customer value for express service providers: An empirical study from shippers' perspective in Taiwan

Customer value is an important factor to evaluate the competitive strength for an international express service provider. It is also a key criterion to choose an express service. Hence, the main purpose of this paper was to develop a fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) model to assess the customer value for three express service providers in Taiwan based on the shippers' perspective. Firstly we employed some concepts of fuzzy set theory to develop a fuzzy MCDM model. Subsequently, a hierarchical structure was constructed with four criteria, twenty sub-criteria and three alternatives (i.e. UPS, FedEx and DHL). Then, this paper conducts an empirical study by means of a survey from the viewpoints of shippers in Taiwan. Finally, the results of this study showed that: (1) the 'time' aspect is the most important criterion affecting the customer service based on the viewpoints of exporters and importers in Taiwan; (2) the top six key factors affecting customer value for express service providers are 'land time between house and airport at both ends,' 'administrative processing time,' 'pick-up and haul time in warehouse,' 'level of accuracy,' 'level of safety,' and 'rapid turnover,' respectively; (3) FedEx offers the best customer value in Taiwan based on the proposed fuzzy MCDM model. Furthermore, some discussions are provided for express service companies. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a practical survey for business application on customer value of express service providers.