Samenvatting

This graduation research presents findings on how the start-up organisation BimBimBikes can overcome its current difficulties with the acquisition of new German customers. Although this research uses the start-up company as a basis for the investigation, it might be applied to similar businesses that are facing the same issue. For this research, existing literature has been addressed to gain an in-depth overview of the already existing knowledge in the field of customer acquisition and customer satisfaction. Therefore, in the introduction general background theory regarding the current trends in European tourism, the European bicycle market and the global bike rental industry have been given. Moreover, the typical profile of a traveller in cycling tourism has been analysed.
The Theoretical Framework has been divided into the four concepts service, quality, trust and accessibility, as these are the main needs that need to be fulfilled in order to attract and acquire new clients. In this preliminary research it was established that a more personalised and fast customer service as well as the absence of friction and a reasonable price-performance ratio are crucial. Regarding the need for quality it has been discovered that the customer expectations here strongly depend on their level of involvement. The need for trust is met if customers do not fear risk when placing a booking on the website and the layout, structure and content appear trustworthy. Furthermore, the webpage should not appear chaotic or overloaded with information in order to be accessible.
The used method for this investigation is an exploratory, quantitative research in form of an online survey. The survey questions built on the information gathered from the literature review and are in balance with the four concepts. It has been established with Typeform and as a population served all 500 former German clients since BimBimBikes was founded. A confidence level of 75% could be achieved, which exceeds the set minimum confidence level of 70%. A total of 106 respondents filled in the questionnaire that has been distributed to all 500 e-mail addresses of the previous clients.
The questions of the survey aimed at finding out, in how far the customers have been satisfied with their booking and bike rental, what customer service expectations they have and which minimum quality they expect from their booked bicycles or tours. Furthermore, they targeted at finding out in how far the current website appears trustworthy and is easily accessible. It has been found that customers are indeed more demanding regarding the rapidity of a response to an inquiry. Moreover, they appreciate customer service via different channels as well as a well-functioning rental bicycle. Additionally, customers mainly find the layout, structure and content of the webpage trustworthy, however, many clients feel a functional and a time risk when considering a booking with BimBimBikes. Moreover, the website appears partly overloaded with information to the clients, which could cause a loss of customers. Lastly, it has been found that most customers found out about the organisation by researching bike rental possibilities on Google or referrals of acquaintances, but also through Facebook, Instagram and links from third webpages.
BimBimBikes is therefore recommended to link its Facebook page more visible to the website and consider a live-chat option. Moreover, a competition between customer service team members can be announced in order to rise motivation for a fast customer service. Also, the profiles of the rental partners should be updated with all available information to make the website appear more trustworthy and prevent issues. The bike rental partners should further be made aware of the importance of an acceptable quality of bikes and tours. Furthermore, the navigation bar of the website should be improved so that it matches with the content shown and small adaptions of the homepage regarding user comments and referrals could further lead to a more trustworthy appearance. Lastly, hashtag campaigns for videos and contests on YouTube and Facebook can be used in order to raise awareness for BimBimBikes in a creative way.