Customer satisfaction in emergency ambulance services: A case for empirical research

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provides valuable humanitarian services to the global community. For its funding it relies not only on governmental subsidies, but also on contributions from its member organisations. In the case of Austria and Germany the prominent part of the revenues stems from emergency and ambulance services. However, competition from other non-profit organisations and private firms increasingly seems to threaten this lucrative business. Consequently, the ICRC is looking for new paths to maintain and increase its competitive advantage - the wide-spread service availability and the closeness to the customer. Therefore, a pilot project is carried out within the Austrian Red Cross, one of its member organisations, to identify ways to increase customer satisfaction. However, gathering relevant empirical data is extremely difficult and ethically challenging due to the unique survey situation during the service transaction process. If successful, this project will have lead character for other European countries.