THE INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON TRANSACTIONAL BUSINESS IN
PT.TRAKINDO UTAMA
Eka Budhi Prasetya and Agung Wicaksono
School of Business and Management
Institute Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
eka.budhi@sbm-itb.ac.id
Abstract—This study collected the customer’s voice that build
the customer’s future expectation. The voice of the customers
collected from transactional survey then analyzed with
concurent triangulation method analyses. The result of the
analysis generates several proposed solutions to become a
benchmark to the existing business process and revaluation
process conducted to improve the business performance. The
improvements generated by revaluation process then increase
the value proposition of Trakindo on the next transactional
business. Findings in this research show that Trakindo’s value
proposition is perceived high although several improvements
needed to increase its value proposition. Customer’s voice
shows that area of improvement in parts delivery and
communication shall become the focus of immediate action.
To improve its customer’s experience in doing business with
Trakindo, Trakindo shall improve their current process.
Several solutions were proposed in this study classified
according to each area of improvement. To materialize the
proposed solution, an implementation plan was proposed in
this research. The implementation plan covered scope of work
and deliverables and overall time line. The implementation
plan is divided into two main categories, in which will be the
continuous improvement on daily activities and the
development of web based integrated customer support
system.
Keywords: customer’s experience, customer’s satisfaction,
voice of customer, transactional business.
I. INTRODUCTION
As one of business indicators, customer
satisfaction is one of the measurements that can be
immediate correlated with the business performance.
Customer satisfaction draws a clearer picture for an
organization to develop and sustain in the industry,
create better strategies and tactics, analyze and prepare
for the future condition including its sales and
profitability of overall enterprise, and to understand the
gap between operating result and planned performance.
Based on the vision 2015 to become the market leader
in heavy equipment business in Indonesia, PT Trakindo
Utama (Trakindo) determined to reach that goal by
taking joint action with all its stakeholders to
reengineering the current business. This issue
considered as one of the most important topics, not for
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transactional business with customer only, but for the
whole Trakindo’s businesses.
PT Trakindo Utama was built by AHK “Met”
Hamami, in 23 December 1970 with the spirit of having
a company that capable of creating quality employment
for Indonesian people as many as possible. For over 40
years, Trakindo proudly has come a long to grow up and
become "The Customer Service Company" that provide
world-class services for Caterpillar (CAT) heavy
equipment brands. With the vision of being a world-
class service solutions provider for Caterpillar
equipment Trakindo strive to be the best among
Caterpillar dealership around the globe. Trakindo
becoming officially Indonesian Caterpillar Dealership in
April 13, 1971, and start to participating in several
mega-projects in Indonesia such as the construction of
Jagorawi toll road – the first toll road built in Indonesia,
Soekarno-Hatta airport, Saguling and Cirata dam,
Padalarang – Cileunyi toll road, and other construction
projects all around Indonesia.
Trakindo’s business models in dealing with the
customer that investigated in this study classified into
five approaches. Each of the approach delivered by
different methodologies and determined by each
customer’s specific requirement. The business models
are described as follow,
Customer Support Agreement: In this business models,
the interaction between Trakindo and its customer is
conducted by agreement between Trakindo and the
customers and sometimes it will be involving
Caterpillar. The agreement ranged between the simplest
Preventive Maintenance (PM Services) until the most
sophisticated Maintenance and Repair Contract
(MARC).
Field Service: In this business models, Trakindo provide
the service for the customer. The service work
conducted outside the Trakindo’s premises and mostly
on the customer’s premises.
Parts Purchase: In this business models, Trakindo only
served the customer by selling Caterpillar parts and no
service works conducted.
Rental: In this business models, customer is renting unit
or machine from Trakindo. The rental equipment is
bond by an agreement with the customer.
 Prasetya and Wicaksono / The Indonesian Journal of Business Administration, Vol.1, No.4, 2012: 271‐276
Shop Service: In this business models, Trakindo provide
the service for the customer. The service work
conducted inside the Trakindo’s premises.
II. BUSINESS ISSUES EXPLORATION
Heavy equipment business in Indonesia developed
in-line with the natural resource extractions industry,
such as mining, maritime, and agriculture. Those
industries rely on their equipment's durability and
availability. One most common problem is product
reliability and its customer support. This condition
makes integrated business solution highly valued in a
fierce business competition.
50.0%
45.0%
40.0%
35.0%
30.0%
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%
10.0%
5.0%
0.0%
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Figure 1. Machine Competitive Analysis. Source: Internal
From machine competitive analysis, Trakindo’s
Caterpillar machine market position in several years is
declining from its past market leader position as
illustrated with the graphic above. The graphic shows
that the other players are increasing their market
position while Trakindo losing the battle annually.
Based on the growth of production volume, however,
the demand for heavy equipment in Indonesia could not
fulfill by its local production only and have to import
the equipment from other country to fill the industry
demand.
Based on the vision 2015 to become the market
leader in heavy equipment business in Indonesia,
Trakindo determined to reach that goal by taking joint
action with all its stakeholders to reengineering the
current business. Caterpillar as world's leader in heavy
equipment industry through its dealership offer the
integrated customer support that covers scheduled
maintenances, on-site services, parts services, and
trainings to its customers. Trakindo as Caterpillar
dealership in Indonesia have several strategies that
implemented in various distinctive business areas. Each
of those segments has unique attributes and required
different approach.
One of the strategies that increased long term
operating partnership between Caterpillar, Trakindo,
and its customers is maintain and retain business
relationship with the customers that provide the
customer with the product reliability and serviceability
leadership. To maintain long-term relationship,
Caterpillar and Trakindo already developed strategic
map of maintain long-term relationship with the
customers. The triggering events, the process steps, and
the market outcomes then measured with several key
capabilities that can be identified the market outcomes
for Caterpillar, Trakindo, and the end-user.
Key capabilities that taken as performance
indicator then listed as (1) Profitability of overall
enterprise – Caterpillar, Trakindo, and customers; (2)
Equipment, service, and parts sales; (3) Percent of
product population serviced under support agreements;
(4) Repeat and incremental equipment sales; (5)
Customer satisfaction (overall); (6) Operating result vs.
planned performance (contract performance).
As one of the indicators, customer satisfaction is
one of the measurements that can be immediate
correlated with the business relationship between
CAT
KOM
HIT
VOL
KOB
OTH
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Ytd Sept
2011
Year
Caterpillar, Trakindo, and its customers. Customer
satisfaction draws clearer picture for an organization to
develop and sustain in the industry, create better
strategies and tactics, analyze and prepare for the future
condition including its sales and profitability of overall
enterprise, and the last but not least is to fully
understand the gap between operating result and
planned performance.
Creating value for customer is the foundation of
every successful business system; creating value for
customer builds loyalty, and loyalty in turn builds
growth, profit, and more value. As a cause, loyalty
initiates a series of economic effects that cascade
through the business system (Reichheld, 1996). The
value proposition is a statement about the resulting
experience customer will gain from the company’s
market offering and from the relationship with the
supplier. The brand must represent a promise about the
total experience customers can expect. Whether the
promise kept depends on the company’s ability to
manage its value-delivery system. The value delivery
system includes all the experiences the customer will
have on the way to obtaining and using the offering
(Kotler and Keller, 2006).
By using Lambert’s concept for business model
(Lambert, 2008), Trakindo can evaluate its business by
focusing its connection between a value proposition and
a value adding process, in which area is focusing in
transactional business with its customers. By using the
customer satisfaction analysis that collected through the
transactional business process, Trakindo evaluate its
value adding process, and determine which one is value-
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added process and focusing its effort in that particular
area. Although customers make satisfaction judgment
about product and service, customer satisfaction shall
differ with service quality. Customers normally judge
organizations on a wider range of factors than service
quality alone – product quality and price being two
obvious examples (Hill et.al, 2007).
A. Conceptual Framework
The transaction between Trakindo and the
customer then produced customer experience, and based
on that experience, this research collected the
customer’s voice that build the customer’s future
expectation. The voice of the customer analyzed to
become a benchmark to the existing business process
and revaluation conducted to improve the business
performance.
Figure 2. Conceptual Framework
The improvement produced by revaluation then
increases the value proposition of Trakindo on the next
transactional business. This conceptual framework loop
intended to become a continuous improvement in
Trakindo’s business model. The data collected during
transactional business then analyzed concurrently using
quantitative and qualitative analyses. The triangulation
method of data analysis employed to verify and clarify
issues that arose in the survey’s results. The solutions
then addressed for each findings and the implementation
plan developed for the business’ solution.
The results from this study will give another
perspective and guidance from customer's experience
when deal with Trakindo. This issue is one of the most
important topics, not for transactional business with
customer only, but for the whole Trakindo’s businesses
as mentioned before. In addition, the issue has a high
profile in Trakindo's awareness because of a series of
customer satisfaction issues. The question of the
customer’s perception about Trakindo is fundamental to
the understanding for improving Trakindo’s services,
especially the relationship of transactional business to
customer's experiences. Therefore, this study intended
to generate a set of improvement action plan to improve
customer's satisfaction when doing businesses with
Trakindo.
B. Research Methodology
The methodology used in this study is concurrent
triangulation mixed methods (Creswell, 2009) to
provide a comprehensive analysis of the research
problem. The qualitative and quantitative data collected
in the same occasion and the result based on the
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interpretation of both quantitative and qualitative data.
The quantitative data collection intended to assess the
general perception of the customer intimacy level at the
transactional event and collect the general review of
current company performance. The qualitative method
then conducted to gain more intense communication and
feedback from the customer, and to confirm the findings
of quantitative study. Concurrent triangulation strategy
used to offset the weakness of quantitative methods with
the strength of qualitative methods and vice versa. The
integration of the result conducted during interpretation
phase to achieve convergent findings and formulate the
proposed solutions.
C. Questionnaire Design and Data Collection
The data collection, both of quantitative and
qualitative are conducted through phone conversation.
The customer surveyed within 14 days of transaction.
Customer contact identified by using the customer data
during transaction and assumed in the best position to
give the data and feedback to our survey. The
quantitative survey questionnaire is designed to access
respondents’ view (in numeric Likert scales – 1 to 10 –
“very dissatisfied” or “very disagree” to “very satisfied”
or “very agree”) on the current transactional business
within certain period of time and scope. The qualitative
questionnaire designed to capture respondents’ view on
the transactional business and provide feedback for
further analysis.
D. Survey Result Analysis
The transactional businesses surveyed in period of
July 01, 2011 until April 04, 2012 recorded 568
transactions from 455 customers. The transaction during
that period recorded in Field Service, Parts Purchase,
and Shop Service. Recorded by its transaction, the
customer can be traced by its Market Segment (Java,
Sumatra, East Indonesia), County (West Java, East Java,
Central Sumatra, South Sumatra, South and West
Kalimantan, and Sulawesi), Job Code Description
(Engine, Electric, Final Drive, Parts, etc.), and other
related classification. From the type of the industry, the
respondents mostly come from construction related
business such as general contractors of commercial and
public building, highways and street contractors, oil and
gas businesses, heavy equipment rental business,
manufacturers, and raw material suppliers. On Field
Service type of transaction, the data collected from 33
respondents with 34 transactions. From the Parts
Purchase, the data collected from 385 respondents with
468 transactions. For the Shop Service, the data
collected from 57 respondents with 66 transactions.
The total data for this survey is 455 respondents
with 568 transactions. The quantitative analysis began
with overall business transactions to give a broad
perspective of the transactions analyzed and continued
into each type of services (Field Service, Parts Purchase,
and Shop Service) to have comprehensive views on
transactional business problems. The quantitative
analysis then followed by the qualitative analysis to
confirm the findings.
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Quantitative Survey Data Analysis
The quantitative data collected from the survey
gave a glance view of the service provided by Trakindo
to its customers. The customer’s loyalty index measured
on following categories, (1) Loyal, the customer
who gave a score 9 or 10 on all 3 loyalty metrics –
Overall Satisfaction, Repurchase, and Referral; (2)
Vulnerable, the customer who gave a score of 6 or
higher on all 3 loyalty metrics but the lower than 9 on at
least one question; (3) At-Risk, the customer who gave a
score of less than 6 on the least one question.
Overall Transaction: From overall transaction result,
Trakindo have 67.3% customers categorized as
Vulnerable customer, 21.1% At-Risk customer, and only
have 11.4% Loyal customer. The result indicates that
Trakindo have low customer loyalty index and have to
improve its value proposition to attract the Vulnerable
customer to become Loyal customer and to minimize
the At-Risk customer portion.
Field Service: At this type of services, Trakindo shall
focusing its effort to improve the value proposition
since none of the customers gave favorable answer,
two-third of customers are Vulnerable type and one-
third of its customers are At-Risk customer type.
Parts Purchase: For this type of services, Trakindo have
67.3% Vulnerable customer and 19.4% At-Risk
customer. This type of services has the highest Loyal
customer compare to the other types.
Shop Service: From the loyalty indication, this type of
services should be improved since only 4.6% of its
customers are categorized as Loyal. Trakindo should
improved its effort on this type of services because it is
the most controllable environment and have less
external factors compared to the Field Service and Parts
Purchase type of services.
Quantitative Survey Data Analysis
The qualitative data gathered during the survey
interpretated into following figures. These figures
describe the data reduction from probe questionnaire’s
survey, keyword’s displays, and the iterations of
conclusions’ verification processes. Based on that
iterative proces, high level of detail from each probes
for each type of services generalized as follow,
Figure 3. Customer Satisfaction Probes
Each of the probes generalized to find similar
setting between each type of services Trakindo
performed to its customers. The conclusion that drawn
from this analysis then tested by triangulating the
findings with quantitative analysis. The triangulation
results then generated conclusion for overall
quantitative and qualitative analyses.
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Repurchase: From the Field Service type, the customers
highlighted the completion time and service performed
by Trakindo’s team. On the Parts Purchase type, the
customers highlighted the communication between
Trakindo and the customer, the flexibility and easiness
of parts’ purchasing system, and the availability of the
Caterpillar’s spare parts. Similar with the Field Service
and Part Purchase type, the Shop Service customers also
highlighted the completion time, labor, and the
communication aspects. From three types of services
that Trakindo performed to its customers, the labor and
the parts availability case took the main role that cause
Trakindo’s customer not to purchase its service in the
future.
Referral: Trakindo’s Parts Purchase customers were
unwilling to give reference to other parties due to
several reasons. Mostly in Parts Purchase service, the
communication problems and parts availability
dissatisfied the customer while in the Shop Service the
skill of the mechanic is their main concern. In the Field
Service, the customers highlighted the time of the work
required by Trakindo.
Ease of Doing Business: The customers highlighted the
flexibility of the payment system, the availability of the
parts, the price of the service performed, and the
technical knowledge of Trakindo’s staff. The
parts/service forecast also highlighted by the customer
to improve their fleet performance and increase their
machine reliability.
Availability/Reliability: On the Shop Service,
customer’s main concern is the quality of the work
performed by technician. The Shop’s facility also
became issue for the customers since the capacity of
service performed by Trakindo also determined by its
facility. On the Parts Purchase, the customers
highlighted the parts’ product knowledge for both the
customer and the Trakindo’s counterman. Training and
other product-knowledge sharing were required by the
customer to increase their fleet maintenance awareness.
Responsiveness: Part Purchase customers highlighted
the commitment and response time for their parts
purchase, flexibility in the payment system, the
coordination between Trakindo’s marketing and
engineering section, and the parts availability. For the
Field Service, the customers highlighted the response
and follow up action performed by Trakindo’s
technicians.
Communication: In this questionnaire, Shop Service’s
customers highlighted the communication, the
discrimination on transaction nominal and volume, and
parts availability. The Field Service’s customer
highlighted the communication and the quantity of
Trakindo’s technician. The Parts Purchase’s customers
highlighted the way of communication between the
customers with Trakindo, the parts availability,
information, and the response from Trakindo’s staffs.
Preparation: Trakindo’s customer highlighted the
service evaluation and parts availability.
Duration: To improve the duration of the Parts
Purchase, the customers highlighted the communication
between Trakindo’s staffs and the customer’s
representatives, Trakindo’s working hours/time and
 Prasetya and Wicaksono / The Indonesian Journal of Business Administration, Vol.1, No.4, 2012: 271‐276

location, parts availability and its stock, and the labor skills and services, improve parts availability; (2) Non-
shortage. From the Shop Service, the customer Immediate action: to increase talent pool, real-time
highlighted the parts availability and the skill of the based IT system on customer database; (3) Long-term
technicians. The Field Service’s customers highlighted business solution: to improve business process, and to
the bureaucracy of Trakindo’s system and the quality of improve facility.
the workforce in the field.
Quality: The Shop Service’s customer highlighted the
service schedule and availability, the complaint No Implementation Action
1 2 3 4 5
Y1
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Note

1 Business' Continuous Improvement

management and the technology improvement on the ‐ Delivery Time
‐ Inquiry Response
x
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●
x = data collection and analysis
o = continuous improvement

work quality performed by Trakindo’s technician. The ‐ Forecast

‐ Price
x
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●
Ө = evaluation
● = implementation
‐ Payment x o o Ө o o Ө o o Ө ● ●
Field Service’s customer highlighted the availability and ‐ Communication
‐ Customer Support
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●

the skill of the field technician. Similar with the Shop ‐ Labor Shortage
‐ Stock
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●
‐ System x o o Ө o o Ө o o Ө ● ●
and Field Service’s customers, the Parts Purchase’s ‐ Insurance
‐ Location
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●

customers also highlighted the workforce’s skill in ‐ Return Goods

‐ Quality
x
x
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●
‐ Safety x x o o Ө o o Ө o Ө ● ●
rendering the service to the customers, the accuracy of ‐ Skill
‐ Service
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●

the forecast system, and the labor skills. ‐ Market

‐ Facility
x
x
x
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
o
o
o
Ө
Ө
●
●
●
●
2 Web Based Integrated Customer Support System
Additional Comments: For the Shop Service’s customer ‐ Evaluate customer support system
‐ Evaluate business support system
●
●
● = implementation

highlighted the additional comments on the payment’s ‐ Evaluate IT system capability

‐ Operational cost analysis
●
●
‐ Modelling the customer support system ● ●
blocking system, the quality of the labor, the price of ‐ Develop the application
‐ User acceptance testing
● ●
●

service, the ease of communication, and the parts ‐ Go live ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

availability. Parts Purchase’s customers highlighted the Figure5. Implementation Plan

quantity and skill of the labor, the availability of the
parts, Trakindo’s bureaucracy and the credit system,
communication media, and the price of the parts and
service performed by Trakindo. Field Service’s
customers highlighted the workforce qualification and
skill, the price, coordination with the customers. The
working time/hours, parts availability, and teamwork to
solve the business problems also highlighted.
III. BUSINESS SOLUTION
The findings on quantitative and qualitative
analysis are categorized into each service type then
cross correlated with other service type to highlight the
main issues. There are 19 main issues from the survey
result and several solutions were developed for each
issue.
IV. CONCLUSION AND IMPLEMENTATION
PLAN
Findings in this research show that Trakindo’s
value proposition is perceived high although several
improvements needed to increase its value proposition.
Customer’s voice shows that area of improvement in
parts delivery and communication shall become the
focus of immediate action.
The implementation plan divided into two main
categories, in which will be the continuous
improvement on daily activities and the development of
web based integrated customer support system. The
continuous improvement will become routine
implementation and have periodical 3 months period of
measurements to ensure the effectiveness
implementation. The customer support system will have
web user interface and information that serve the
customer inquiry in real-time application.
Since the company resource that involved in this
implementation project is limited, the pilot project
proposed to deploy in particular area to create learning
process through trial/error improvement processes. A
dedicated team is integrated into daily operational in
that area to gather relevant information, testing user
interface, and piloting the improvement project
according to the plan. The data collected from that
process analyzed for further improvement. Final review
conducted in the end of the pilot phase.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This paper is written based on the final project at SBM–

ITB supervised by Dr. Agung Wicaksono, M.Sc., MBA.
Figure 4. Business Issues from Result Analysis
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