Open AccessDonor orientation and service quality: Key factors in active blood donors’ satisfaction and loyalty
Author(s) -
Josefa Delia Martín Santana,
María Katiuska Cabrera Suárez,
María de la Cruz Déniz Déniz,
Eva Marina Reinares Lara
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0255112
Subject(s) - loyalty , context (archaeology) , promotion (chess) , business , marketing , quality (philosophy) , service (business) , donation , blood transfusion , order (exchange) , medicine , public relations , operations management , economics , finance , surgery , paleontology , philosophy , epistemology , politics , political science , law , biology , economic growth
Faced with the increasing demand for blood and greater restrictions on ensuring the safety of transfusions, voluntary donation is currently the only and best alternative for the health system to have a sustainable and safe blood supply. In this context, one of the primary strategies of blood transfusion centres is to increase the satisfaction of their active donors so that they maintain their intention to donate in the future and, in turn, make the necessary recommendations so that third parties can become new donors. That is why this paper raises a question for research concerning, what should the premises be to guide the management of blood transfusion centres to maintain and even increase the satisfaction and loyalty of their active donors? In order to respond to this issue, a change in paradigm is proposed based on a management model supported by donor orientation and service quality as basic pillars, as well as on the development of a number of key social capital resources that explain this orientation toward the donor. In both approaches, the donor becomes the cornerstone of decision-making, moving away from the traditional model which is focused more on achieving targets related to the collection of blood bags. Through the empirical analysis of a sample of 126 employees from various transfusion centres and 26,833 active donors in nine Spanish autonomous communities, we have been able to validate this proposed management model as a useful tool to blood promotion agents in their decision-making processes.