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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 10, No. 10
Publication Date: October 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/abr.1010.13201. Solanki, K. (2022). Analysis of the Impact of the Ajman Free Zone Employee Services on the Level of Customers Satisfaction. Archives
of Business Research, 10(10). 1-09.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Analysis of the Impact of the Ajman Free Zone Employee Services
on the Level of Customers Satisfaction
Dr. Kalpana Solanki
Faculty-City university college in Ajman
ABSTRACT
Free zones play an crucial role in the promotion of international business in any
country and the role of its employees is further more important in the success of
free zone.This research paper focuses on the impact of Ajman free zone employee’s
performance on customer satisfaction and the challenges they might face in
achieving both of customers and investors satisfaction. The main goal of the
research paper is to analyse the role of Ajman free zone work practices and their
employee’s performance on customers satisfaction which leads to retaining loyal
customers. The literature review focus on articles related to service industry and
its impact of customer services. The data collection in this research paper is done
using primary method and secondary method. In primary data collection method
interviews with Ajman free zone employees and surveys that were completed by
approximately 40 customer of Ajman free zone customers were used .The
secondary data collection method included -sources from internet and peer- reviewed journals and articles.
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
“Ajman Free Zone was established in 1988, leading to massive industrial development in Ajman by attracting a great
number of companies” (Ajman Free Zone, 2015), their mission is “Ajman Free Zone encourage investing capitals, and
provide the appropriate climate for such investment, by way of contributing in drawing up the general policies and
providing information, preparing studies, executing projects, organizing expositions and conferences, and other
constructive activities, and by the help of national efforts and qualified human cadres, who contribute in achieving the
economic growth and the welfare of Ajman's Society and that of the United Arab Emirates.” (Ajman Free Zone, 2015)
Ajman Free zone is an organisation which provides companies business services. It’s a zone where goods can be landed
and exported, also they help investors to open their businesses. “Ajman Free zone is created in order to boost the
international business with 100% ownership of expatriates and companies are free from imports and exports duties. Free
zones either located in ports or in a specific area of the country.” (UAE free zones , 2017)
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 10, Issue 10, October-2022
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SWOT ANALYSIS
SWOT analysis
Strengths:
1) 100% foreign ownership of many
categories of business is allowed
2) Strong strategic and geographic
location
3) Free zones have played an
instrumental role in attracting
manufacturing industries
4) Legal structure and political
stability of the area
Weaknesses:
1) Lack of organizations innovation
2) Hard to interact with the UAE
market directly
3) Lots of regulations and
documents needed
4) Focusing on importing rather
than domestic production
Opportunities:
1) Creating jobs and
entrepreneurship
2) Unique tourist attraction
3) Economic and cultural interaction
4) Gaining international trade
relations
Threats:
1) Other free zones in other 7
emirates
2) Economic and cultural changes
3) Indirect interact with the local
customers
4) Challenges of dealing with
different nationalities
Research problem
The main problem under the study is to identify the reasons responsible for the customers dissatisfaction in the Ajman
Free Zone and analyse the role of employees in the customer satisfaction .
Research Objectives
- Analysing the impact of services of Ajman free zone employees on customers satisfaction level.
- Evaluate the employees performance in relation to is effect on investors satisfaction
LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Customer awareness is how well customers knows about the company values and believes by identifying the
organizational ethics and rules. The company needs to categorize themselves under a category that directly customers
will look for when they need to identify the company. Self-image also helps the customers to be aware about the company
zones and their employees’ job so it is important to all organizations to have customer awareness to be identified easily.
(Chaudary, 2016)
2. As customers are different, they also have different levels of satisfaction which means the organization should always
take care of their employees to make them love their job and happy about it so they can perform well with their customers.
Word of mouth, feedback to the supplier and loyalty are the three different levels of satisfaction that need to be done to
make sure that the company is in the right track. (Soderlund, 2016)
3. Under high pressure employees get stressed which effects the way they work and then they must change themselves.
The organization should make trainings for their employees about how to get better performance under work pressure
and how to control their emotions in the work environment this type of solution is difficult and needs patience and time.
(Wan, 2012)
METHODOLOGY-DATA COLLECTION
The main types of data collection methods used in this research are Primary and secondary data collection. This research
paper includes interviews with Ajman Free Zone employees, a survey using a questionnaire
SURVEY ANALYSIS
The number of responses for the survey were 40 responses. The survey results for the questions showed that 35% of
people are satisfied about Ajman free zone employees performance and only 12.5% said that they are not satisfied which
makes the majority is happy and satisfied but in the other hand, in response to another question 37.5% said that employees
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Solanki, K. (2022). Analysis of the Impact of the Ajman Free Zone Employee Services on the Level of Customers Satisfaction. Archives of Business
Research, 10(10). 1-09.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.1010.13201
need training for a month and 32.5% said that employees need training for 1-3 weeks which means even they are satisfied
about their performance they also think that employees need more trainings to improve their skills as it shows in the
response to next question that the most challenges and difficulties that might employees face during their work is
technological skills by 63% of all different types of difficulties because every company and organization do changes in
their systems which distracts the employees so they need to get trainings every time the changes in the system happens.
Another response showed that customers are not very well known about Ajman free zone services they are not aware as
the results shows that 27.5% are neutral and 17.5% are not aware about Ajman free zone services which means the
company needs to make improvements on customer awareness side to get more satisfied customers, also the next response
showed that customers prefer to know about the new services that the company provide through social media.
INTERVIEW ANALYSIS
The interview with the employees of Ajman free zone revealed that they have received all types of trainings that help
them improve the job-related skills in customer services and to make the customers satisfied they are transferred directly
to concerned department so they can solve their problems from the roots. The company has a huge role in customer
awareness they should always improve the way they reach to their customers to make them aware about their services. It
was found that the main challenge that the employees face in their job is technological challenges, these happen in the
company online system which makes the process of getting the work done harder and takes more time which makes the
customer angry of waiting a lot until their work gets done. Furthermore it was found that the employees performance has
a huge effect on customers satisfaction this means the company should always get their employees in trainings that will
improve their job performance and to increase their ability to deal with the job challenges, performance improvement
leads to customers satisfaction but also employees need to be satisfied and happy so they can love their job and feel happy
to help the customers so Ajman free zone should also give bonuses and promotions to their employees because the results
of the interview and the survey showed that these are the main reasons that leads to employees and customers satisfaction
which also leads to the excellence of the company job comparing to other companies.
FINDINGS
The relationship between the research objectives and findings are as follows- As Ajman free zone deals with different nationalities of customers and investors inside and outside the zone it is important
for them make their customers from all nationalities aware about the company, In order to make their customer aware
about the company values, believes, ethics and rules they have to make consideration about the culture differences and
the language differences having these differences means the employees are dealing with different perspectives and
different ways of thinking, so the company must put a plan to make programs and to train their employees how to reach
the customers based on their language how to talk to them .Ajman free zone should explain to their customers the services
and policies to avoid the misunderstanding and to achieve the better performance of the company. There is a huge positive
relationship between Ajman free zone and their customers because of the a good communication between the employees
and the customers another factor is online information available on the company website.
LIMITATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH
The first limitation was using two types of data collecting methods both of primary data and secondary data, it was
challenging to find lots of trusted information in a short period of time from the employees in Ajman free zone as they
were busy, and no one was answering until I visited the company. The number of sample size used for data collection in
limite and could have been much wider.The employees were able to provide limited amount of information.
RECOMMENDATION
1- Ajman free zone must focus on continuously delivering the training programs for their employees such as
awareness program in order to achieve higher customer awareness and customer satisfaction.
2- Ajman free zone must train their employees to improve their technical skills
3- Ajman free zone should categories their customers to get better communications direct and indirect with the
customers and to build a company image in the UAE business sector.
4- Reduce the customer effort of visiting the company by providing updated online information in the company
website.
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 10, Issue 10, October-2022
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CONCLUSION
This research paper came to the conclusion after evaluating the services offered by the Ajman free zone are their
relationship with their customers satisfaction that Ajman free zone is doing well but they need to continuously improve
some areas such employees skills to remain competitive.The free zones needs to be equiped with latest legal, technological
and logistic support for its customers. This can be a prominent reason for their market successin the future.
Figure 1.( Gender of respondents ) 60% were male and 40% were female respondents
SURVEY QUESTIONS
Figure 2.( Age of the respondents and frequency of visits to Ajman free Zone) 47% were
between ages of 20 and 25 years and 35% between 26 and 30 years. Maximum customers had
once in a month visit to the freezone.
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Solanki, K. (2022). Analysis of the Impact of the Ajman Free Zone Employee Services on the Level of Customers Satisfaction. Archives of Business
Research, 10(10). 1-09.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.1010.13201
Figure 3. ( customer satisfaction level) 47% customers were satisfied and 20% were very
satisfied with the services
Figure 4. ( Purpose of business contact with Ajman free zone and quality of work enviornment)
32% customers visits were for import and export related matters and 50% customer say the
the free zone enviornment is very good.
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 10, Issue 10, October-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Figure 5. (frequency of the employee training)Most of the respondents said once in a month
training is fine.
Figure 6.( Customer happiness level) 40% of the respondents showed average happiness levels
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Solanki, K. (2022). Analysis of the Impact of the Ajman Free Zone Employee Services on the Level of Customers Satisfaction. Archives of Business
Research, 10(10). 1-09.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.1010.13201
Figure 7. ( Type of the recommended training programs and employee motivators) The most
recommended trainings programs 65% were workshops on relevant topics next was e learning
and classroom lecture sessions 12.5% each. The highest motivators were bonuses at 47.5%
Figure 8.(Happiness in terms of prompt customer service) The promptness of customer service
was rated mostly as somewhat happy by the respondents 37.5%
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 10, Issue 10, October-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Figure 9. ( customer service needs of investors) The preferred mode of customer service 50%
was online information
Figure 10.( Awareness about services provided by the free zone) Most of the respondents 30%
were well aware and 27.5% were neutral about the free zone services
Figure 11. ( Mode to service communication ) 57% respondents prefered social media to
receive updated information on services
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Solanki, K. (2022). Analysis of the Impact of the Ajman Free Zone Employee Services on the Level of Customers Satisfaction. Archives of Business
Research, 10(10). 1-09.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.1010.13201
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