Determining structure of marketing function and customer satisfaction in state forest enterprises

This study was carried out to determine the opinions of forest engineers about the importance of marketing function for business management and its structure in forest enterprises and to demonstrate customer satisfaction with the example of Isparta Forest Regional Directorate. In this study, the data were obtained through literature and documentation analysis, observation, interview and survey techniques. 410 people participated in the first survey conducted for forest engineers working in the public or private sector over the internet. According to the survey findings; It has been determined that the effects of the production concept, which is the first stage of the marketing development processes, have rather decreased, and that marketing has started to be given more importance especially in terms of promotion efforts. Additionally, there are still very important shortcomings such as; non-wood products and services are still not given due importance, problems in pricing forest products, problems in sales of forest products, etc. The second survey of the study was conducted with 59 companies that purchased a significant part of the products and services produced by forest enterprises affiliated to the Isparta Regional Directorate of Forestry and thus represent the market. The survey forms were evaluated according to the expectancy disconfirmation model. According to the survey findings, the first three things that the customers are satisfied are; the appropriateness of the physical locations where the sales are made, the convenience of the time of the sales, and the kindness of the salespeople. The first three dissatisfied issues are; the problem of standardization in stacks in warehouses, the high loading unit costs in the warehouses and the products offered for sale are not as neat as desired. According to all these findings, the importance given to the marketing function in forest enterprises is increasing day by day and this is reflected positively to the customers; however, it can be said that there are still important shortcomings.