Critical factors to improve customer satisfaction and reduce operating costs in large and medium-sized manufacturing companies in Nuevo León and the impact caused by the COVID pandemic

The objective of this document is to determine how transportation, trained personnel, customs procedures, preventive maintenance and inventory reliability impact customer satisfaction and operating costs in large and medium-sized companies in the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico; Likewise, how they were affected by the pandemic caused by COVID. To carry out this research, a measurement instrument was developed, being of a non-experimental, descriptive and longitudinal type, where the results are first evaluated before the pandemic and after the presence of COVID. To analyze the collected information, the structural equation model was used with the method of partial least squares with the SmartPLS3 software. The results are initially presented globally, and later two groups were formed by type of company, those with Mexican and foreign capital; In this way, the approaches of each group and the impact of the factors on the response variables can be evaluated. The results presented in this article are expected to guide companies to improve customer satisfaction and reduce operating costs with and without a pandemic.