Impact of the marketing activities related to service offer an the Nuclear Information Center of the brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission

Exploratory field research confirms the marketing administration philosophy in Nuclear Information Center (CIN) of National Commission of Nuclear Energy (CNEN), analyzing marketing activities referring to SONAR-INIS (current awareness) and SERVIR-INIS (provision of copies) promotion, in order to evaluate the impact of these activities relating to the use of the services by real users. The data collecting took place using a technique of documental analysis, semi-structured interviews with five managers of the Center, simple no-participant observation accomplished by the researcher in CIN, questionnaires about the administration philosophy applied to the managers, and questionnaires sent by mail to 176 users of the international sample. The 122 users'answers (69,31% of answers rate) were analyzed according to the statistical procedures of Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS), with 0,05% of error margin, and 95% of confidence level. Nine assumptions of research were tested. It was concluded that: the first knowledge of the services was by circulars or letters; SONAR-INIS was not considered as the principal service by its information contents in order to develop professional activities by 60,5% of the users; SERVIR-INIS was considered the main service to access the documents related to the interest of 47,8% of the user; to the majority the most important reason to use both services was the convenience and facilities to access the services; suitability of interest was the most important criterion in order to accomplish the appropriate service; the CIN inquiry frequency to know about users' satisfaction level, their information interests, needs and expectation in order to adapt information offer to demand was irregular and seldom; CIN's concerns about knowing users' critics, complaints and suggestions was recognized by users; the majority of the users was interested in receiving information about the benefits of the services; the price of the copies obtained in Brazil was considered reasonable, but the price of the copies obtained outside of Brazil was considered high; the most important criterion to pay for an information service was the information confidence; gifts, and radio news were considered not suitable to promote the services; circulars and standard or personal letters were considered the most important promotional instruments to call attention of the users; the communication channels'use must be intensified; the intructions about the use of the services were considered appropriate; some suggestions were sent by users in order to improve the promotion of the services, although making suggestions was not perceived as an habit among them. Although it was confirmed the appropriate development of promotional activities in CIN, it was proposed a model to improve the promotion/communication process, in order to contribute to theoretical studies of promotional activities in information units. Recommendations and suggestions to develop future studies were showed. (author)