The proposal and validity of the Customer Science Dual System--The key to corporate management innovation

A future successful global marketer must develop an excellent quality marketing system that impresses users and continuously provides excellent, quality products in a timely manner through corporate management. In this study, the authors proposed the Customer Science Dual System, CS-TMNS ＆ CS-SDSM. For the purpose of innovating strategic product development systems so called Customer Value Creative System, the Total Marketing Network System, CS-TMNS is established. In addition, for intelligent utilization of the established CS-TMNS, statistical science is incorporated so as to create the Strategic Designing Support Methods, CS-SDSM, as a new approach to the creation of wants that are vital to product planning and designing. Concretely, the author will also introduce the effectiveness of this system that reflects latent customer needs through scientific marketing application examples via Automobile Design Profile for the Younger Generation.     

The Role of Customer Factors in Multiple Store Patronage: A Cost-Benefit Approach

This paper is concerned with the use of multiple stores by supermarket customers. It relates the number of stores patronized to a set of customer factors under a unifying theoretical framework emphasizing cost-benefit analysis. Respective hypotheses are tested in a large random sample. This study is a first attempt to empirically address the structure of multiple store patronage. It is demonstrated that multiple store patronage is affected by variables such as customer income, satisfaction, and expenditure that are suggestive of heterogeneous cost-benefit tradeoffs and opportunity costs of time. It is shown that customers are intrinsically different in the predisposition to being loyal. In this respect, store patronage is a continuum between single store loyalty and use of several different stores, on which customers vary depending on individual preferences. The empirical analysis also suggests that exclusive patronage of the favorite store arises from two observationally equivalent latent segments that differ in their inclination to remain loyal. The results yield valuable insights into the structure of store patronage and lead to important implications for retail managers. Several extensions are considered. A broad set of research questions surrounding store patronage can be considered from a cost-benefit viewpoint in the sense that consumer decisions in this area involve trading off economic resources against assortment, spatial and temporal benefits.     

What induces online loyalty? Online versus offline brand images

This study investigates the effect of the interplay between a multi-channel retailer's offline and online brand images on consumers' online perceived risk and online loyalty within the framework of a theory of cognitive dissonance. A sample of 671 female college students participated in an experiment using a 2 (prior offline brand image) × 2 (online performance) between-subjects design. Results reveal that offline brand image exerts significant effects on online brand image - which, in turn, significantly explains online perceived risk - and online customer loyalty. However, online perceived risk has no significant effect on online customer loyalty after controlling for the effects of online and offline brand images. These results provide implications for the direct and indirect halo effects of offline brand image and the direct effect of online performance that may influence consumers' perceptions, expectations, and loyalty regarding multi-channel retailers.     

Inter-Satisfaction between Website and Automated Call Distribution (ACD) Systems

Websites and an Automated Call Distribution (ACD) system in a call center are both considered important customer relationship technologies. Integrating concepts from information systems quality and trust transference theory, this paper introduces the concept of inter-satisfaction: the extent to which customer satisfaction with a website leads to satisfaction with an ACD and vice versa. It is hypothesized that dissatisfaction with either the website or the ACD influences potential brand-switching behaviors. A model, largely drawing upon concepts of user satisfaction as developed in information system research, is presented. The model is then tested using data from passengers using Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) in South Korea, specifically 366 passengers at the Jeju International Airport, who experienced both their airlines’ website and call center. A structural equation modeling analysis demonstrates that satisfaction with the website transfers to satisfaction with the ACD system, but not vice versa, and that only dissatisfaction with the website creates a brand-switching intention.     

Destination attachment: Effects on customer satisfaction and cognitive,affective and conative loyalty

Tourists may develop attachment to a destination because of its ability in fulfilling specific goals or activity needs and/or because of its symbolic meaning and thus, attachment could be an important measure of tourist satisfaction and loyalty. Despite its significance, only limited research has been conducted to determine the likely influences of emotional associations or meanings tourists attach to the places they visit on their satisfaction and future behavior. This study therefore explores the role of attachment in predicting satisfactory holiday experiences and destination loyalty. Results of the structural equation modeling show that positive emotional and cognitive bonds with a place could indeed affect an individual's critical assessment of a destination and his/her loyalty to the place. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Migrating from products to solutions: An exploration of system support in the UK defense industry

This article explores the acquisition of business solutions in complex systems environments, through insights drawn from current literature and a study of the UK defense industry. We seek to counter-balance the dominance of literature focusing on the supplier perspective, as well as provide richer distinctions between different kinds of system suppliers involved in providing business solutions. We do this through the detailed examination of customer support offerings and business relationships that exist at the system customer-supplier interface. Our findings provide a map of solutions models that exist in the UK defense context. These include: (1) product system support, (2) life cycle product system support, (3) functional system support, and (4) enterprise system support. Using these models, we highlight the continued relevance of a product orientation and the challenges involved in adopting a true customer orientation when delivering business solutions. System suppliers seeking to reposition from the supply of product system support towards more integrated and customer-oriented forms of support require a significant organizational step change.     

Measuring Customer Relationship Management Performance

Abstract

The concept of CRM has evolved into an inherent component of the sales processes of most medium-sized and large companies. However, despite the high costs involved, the quality of its implementation has hitherto been neglected. To provide the conceptual qualitative CRM control that is lacking, we have developed a measuring instrument that allows the evaluation of the activities in the three core CRM domains, namely interaction, insight and offer. We pilot-tested the tool in an automotive industry setting and the results reflect the CRM status quo achieved by twelve national and foreign brands.     

The role of customer gratitude in making relationship marketing investments successful

This paper recognises that customer loyalty is important for many competitive organisations, and that retail firms make investments to build and maintain loyal relationships with their existing and potential customers (e.g. loyalty programs). However, there has been little focus on the mechanisms by which these relationship investments operate to achieve customer loyalty. This paper examines one mechanism, namely customer gratitude, which works to make a firm’s relationship marketing investment a success or a failure. Using data from 1600 undergraduate students, this study empirically confirms the mediating role of customer gratitude between the customers’ perceptions a firm’s relationship marketing investments and customers’ perceptions of the value of the relationship with the firm. Further, a significant moderating effect of perceived benevolence on the relationship between customers’ perceptions a firm’s relationship marketing investments and customer gratitude was identified. For theorists, this customer gratitude model offers a better psychological explanation of how relationship marketing investments operate to improve the value that customers place on their relationships with retailers. Our research suggests that managers should invest resources to stimulate customer gratitude in order to build strong customer–seller relationships.     

Equal access to hospitality services for guests with mobility impairments under the Americans with Disabilities Act: Implications for the hospitality industry

The hospitality operator's obligation to comply with the ADA has provided the necessary impetus to ensure that hospitality services are provided in a non-discriminatory manner. The ADA requires modification of hospitality policies and procedures to ensure that guests with disabilities are provided services in a manner equivalent to those provided to able-bodied guests. This article provides the hospitality operator with a framework for training front-line employees and offers recommendations for analyzing how current policies and procedures could be modified in a way that limits potential liability as well as more effectively meets the needs of guests with mobility impairments.     

The influence of satisfaction on customer retention in mobile phone market

This study examines the determinants of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the Peruvian mobile phone market. Based in a survey to 1259 customers, Multinomial Logit and GSEM estimations show how determinants of customer satisfaction can be assessed when satisfaction is measured through ordered categorical data. The results confirm that in mobile phone market Customer Satisfaction influences strongly on Customer Loyalty, and in turn Loyalty is an important determinant of Customer Retention. In contrast with previous literature, this study identified the differentiated influence of diverse factors on positive and negative customer satisfaction categories. Indeed while results show that quality of service assessments made by customers had a significant impact on both negative and positive customer satisfaction categories; assessments of other service attributes like customer care, information on tariffs and plans and billing clarity, only showed a significant statistical influence on positive categories of customer satisfaction. Similar asymmetrical results were found with regard to other economic, socioeconomic and geographical determinants of customer decisions. As well, an analog effect is also observed in the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty, where only positive satisfaction assessments helps to explain the loyalty of users. Finally, results show that while satisfaction can be identified as a powerful cause of CR, switching barriers did not deter more demanding customers to switch to alternative carriers, suggesting that recent pro-competition regulatory reforms implemented in Peru contributed to reduce these barriers to competition in mobile markets.