客户关系管理的研究现状、不足和未来展望

本文认为,企业实施客户关系管理的动因主要有顾客角色的变化与交换双方权力的转移,超强竞争环境,营销管理重心的转变以及互联网等通讯基础设施与技术的蓬勃发展等四个方面。目前客户关系管理研究中的主要问题是狭隘地理解客户关系管理,仅仅将其看作是一种管理软件;顾客权益的内涵尚不明确;尚未找到一种能够平衡顾客价值与企业价值的绩效评价方法;对顾客知识的研究基本空白等。文章还指出了未来客户关系管理研究的四大主要领域,即顾客权益合理内涵、评价方法与驱动因素及其在CRM中的应用;顾客价值的内涵多维动态评价体系、创造机制与驱动因素;顾客知识管理模型与数据挖掘技术的运用以及价值导向型客户关系管理的实施流程与竞争能力等。     

Supply Chain Citizenship: Investigating the Antecedents of Customer Interorganizational Citizenship Behaviors

Research has consistently established the strategic importance of supply chain collaboration. As a result, interfirm behavioral dynamics and relationships have emerged as key topics for both the academic and practitioner communities. This paper explores an interpersonal exchange tactic that is inherent to many collaborative initiatives—interorganizational citizenship behaviors (ICBs). The study specifically investigates why retail customers in business‐to‐business exchange relationships would exhibit ICBs, and explores how they assess and respond to the ICBs of suppliers. Findings of the study suggest that customers generally interpret and value the various types of ICBs differently, resulting in differential effects regarding the supply chain performance and relational implications of the behavior. These results not only inform managerial practice but also provide future research opportunities in the area of ICBs and the broader realm of interpersonal supply chain dynamics.     

Perceived helpfulness of eWOM: Emotions,fairness and rationality

Consumers use online reviews to help make informed purchase decisions. This paper extends existing research by examining how content of online reviews influences perceptions of helpfulness by demonstrating how different emotions can influence helpfulness of both product and service online reviews beyond a valence-based approach using cognitive appraisal theory and attribution theory. This research contributes to existing knowledge regarding the theory of information processing, attribution theory, and cognitive appraisal theory of emotions. Using findings from this study, practitioners can make review websites more user-friendly which will help readers avoid information overload and make more informed purchase decisions.     

In-Store Information Programs:

Prior empirical investigations have found in-store information programs have little effect on sales volume. The current study examined the relationship between point-of-purchase information and consumer purchasing and satisfaction. Consumers who responded positively to the information program were found to purchase more from the relevant product category. Additionally, they were more satisfied with their purchases and with the store environment. Food marketers can reap long term direct and indirect benefits by providing information that is salient, easily assimilated and available at the point-of-decision.     

Mechanism Connecting Environmental Friendliness to Service Loyalty: The Role of Positive Customer Emotions and Satisfaction

This research explores the mechanisms linking consumers’ perceptions of the environmental friendliness of service to customer loyalty. It investigates positive emotions evoked by perceptions of environmental friendliness and then links these emotions to customer satisfaction and loyalty as outcome variables. The data for testing a set of hypotheses was collected from a sample of over 150 consumers for three service industries, each. The results suggest that positive emotions in the form of “warm glow” feelings and sense of belonging are encouraged by environmental friendliness. The positive emotions have direct impacts on satisfaction, but show mixed impacts on loyalty.     

Customer showrooming behavior,customer orientation,and emotional labor: Sales control as a moderator

Despite the popularity of customer showrooming behavior (CSB), few studies have investigated how this phenomenon affects salespeople's sales behavior. To answer this research call, we explored the effect of CSB on customer orientation (CO), as they are associated with emotional labor (EL) and perceived sales control as a moderator. We gathered data from 397 salespeople in South Korean department stores. Our study showed that CSB affected deep acting negatively by reducing CO. Perceived outcome-based sales control enhances CSB's negative impact on CO. Nevertheless, perceived behavior-based sales control does not moderate the relationship between CSB and CO. Our results indicate that supervising salespeople using outcome-based control only worsens the effect of CSB on salespeople who combat CSB.     

Understanding Customer Engagement and Loyalty: A Case of Mobile Devices for Shopping

This study aims at developing and validating a measurement model for customer engagement with specific focus on mobile devices for shopping. Further, role of customer engagement in building customer loyalty is explored. The research in this investigation used three studies for developing customer engagement scale and validating the proposed model. The study involved data collection from experts and users through varied methods including in-depth interviews, and surveys. Further structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings of this study include development and validation of customer engagement as second order construct arising out of six different customer experiences - social-facilitation, self-connect, intrinsic enjoyment, time-filler, utilitarian and monetary evaluation experiences. Further, the study established significant role of customer engagement in predicting customer loyalty in addition to existing constructs of satisfaction and convenience. This study contributes to evolving scholarly research on customer engagement. This study further provides a framework to retailers for devising matrices to track experiences and engagement of customers on mobile devices for shopping. Further, retailers may be able to use customer engagement to differentiate themselves from competition in attracting merchants and advertisers.     

Customer complaining: The role of tie strength and information control

We examine the impact of two key constructs, information control and tie strength, on consumers’ likelihood of complaining following service failures. We report convergent results from three types of studies—an experiment, a survey, and secondary data. In the first study, tie strength and information control were systematically varied in an experiment using a restaurant scenario. In a second study, survey data from patients who experienced dissatisfactory service was collected. The third study used field data from 1,470 customers of an HMO. Results from all three studies showed that, following service failure, complaining is more likely when the tendency for information control is stronger and ties are weaker.     

Receiving,Recording, and Responding to Customer Complaints: The Effects of Formalizing Customer Complaint Handling Policies in Retail Firms

ABSTRACT

Given the critical need for retail firms to provide high quality customer service and satisfaction, this article investigates the importance of formalizing customer complaint handling policies and procedures with regard to its relationship to the ways in which retail companies receive, record, and respond to customer complaints. A survey of 184 firms from the retail environment of a midsized community reveals that the existence of such formalized procedures is significantly associated with firm size, better channels of communication with customers, mechanisms of recording customer feedback, and better-trained employees, which have been shown to relate to higher firm performance.     

User Reviews Variance,Critic Reviews Variance,and Product Sales: An Exploration of Customer Breadth and Depth Effects

Online user reviews constitute a new element of the marketing communication mix that can significantly affect product sales. A general consensus holds that positive user reviews valence benefits product sales, yet the effect of variance is less intuitive and current findings are mixed. We propose that user reviews variance actually constitutes a double-edged sword that can either hurt or help product sales, depending on the variance of critic reviews and other quality signals. Three complementary studies in multiple industries (movies, digital cameras, and books) with multiple methods (secondary data analysis and behavioral experiment) reveal three key insights in this setting. First, after recognizing a high variance in user reviews, many potential buyers may simply exclude the focal product from their consideration sets for fear that it does not match their needs and preferences, which is termed the customer breadth effect. Second, high user reviews variance, in combination with high critic reviews variance, can elicit a sense of uniqueness and thus enhance purchase intentions of some consumers, which is termed the customer depth effect. Third, quality signals (e.g., product cost and product extension) can strengthen the positive customer depth effect. The overall effects of user reviews variance, therefore, can be negative, insignificant, or even positive. These findings have important theoretical and managerial implications.     

Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation

The organizational frontline in retail represents the frontline for an entire supply chain. This channel structure distances the branded supplier from the end consumer and makes the supplier dependent on a retail frontline salesperson that (1) it does not control and (2) also represents competing brands. This study reveals mechanisms that the supplier may use to influence retail frontline salespeople. We demonstrate the importance of consumer marketing programs and supplier representatives in building brand identification between the manufacturer’s brand and the retail frontline employee that translates into increased brand sales, while also revealing the role of rewards programs in stimulating brand-specific extra-role behaviors. Interestingly, retail frontline customer orientation, built by the retailer, diminishes the effect of brand extra-role behaviors toward the focal brand on the focal brand’s sales, providing an informal control mechanism for retailers to protect its objectives. The results of this study have powerful ramifications for both retailers and suppliers in achieving both their mutual, and sometimes differing, objectives related to the retail frontline.     

Customer retention and price matching: The AFPs case

Understanding the long-term price matching effects on CLV is important in evaluating the effectiveness of these policies in stimulating customer retention. In industries with low brand differentiation and low customer involvement (e.g., private pension system), it can be seen that choosing a brand is based on inertia. The objective of this article is to analyze the convenience for the firm of improving customer retention, by matching the lowest price in the Chilean private pension system. Results suggest that matching the industry's price leader reduces the firm's CLV, thus diminishing firm incentives to make this marketing effort.     

Customer participation and citizenship behavioral influences on employee performance, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of customer behaviors in service delivery, understanding consequences relating to employees receives little attention. Therefore, using data from a large electronic firm relating to customers, employees, and managers, this study examines the effects of customer participation and citizenship behavior on employee performance, satisfaction and commitment, as well as indirect effects on turnover intention. Furthermore, the study examines how similarity and likeability moderate the effects of customer participation and citizenship behavior on employee satisfaction. The study also includes a laboratory experiment and provides further support for causal direction. The article discusses marketing implications of the results.     

Customer engagement outcomes in mobile applications: Self-congruence as a moderator

Understanding customer engagement outcomes in mobile applications is essential for the success of firms. The present study examines a model to comprehend customer engagement outcomes in mobile applications. The study also tests the moderation effect of self-congruence (high vs low) in the relationship that customer engagement shares with its outcomes. 381 responses were collected thru a structured questionnaire employing random intercept surveys. The study utilized structural equation modeling for analysis purposes. The results reveal co-creation, customer retention, and customer experience as key outcomes of mobile application-based customer engagement. Further, the multi-group moderation analysis showed a significant moderation role of high and low self-congruence sub-groups. Theoretically, the results extend current literature regarding customer engagement in mobile applications by evaluating its key outcomes, and self-congruence as a moderator. For practitioners, the findings stress the importance of engaging customers with mobile applications.     

Exploring customer experience during channel switching in omnichannel retailing context: A qualitative assessment

Customer channel switching behaviour in the digital revolution is becoming more complicated and difficult to comprehend. This study follows the interpretative approach to examine customer intention behind channel switching behaviour and the customer experience during the channel switching journey in the omnichannel context. To explore the phenomenon, we conducted twenty-three in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions with millennial customers of electronic goods omnichannel retailers. We found two new reasons for channel switching—the influence of social groups and perceived self-efficacy of the switching behaviour. Key factors affecting channel choices during switching are product attributes, trust/perceived uncertainty, social influence, customer characteristics, review culture, and time constraints. Customers expressed mixed emotions during the journey, which affected their choices during channel switching. We further proposed a framework to explain channel switching behaviour under the social cognitive theory. The study furthered the reasons for channel switching and the customer experience during switching. To the best of our knowledge, this study is pioneering, in examining the phenomenon in the omnichannel retailing context. Based on the findings, the study provides suggestions to enhance customer experience optimisation and retention strategies for omnichannel retailers.     

Customer satisfaction and retail sales performance: an empirical investigation

We measure the links between store attribute perceptions and customer satisfaction, and between customer satisfaction and sales performance. Our data set consists of six waves of customer satisfaction and sales data for about 250 retail outlets over the period 1998-2001 for a publicly held supermarket company. We construct a statistical model to address nonlinearities and asymmetries in the satisfaction-sales performance links, and we illustrate how retailers can affect store revenues by managing customer satisfaction. Contributions of our study include the analysis of behavioral consequences of customer satisfaction in the food retail sector, the accommodation of complexities in the satisfaction-sales performance links based on an empirical model of first differences, and a discussion of how managers can employ the results for customer satisfaction policies.     

Millennials,Social Media,Prosocial Emotions,and Charitable Causes: The Paradox of Gender Differences

This research investigated gender differences of Millennials’ online and offline prosocial intentions to support charitable events for the causes of breast cancer and homeless youth after exposure to Facebook appeals to self-benefit and others-benefit, as well as with respect to their empathy identification with the cause and their social-oriented moral identity. In general, the results agree with the literature indicating that women tend to be more altruistic, empathetic, and moral than men. Paradoxically, the findings indicate that, within a social media context, emotions related to altruism, empathy toward the cause, and socially oriented moral identity are factors more closely predictive of males’ inclinations to engage in activities to support charitable events. Whereas women are already more predisposed to helping others, nonprofit marketers must emotionally prod men to help others through specific emotional hooks for prosocial behaviors.     

Market Orientation: An Iterative Process of Customer and Market Engagement

ABSTRACT

Research Purpose. The objective of this research was to examine market orientation in organisations that deliver manufacturing-based services to both client organisations and their customers.

Research Approach. The case study research method employed three data collection methods: in-depth, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and physical artefact analysis. Embedded study units comprising groups of different stakeholders with distinctly different perspectives provided a basis for replication logic to enhance validity of the findings.

Findings. The research revealed that a firm's transition toward a market-oriented state is progressive. At a given point in time, a firm may be adjusting to its markets intuitively or cognitively; market responsiveness may be occurring in specific pockets of the firm, or as an enterprise-wide strategy; and some of the conditions specified may be met, some may be partly met and others may remain to be addressed in the future. A specific customer focus was important to the conceptualisation of market orientation in the case organisation.

Research Implications. Key implications of the research are as follows:

• In conceptualising market orientation as a process as opposed to an ideal state, important issues of structural and policy alignment and senior executive vision and drive are revealed;

• in addition to customer and competitor orientations and intra-organisational co-ordination, other dimensions of a market orientation revealed in the research context are a customer focus and a new knowledge orientation; and

• both inter- and intra-organisational co-ordination facilitate the development of market driven and market driving customer value.

Practical Implications. While the senior executives were aware of the significant performance benefits to be achieved through a national, market-oriented vision, the lack of a co-ordinated plan to achieve cultural change resulted in incremental achievements towards the vision. One key factor inhibiting the envisioned cultural change was the power base of those within the organisation who perceived that a national, market focus would eliminate local autonomy. Specific policy was required to align rewards with required behavioural change.

Contribution. This research provides a unique perspective of market orientation as process of organisational development directed towards aligning the organisation with its served markets. Intervention strategies and incremental changes attempted to achieve a national market perspective, highlight the importance of aligning structure, human resource management strategy, top management commitment and leadership drive in achieving such a cultural change.     

Customer Service in UK call centres: : organisational perspectives and employee perceptions

The 1990s have witnessed a dramatic rise in consumer demand for, and hence provision of, call centres in the UK. Central to the success of call centres is customer service. Although there exists an ever-expanding tranche of literature on call centres and customer service, it primarily focuses on aspects of their functionality. In contrast, this article encompasses analysis of organisational perspectives and employee perceptions in its review of the contemporary nature of customer service in UK call centres. Drawing from recent, exploratory research, the article asserts that, in general, there is significant potential for improving customer service and satisfaction through the medium of more sophisticated employee management practices.     

Customer loyalty through social networks: Lessons from Zara on Facebook

Companies’ escalating investment in social media—in particular, in Facebook—has become reality. However, most firms still do not see social networks as a vehicle for cultivating and winning customer loyalty, but rather as a resource for creating brand awareness. In this article, we offer a different view. By examining fans and non-fans of the Zara brand on Facebook, we discovered that Facebook enhances the relations that increase loyalty via trust, customer satisfaction, perceived value, and commitment. Our results revealed that these relations are stronger for fans of the brand than for non-fans, and suggest that customer satisfaction is the strongest determinant of loyalty. This indicates a new opportunity for marketing managers to achieve customer loyalty: Facebook.