Reverse logistics: Understanding end-of-life product management

As firms respond to stricter regulations and increasing consumer expectations, reverse logistics programs to support end-of-life product management strategies have become more prevalent. Despite a growing body of theoretical literature on this topic, many firms struggle to implement efficient and effective reverse logistics systems. In this article, we identify common strategic, tactical, and operational considerations needed to design reverse logistics programs and offer industry examples to show how organizations have excelled in these areas. Through a synthesis of literature and examples, we provide key takeaways across a range of reverse logistics activities. We present ways in which managers can implement best practices in reverse logistics that not only benefit the environment but also generate societal and stakeholder value, augment and improve customer service and loyalty, and increase market share and revenue capabilities.     

Customer Relationship Management: A Comparative Analysis of Family and Nonfamily Business Practices*

It has been reported that family businesses perceive excellent customer service as critical to the future of their businesses. However, little research into the customer relationship management (CRM) practices of family businesses has been performed. In this study, we examine CRM implementation among 82 family and 370 nonfamily firms. Family and nonfamily businesses report similar attitudes toward the importance of CRM, their knowledge of CRM, and their success when they do implement it. However, using a logit regression model, we find that the actual implementation strategies of family businesses are significantly different from those of nonfamily businesses. These results remain constant when controlling for size and industry sector.     

Co-production of service innovations through dynamic capability enhancement

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of co-production practices with customers on service innovation. Specifically, we sought to determine whether dynamic capabilities (the specific abilities a company has to shape, reshape, configure, and reconfigure idiosyncratic assets to respond to changing technologies and markets) could mediate the effect of co-production on service innovation. In this paper, we examine the factors that could influence co-production practices and determine whether organizational commitment moderates the effect of co-production practice on an organization's dynamic capabilities. Using a survey approach of Taiwanese firms, we showed that dynamic capability fully mediates the effects of co-production practice on service innovation and that market orientation and customer matching have a significant influence on co-production practices. In addition, this study has empirically demonstrated that service firms would be well advised to engage in developing service innovation through enhancing their own dynamic capabilities.     

How small service failures drive customer defection: Introducing the concept of microfailures

Service that falls below customer expectations is framed as a service failure. While many researchers have investigated service failures, they have tended to focus on large service failures. This is likely because large failures are more noticeable by firms and more likely to prompt customer complaints than small failures. However, we argue that smaller service failures can cause as much damage as larger failures, and in some cases even more. We introduce the concept of service microfailures, which we define as instances when a customer’s expectations go unmet in some small way. While minor in isolation, repeated service microfailures that go unnoticed and unrecovered can compound in effect and drive customer defection. For this reason, we propose that service microfailures are a potentially much larger managerial problem than they may appear on the surface. In this article, we conceptualize microfailures as a distinct form of service failure and outline the mechanism through which they cause damage. We then develop a multifaceted approach through which managers can detect, repair, and prevent service microfailures.     

A framework for managing customer expectations

Marketing scholars have argued that firms should meet or exceed customer expectations in order to achieve customer satisfaction. Often, however, customer expectations maybe unjustified, infeasible, or unproductive to meet. These need to be shaped rather than fulfilled. The authors identify three broad approaches to the shaping of customer expectations: human resource management, framing, and compliance. These are described along with the type of expectation shaping tasks for which each is appropriate and illustrations of marketing mix tools which implement them.     

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.     

Implementation and Outcomes of Customer Value: A Dyadic Perspective

This study examines the concept of customer value based on the views shared by service firms and their consumers. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study reveals customer satisfaction and retention as outcomes of front-line service employees' value delivery practices. Our results suggest that service employees' efforts to deliver customer value, even when based on a dyadic view, do not necessarily lead to customer retention. Rather, customers become more loyal when the value provided by service employees is matched by consumers' satisfaction. In other words, satisfaction is an important and necessary mediating variable between employees' efforts and customer retention.     

Conceptual analysis and implementation of an integrated CRM system for service providers

Customer relationship management (CRM) has become a critical issue in services management. Ensuring customer satisfaction and maintaining long-term relationships with customers have become essential for survival amongst competitive service industries. However, few studies have attempted to integrate all relevant factors in a comprehensive model of CRM implementation. The current study addresses this need by proposing a conceptually integrated five-phase model that incorporates elements of CRM, the service-delivery process and customer satisfaction (represented by the extended American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) model). This integrated model of CRM is assessed in an empirical study of 63 leading Taiwanese service firms distributed amongst eight service industries. The implementation levels of various phases of CRM are assessed in a range of service industries by means of a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews. The results of this empirical study reveal the strengths and weaknesses of various industries in their implementation of CRM. These results also represent a useful benchmarking reference for service organisations that have lower implementation levels in some CRM practices.     

Fine tuning market oriented practices

Being more market oriented—in other words, getting closer to customers while keeping a wary eye on competitors in order to respond quickly and effectively to changing market conditions—has long been viewed as a key way of improving competitive advantage. However, there is still a lack of understanding about how to optimize the implementation of market oriented business strategies, particularly in the service sector. This article addresses that gap by investigating how customer and competitor focused practices can be fine tuned to create differential advantages. An in-depth qualitative study of professional, financial, and business service firms in New Zealand suggests that how well market oriented practices are implemented is much more important than the range of practices that are adopted.     

Trends in Executive Education in Business Marketing

ABSTRACT

Business marketers in the 21st century are grappling with the harsh, tough demands of a consolidated customer base, rapid product and service commoditization, complex channel structures, and hyper-competition in a rapidly evolving, information-intensive global economy. Across the globe, firms concerned with developing managerial talent to respond to these trends are demanding and expecting changes in the executive education programs offered by business schools. We consider in this paper a number of recent trends and changes in customer expectations, program format, content development and delivery, and program marketing that we have observed in executive education in the field of business marketing.     

The exploitation of market knowledge within relationship orientated small accountancy practices

Within the academic literature there is general acceptance that customer knowledge competence can have a critical influence over whether a firm can successfully achieve a market advantage over competition. There is, however, only limited empirical evidence to support this perspective. This study utilises a previously developed customer knowledge survey tool to compare knowledge management practices within small relationship orientated accountancy practices and small, transactionally orientated firms. The survey was undertaken across a sample of small UK accountancy practices. Results suggest that compared to their transactional counterparts, small relationship orientated firms perceive that customer knowledge is an important aspect of the marketing process. Small, relationship orientated practices also appear to recognise the importance of operating a structured knowledge management system within their organisations.     

Customer desire expectations about service employees: An analysis of hierarchical relations

This article proposes a hierarchical model of customers' desire expectations about service employees, and of the motivations underlying the expectations. The model is based on recent developments in means–end chain theory. A paper-and-pencil laddering methodology is applied to collect data among 231 customers in Austria concerning their desire expectations about service employees of clothing stores. Additive tree and social network analyses reveal three orientations in customer desire expectations, covering the process, outcome, and relational aspects of service encounters. Meanings within orientations are mutually linked and hierarchically organized from desire expectations about specific service employees' behaviors, via customer goal attainments and feelings, to behavioral responses. Implications for service marketing theory and practice are offered. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

What the eye does not see,the mind cannot reject: Can call center location explain differences in customer evaluations?

Moving call centers offshore may be an effective way to increase service productivity by lowering costs, yet recent research suggests that customers associate offshore call centers with lower service quality. This study clarifies customer evaluations of call centers with a field study that examines how customer perceptions of a foreign accent, call center location, and the agent's customer orientation relate to nonmonetary performance outcomes. Multivariate analysis of data collected from more than 800 customers using call centers located in three countries suggests that neither accent detection nor call center location relates to customer satisfaction, trust, or word-of-mouth communication; only perceived customer orientation has an effect on these outcomes. These findings suggest offshore call center locations are not necessarily associated with lower performance outcomes and that service firms should place a higher priority on ensuring call center agents have a strong customer orientation, rather than on avoiding the use of call centers abroad.     

Performance expectations of small firms considering radical product innovation

Performance expectations influence business decisions such as investment decisions and demand for supplies, particularly in small firms with limited strategic planning. Despite widespread use of performance expectations by firms and governments when making sales forecasts and economic outlooks, surprisingly little research exists about how small firms form performance expectations. This paper contributes to reduce this knowledge gap by analyzing performance expectations of small firm managers operating in markets with radical product innovations. This paper proposes a model and hypotheses, which explain performance expectations of small firm managers based on firms' current success, radical product innovation, and variables that indicate firms' ability to respond to customer needs for radical product innovation. Data from 200 decision-makers in a real decision-making context support the model. The results show that performance expectations in small firms are only to a limited extent a naïve extrapolation of current success: radical product innovation and small firm's ability to respond to customer needs for radical product innovation influence performance expectations.     

Perception Gaps in Customer Expectations: Managers Versus Service Providers and Customers

Two new gaps are added to the 5-gap model proposed by PZB. These new gaps reflect the differences in the understanding of customer expectations by manager and front-line service providers and in customer expectations and service providers' perception of such expectations. Using room service as the object for investigation, the present study provides empirical evidence indicating the existence of these gaps which have negative impact on overall service quality. The findings also disclose that the gap between customer expectations and managers' perception of such expectations is much larger than the gap between customer expectations and service providers' understanding of such expectations.     

The journey from customer participation in service failure to co-creation in service recovery

Customer participation is growing into a widespread phenomenon in the service context. Despite the inherent significance of customer expectations to service failures in the high-participation service context, scant research exists on studying the links among customer participation, customer expectation of service recovery, and service outcomes (e.g., word-of-mouth or WOM). Even more pressing is the lack of research on the type of service recovery that can countervail the inflated customer expectation of service recovery and restore service outcomes. This research demonstrates that high contribution of customers in the beginning of service provision procedure leads to high recovery expectations and low satisfaction. The results also support that co-created service recovery (CCS-R), as contrasted to firm and customer recoveries, has a greater positive effect on satisfaction. Further, the contrasting impacts of each service recovery type on positive and negative WOM are presented. An experiment was conducted using service failure and recovery scenarios. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The current research has some important implications for scholars and managers who wish to effectively recover failed high-participation service encounters.     

New Service Development Process

Abstract

To continue to grow, more and more U.S. service firms have looked overseas in recent years to find markets for their offerings. Thus, innovation in the global context has become a strategic imperative for many service firms. While the issue of how to foster service innovation has been an area of extensive research, the cross-national comparison of innovation practices particularly between developed and emerging countries has been only a nascent field of research. To address this gap in the literature we conducted a comparative study of new service development process and stages of the financial service firms in an emerging country, India, and a developed country, the United States. The results support the central argument of the article that significant cross-national differences do exist with regard to a firm's new service development process. The findings should be of value to managers faced with the tasks of selecting and managing service innovation in emerging markets, as well as those firms experiencing international competition.     

服务性企业社会责任与顾客忠诚影响机制研究

在社会认同理论的基础上,通过建立服务业企业社会责任与顾客忠诚的关系模型,研究发现企业社会责任对服务评价、消费者认同感有正面效应,服务评价、消费者认同感对顾客忠诚有正面效应,企业社会责任对顾客忠诚没有直接的作用,但通过服务评价、消费者认同感对顾客忠诚产生间接影响。     

Internal Relationship Management

SUMMARY

In the quest for sustainable competitive advantage, managers have sought to differentiate themselves through a customer (as opposed to product) focus. This has given rise to successive strategies designed to improve the customer experience (e.g., objective quality, service quality, customer satisfaction, customer retention, customer loyalty, etc.). The problem, however, is that a satisfied, loyal customer who is persuaded to consistently buy a firm's product or service over and over again because of its quality can be and often is unprofitable. Therefore, using such strategies does not guarantee increased profits. As a result, firms will increasingly rely on the measurement and management of customers' lifetime values to guide their customer loyalty efforts.     

Knowledge of Inter-customer Relations as a Source of Value Creation and Commitment in Financial Service Firm's Intermediation

This paper develops a knowledge perspective on value creation in organisations that employ mediating technology to facilitate inter-customer relations. Mediators, individually and collectively, build networks of customers between whom linking can take place, and they provide services that facilitate inter-customer exchanges. Earlier research has shown the importance of size and standardisation in mediation. A different stream of research has shown that contextual knowledge is important for problem solving and innovation in organisations. Combining theories of mediating technology and situated problem solving, the paper posits that inter-customer relations constitute the fundamental context for value creation of firms using the mediating technology. LISREL is used to test relationship-level, cross-sectional hypotheses that link knowledge of inter-customer relationships, added value, and customer commitment to bank services for small firms. This work extends Thompson's work on mediating technology with implications for organisation action by demonstrating that mediators' knowledge of inter-customer relationships is an important resource in intermediation. Three contributions are made to strategic management and organisation theory. First, the paper provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between knowledge and committed customers. Second, fundamental resources are developed for firms using mediating technology. Finally, the use of the situated knowledge concept is extended to inter-customer relations, thus explaining performance beyond the contexts to which the concept has previously been applied. The findings have implications for segmentation practices, organisation domain decisions and the corresponding organisational structures, and practices that can provide effective service to inter-customer relations rather than to atomistic independent customers.