Exploring the Internal Customer Mind-Set of Marketing Personnel

SUMMARY

With a traditional focus on external customers, marketing personnel could be expected to provide a leadership role in bringing an internal customer focus to the organization. In this study, we focus on the internal customer mind-set (ICMS) of marketing personnel and how this might impact the organization. We present a theoretically driven model that integrates current human resources literature by representing ICMS as a mediator of job satisfaction/organizational commitment and job performance/turnover intentions. The most notable results are found between ICMS and job performance, through both direct and indirect effects. Future research and study limitations are discussed.     

Customer retention in sports organization marketing: examining the impact of team identification and satisfaction with team performance

Over the past two decades, relationship marketing efforts have assumed a prominent role in sports organization marketing. A sports organization that successfully implements relationship marketing programmes is able to develop long‐term relationships with its fans, thus increasing the likelihood of customer retention. This study examines customer retention in sports organization marketing by considering the impact of team identification and satisfaction with team performance on four fan consumption behaviours: in‐person attendance, media‐based attendance, purchase of team merchandise and word‐of‐mouth communication related to the team. Survey data were collected from 300 fans of more than 40 professional and collegiate teams involved in seven sports. Results suggest that both team identification and satisfaction with team performance impact multiple consumption behaviours, as represented by fans' intentions to engage in future consumption. Team identification was found to have the greater impact on consumption behaviours, suggesting that a sports organization's continuing efforts to bond with its fans may provide greater benefits than efforts to improve the team's competitive performance.     

Internal Marketing and Internal Customer: A Review,Reconceptualization, and Extension

Abstract

In the last several decades the internal marketing (IM) concept has emerged as a key notion in marketing and human resource management (HRM) debates on future development. IM refers to the fact that the concept of external marketing to apply inside of an organization. The use of the concept can be traced to wider HR processes, which have influenced on employee, organization, and customer. This conceptual paper reviews the literature within the adapting platform and focuses on qualitative, critical approaches to evaluation. The framework highlights the important influence of context (the issue of the IM program is addressing) and identifies multi-dimensions which may influence on employee. The analytical framework presented is useful for practitioners developing internal marketing processes, and for researchers interested in empirical studies which seek to evaluate IM practice.     

A Customer Value Perspective in the Nonprofit Marketing Context: Expanding the Means-End Chain for Multiple Stakeholders

ABSTRACT

Very little of the current research on nonprofit marketing adopts a customer value perspective. This paper will (1) briefly outline the special customer value challenges faced by nonprofit organizations, such as multiple stakeholders and a lack of marketing orientation; (2) describe the innovative customer value approach developed by Woodruff and Gardial (1996); and (3) offer a model applying the Wood-ruff/Gardial approach in the NPO context, including research propositions.     

Non-normal simultaneous regression models for customer linkage analysis

Simultaneous systems of equations with non-normal errors are developed to study the relationship between customer and employee satisfaction. Customers interact with many employees, and employees serve many customers, such that a one-to-one mapping between customers and employees is not possible. Analysis proceeds by relating, or linking, distribution percentiles among variables. Such analysis is commonly encountered in marketing when data are from independently collected samples. We demonstrate our model in the context of retail banking, where drivers of customer and employee satisfaction are shown to be percentile-dependent.      

Organizational identification as a determinant of customer orientation in service organizations

The marketing literature suggests that frontline employees are the central determinant of how customer-oriented a service organization is perceived to be by its customers. However, little is known about the contingencies of employees’ customer orientation (CO) beyond personality traits and broadly construed work attitudes. Based on the social identity approach, the present article develops a multilevel model whereby CO is the result of identity-based management of frontline employees. Two empirical studies in the travel industry show that employees’ CO depends on employees’ organizational identification and their leaders’ acting as role models of CO.     

Customer satisfaction study via a latent segment model

The aim of this study is to apply a new conceptual model, and a new technique as an approach to the modelling of customers’ satisfaction, and to develop an overall satisfaction index (OSI). This study evaluates customers’ satisfaction of a certain public organization service, and argues that in order to estimate the global customers’ satisfaction measure we must appeal to methodologies recognizing that satisfaction must be understood as a latent variable, quantified through multiple indicators. Thus, it is natural that we consider the latent segment models (LSM) approach to proceed to the evaluation of customer's service satisfaction. As a result of these models estimation, we selected a three latent segment model, that is to say, the latent variable customer satisfaction has three classes: segment 1, with 50.4 percent of the customers, that represents “The Very Satisfied”, for those to whom everything is very well in the organization service; a segment 2, with 33.4 percent of the customers, representative of the “The Well Satisfied”, not totally satisfied with the quality of the organization, and a segment 3, with 16.2 percent of the customers, “Satisfaction Demanders”, thinking that organizational quality can be improved. Finally, we developed an overall satisfaction index which is important to show how the company as a whole is performing.     

The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks and the Answers All Donors Crave: How You Can Inspire Someone to Give Generously,by H. McKinnon

Organizational learning and customer orientation have been a focus of research for a number of years in both marketing and management literature. Customer learning orientation is conceptualized as three important components: management customer orientation, customer feedback, and employee learning orientation. By drawing from both marketing and organizational research theories, the authors propose a model of customer learning orientation in a public sector organizational setting. Customer learning orientation is hypothesized to have a significant effect on employee attitudes of role ambiguity and self-efficacy, which in turn affects job outcomes of job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors. Using a sample of 438 employees of a public sector organization, the authors test the model through a structural equation modeling technique. The results provide general support for the model. Implications for managers of public sector organizations and future research are discussed.     

Public sector corporate branding and customer orientation

The objectives of branding and marketing in the public sector can differ in nature from those in the private sector, to include an improved responsiveness to public needs, rather than an increase in customer numbers. In addition, the customer orientation (a disposition that will influence brand perception) of public services is often questioned. Drawing from prior work in the private sector on the relationships expected between employee and organization customer orientation (hereafter referred to as CO), corporate brand personality, and both employee and customer satisfaction, the authors propose a number of models. These models are tested using structural equation modeling on data from a study of the employees (n = 302) and customers (n = 200) of a public hospital. Corporate brand personality mediates the positive links between employee customer orientation (hereafter referred to as ECO) and satisfaction; ECO influences brand personality, which in turn influences satisfaction. However, while both the needs and enjoyment dimensions of ECO improve customer satisfaction, the former has an unexpected, negative effect on employees. Organization customer orientation (hereafter referred to as OCO) influences customer, but not employee, satisfaction. The paper discusses the implications for managing and researching corporate branding in the public sector.     

Employee attitudes toward advertising

The attitudes and opinions of a group of bank employees toward a recent advertising campaign run by the bank which stressed employee service were studied via factor analysis. The analysis revealed three clearly defined dimensions underlying the attitude-opinion items: general attitude toward the campaign, relevance of the campaign to the respondent's job, and changes in the respondent's job behavior caused by the campaign. Relationships among factor scores on these three dimensions with job satisfaction, job involvement, degree of customer contact, and degree of contact with other employees were investigated using multiple regressions and canonical correlation analysis. Employee attitudes toward the campaign were significantly related to all four of the job characteristic variables, as was perceived relevance of the campaign to the employee's job. Changes in job behavior were related only to involvement and satisfaction. The relationships found here suggest that in some cases, employee attitudes should be considered in evaluating the effects of advertising campaigns. Close coordination between marketing and general managerial functions is required in situations where advertisements relate to employees as well as customers.     

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.     

内部营销与顾客满意关系的实证研究(英文)

为了确定内部营销、员工满意、服务质量和顾客满意之间的因果关系,本文在文献研究的基础上构建了内部营销—员工满意—服务质量—顾客满意关系模型,并以35家商业银行的员工和顾客为实证样本,采用因子分析、回归分析检验了模型的假设关系。     

A Stakeholder Perspective on Relationship Marketing

Abstract

This paper proposes a broad framework of relationship marketing using the stakeholder approach. Drawing from Peck et al. (1999) framework and proposing several modifications, the authors identify the following relational groups-supplier markets, customer markets (channels), customer markets (end users), competitor markets, external influence markets, and internal markets. The growing importance of strategic alliances is reflected in all constituent groups as well as in a proposed modification of the Berry and Parasuraman (1991) levels of relationships. This paper also re-examines the strategic role of the traditional marketing mix strategies (namely, product, price, place, and promotion) in the new relationship paradigm. Finally, implementation strategies for the stakeholder markets, in general, and customer markets, in particular, are proposed. Several propositions are derived throughout the paper, many of which can be fertile areas for future research investigations.     

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.     

Is there really an Asian connection? Professional service quality perceptions and customer satisfaction

Scenarios involving dental services investigate whether Asian cultures are similar enough to allow standardization of service offerings. The authors control and manipulate levels of service quality and performance to yield a 2 × 2 experimental design, with Japanese, Chinese, and Korean subjects (N = 637) selected to test the invariance of the measures. The findings yield significant cultural differences with the Chinese respondents perceiving significantly higher service quality and expressing greater customer satisfaction when performance is high and expressing less customer satisfaction when performance is low than do the Japanese and Korean respondents. Thus, even though all three countries are considered high-context cultures, having their roots in Confucianism, differences in national culture lead to the conclusion that “one size does not fit all” in terms of service offerings.     

Co-production and customer loyalty in financial services

Recent developments in marketing thought and practice highlight the opportunities that co-production of services provide for creating customer value. The authors propose a model of co-production with which they investigate the links between co-production and customer loyalty and the factors likely to increase the level of co-production in a financial services context, with support from an investigation in the medical services context. Further, the authors consider the relationships of customer expertise, customer–advisor communication, customer affective commitment, and interactional justice with the level of co-production. On the basis of testing with a sample of 1,197 customers of a large multinational financial services organization and 100 patients of medical services, the model is partially supported. Therefore, the authors suggest that co-production may have an important role as a basis for competition in the financial services industry.     

“I can get no e-satisfaction”. What analytics say? Evidence using satisfaction data from e-commerce

This study mines customer satisfaction (CS) segments using almost 270 thousand responses from a CS survey which ran in 140 e-commerce stores of a European country. To achieve this, it develops and applies a business analytics (BA)-informed framework. Then, it presents examples of how one e-commerce store exploited the extracted CS segments to build automated marketing actions for its customers, ranging from social media sharing strategies for the satisfied segments, to discounts for the less satisfied. This study contributes to customer satisfaction and segmentation literature. The extracted insights can be utilized to support decision making, ranging from targeted advertising for specific customer segments, to benchmarking for companies in similar industries.     

It takes two to tango: The role of customer empathy and resources to improve the efficacy of frontline employee empathy

This study investigates the link between employee empathy and customer satisfaction. Building on social exchange theory, we develop a model of employee-customer empathy. We focus on the central role of customer-oriented behaviour in explaining the empathy-satisfaction relationship, predicting that employee empathy positively influences customer-oriented behaviour, which in turn enhances customer-satisfaction. We also examine the moderating roles of customer empathy, as well as of customer resources. Results of a dyadic-survey study of 211 pairs of frontline employees and their customers support the proposed moderated -mediation model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Examining Employee—Service Personality Congruence

Abstract

Recent research indicates that service personality, conceptualized as the set of human characteristics associated with the service firm, plays an important role in services marketing. Research further indicates that the congruence between customer personality and service personality influences important outcome variables. Specifically, customer-service personality congruence has been shown to influence service quality perceptions, subjective disconfirmation, and word of mouth intentions. The current study extends this line of research by considering how employee-service personality congruence (ESPC) influences job outcome variables including service delivery, job satisfaction, intentions to leave, and organizational commitment. Empirical data, gathered from a sample of financial services employees, support hypothesized relationships between ESPC and these outcome variables. Furthermore, personality traits from the Five-Factor Model of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992) are shown to play an important role in ESPC perceptions. Managerial implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

The demand for and the supply of distribution services: A basis for the analysis of customer satisfaction in retailing

This paper brings together two bodies of literature. One of them is a literature on the special role of the consumer in retailing. The other one is the literature on customer satisfaction. This joining of literatures is accomplished by identifying distribution services as outputs of retail firms and fixed inputs into the production functions of consumers and relaxing the standard assumption that the demand for these services is always equal to the supply of these services. The result is a new conceptual framework for the analysis of customer satisfaction in retailing. This framework extends the basic ideas on customer satisfaction developed for manufacturing in a homogeneous single product setting to the heterogeneous multi-product setting relevant for many retailers. The paper illustrates one approach to the implementation of this framework with data for a set of supermarkets in Pamplona, Spain, that measure distribution services by asking consumers questions explicitly identifying these services. The five main categories of distribution services identified by the conceptual framework and measured in the data are economically important and statistically robust determinants of customer satisfaction with supermarkets. These results are obtained controlling for other variables typical of the customer satisfaction literature and measuring customer satisfaction in a manner consistent with that literature. The results are robust to corrections for sample selection and alternative estimation methods. Perhaps our most interesting novel result is that the effect of the determinants of customer satisfaction on future purchase intentions in the supermarket case is different when measured directly in a one stage process than when measured indirectly in a two stage process through the attributes/satisfaction/ purchase intentions chain.