When customers disappoint: A model of relational internal marketing and customer complaints

The objective of this study is to examine internal marketing relationships and their influence on salesperson attitudes and behaviors in retail store environments. The authors investigate the moderating role of customer complaining behavior on the nature of these relationships. Specifically, they examine the relationship between organization-employee and supervisor-employee relationships and their association with salesperson job motivation and commitment to customer service. Customer complaints are expected to have differential moderating effects on the relationship between organizational and supervisory support and these salesperson outcomes. Our hypotheses were tested using a sample of 392 retail employees within 115 stores of a national retail organization. The model was partially supported. Theoretical and managerial implications are explored.     

服务营销中的质量控制链

服务所提供的质量已成为今天服务行业的竞争核心.重新诠释服务概念,构建新的服务流程,加强企业内部营销以及建立企业内部质量控制链,同时把以服务为导向的文化融入该控制链之中,这将为企业建立一条通畅而又严密的质量控制体系,从而为服务质量提供保证.     

Relationship marketing: The strategy continuum

Conclusion Few service firms will apply a pure transaction marketing strategy. Even highly standardized service operations include direct contacts with customers, and the customers do perceive the production and delivery process. Hence there are part-time marketers and functional quality effects, so we cannot talk about a pure transaction marketing situation. However, the more standardized the process is, the more dominating is the core service and the technical quality of the outcome of the production and delivery process and the less difficult it is to manage the personnel from a marketing point of view. Firms can position their strategic approach along the strategy continuum, and the more a relationship-type strategy is called for, the more has to be invested in interactive marketing, the functional quality impact, and internal marketing. In such a situation, it is at the same time more important to create information systems where the firm is managing its customer base directly and not relying on market share statistics and ad hoc customer surveys. Christian Gr?nroos, a former visiting professor at Arizona State University and a research fellow at the First Interstate Center for Services Marketing there, is currently a professor of marketing at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland, where he also is head of the marketing department. He has published extensively within the areas of service management and marketing and relationship marketing. He has published seven books and numerous articles in English, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian.     

The trade-off of servicing empowerment on employees’ service performance: examining the underlying motivation and workload mechanisms

Literature on empowerment as an internal marketing practice primarily documents positive effects on employees’ job performance, though increasing evidence suggests conflicting viewpoints. This study adopts an agency theoretical perspective to propose a workload mechanism, according to which the delegation of power from supervisors (principals) to service employees (agents) (i.e., servicing empowerment) is costly to employees and increases their perceived workload, which hampers their performance to serve customers. Using a laboratory experiment and a survey, this research reveals that the perceived workload and extant motivational mechanisms have conflicting effects on employees’ service performance. The former exerts a significant negative impact on tasks that involve conflicting principal-agent interests (e.g., handling customer complaints) but not on tasks with aligned principal-agent interests (e.g., organizational citizenship behaviors). Two control systems, performance appraisal (accurate and infrequent feedback) and principal-agent service goal congruence, mitigate the dysfunctional effect of perceived workload on employees’ service performance.     

The role of brand communications on front line service employee beliefs,behaviors, and performance

Frontline service employees often vary in their delivery of the brand promise, leaving service firms with less direct control on other stakeholders’ brand perceptions. Internal branding efforts have been suggested as a way to improve employee performance. With this in mind, we develop a two-process model based on identification and internalization theories to explain how internally disseminating brand-relevant information to frontline employees enhances performance. Using multi-source data from the employees, managers, and customers of a business-to-business firm in the hospitality industry, we find that providing brand-specific information directly to frontline employees increases their identification with the brand (as evidenced in perceptions of firm authenticity) and enhances their internalization of brand values. Additional results suggest that firms should make an extra effort to communicate brand-specific information to frontline employees if they desire brand-consistent performance that is observable to managers and customers alike.     

Relationship marketing of services—growing interest,emerging perspectives

Relationship marketing is an old idea but a new focus now at the forefront of services marketing practice and academic research. The impetus for its development has come from the maturing of services marketing with the emphasis on quality, increased recognition of potential benefits for the firm and the customer, and technological advances. Accelerating interest and active research are extending the concept to incorporate newer, more sophisticated viewpoints. Emerging perspectives explored here include targeting profitable customers, using the strongest possible strategies for customer bonding, marketing to employees and other stakeholders, and building trust as a marketing tool. Although relationship marketing is developing, more research is needed before it reaches maturity. A baker’s dozen of researchable questions suggests some future directions. holds the J. C. Penney Chair of Retailing Studies, is a professor of Marketing, and is director of the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University. He is a former national president of the American Marketing Association. His research interests are services marketing, service quality, and retailing strategy. He has published numerous journal articles and books, includingDelivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations (Free Press, 1990),Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality (Free Press, 1991), andOn Great Service: A Framework for Action (Free Press, 1995).     

论社会中介组织的内部营销

社会中介组织在我国经济发展中发挥着日益重要的作用 ,然而却存在着服务质量低下等问题。服务利润链理论认为 ,组织的内部服务质量决定其外部服务质量。为了提高客户服务质量 ,增强市场竞争力 ,社会中介组织必须开展内部营销 ,其关键是加强员工管理 ,注重文化建设 ,改革流程与制度     

企业文化与内部营销的整合分析

在激烈的市场竞争环境下,企业文化及内部营销的整合有助于企业的经营和发展,促进营销战略的实施,进而获得更好的市场竞争力。文章通过企业文化的表现形式及其功能分析、企业内部营销分析,突出企业文化与内部营销在企业经营中的重要地位,提出整合的相关措施,促进企业营销战略水平的提升。     

Creating a firm-level dynamic capability through capitalizing on market orientation and innovativeness

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study addresses the dynamic capability-generating capacity of market orientation on firm performance. Whereas prior literature has examined environmental turbulence as a contextual condition shaping the market orientation-firm performance relationship, this study takes an internal approach by focusing on existing stocks of resources within the firm while controlling for environmental conditions. A conceptual model is developed that explains how market orientation can be transformed into dynamic capability when complemented by transformational (reconfig-urational) constructs, such as innovativeness. The empirical results support the authors— theory that the effect of market orientation on firm performance is strengthened when market orientation is bundled together with internal complementary resources, such as innovativeness. The authors discuss the findings in the context of varying stages of the product life cycle and at different levels of market development. Bulent Menguc (menguc@brocku.ca), Ph.D., Marmara University, is currently an associate professor of marketing at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. His areas of research interest include sales force management and internal marketing, strategic orientations, and cross-cultural research methodology. His research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, theJournal of Business Ethics, and theEuropean Journal of Marketing, among others. Seigyoung Auh (sauh@yonsei.ac.kr), Ph.D., University of Michigan, is an assistant professor at Yonsei University, South Korea. His research interests are the application of the resource-based view to marketing strategy, the role of top management teams on marketing strategy, and innovation and organizational learning. He has publications in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Economic Psychology, among others.     

The integration of a logistical decision-making framework into nonprofit marketing

Marketing practitioners in for-profit-making settings are typically well acquainted with what logistical decisions can do for a marketing program and what marketing constraints can do to a logistics system. For the most part, however, the conceptual tansfer from a product-oriented firm to a service-producing organization has been lacking and obviously not made in non-profit marketing situations. This paper examines these areas and presents a creative expansion of the logistics decision-making area into nonprofit marketing. Hopefully, this setting will encourage others to investigate non-profit areas and, in particular, the interrelationships involved in the logistics area.     

Marketers as noodlers

The article examines difficulties marketing instructors encounter in introductory marketing courses. Presentation of the factors responsible for the growing volume and importance of marketing and examination of the roles marketing performs for business and society can lead students to form negative attitudes. Students in their initial exposure to marketing study may come to view marketing as manipulative and of service only to production and profits. Suggestions are presented for logical development of these topics via positive and persuasive examples. A review of literature is presented indicating a wide divergency of views regarding the scope of marketing, a definition of the field, and societal contributions. Research findings are presented on the accumulation of marketing knowledge and the attitudes which are formed during study in the Marketing Principles course.     

Looking at the age of salespersons

This research reports on the significance of identifying and measuring the attitudes of salespersons, especially on how they perceive their self-development opportunities. The analysis of attitudes—after the employees were segmented into four age groups—indicates that the salespersons between the ages of 26–35 display lower levels of enthusiasm than the norm. Seeds of anxiety, excess mobility, new career demands and other reasons are examplified in related literature of the last decade. Some marketing practices and implications are discussed.     

服务性企业内部营销的再诠释——基于柔性管理思想的视角

本文透过柔性管理思想的视角,提出基于内在精神和优良价值观为核心的柔性管理,给现代服务业提出新的内部营销战略思维,为上海现代服务业提升营销观念、树立优质服务观、抓住世博会契机、实现与上海世博会的良性互动提供一些启示。     

Service crisis recovery and firm performance: insights from information breach announcements

The extant literature has studied the effects of a firm’s service recovery efforts on the reactions of customers and employees following an individual service failure. However, the impact of recovery efforts on a firm’s performance after a public and large service failure—such as a large-scale information breach—has received scant attention. To address this gap, this current research develops a framework and finds support for the impact of service crisis recoveries on a firm’s performance, as measured by firm-idiosyncratic risk. Using a unique dataset of service crisis recoveries, the authors find that firms offering compensation (i.e., tangible redresses) or process improvement (i.e., improvements in organizational processes) show more stable performance (less idiosyncratic risk), from two quarters to two calendar years after the announcement of their recovery plan. In line with the documented dual effect of apologies, firms that offer apology-based recoveries display more volatile performance (higher idiosyncratic risk). Of note, this volatility increases with the number of affected individuals, and it remains unaffected even when the apology is expressed with high intensity.     

Reflections on the future of marketing

Restraints upon business institutions can be expected to grow more stringent in the latter part of the twentieth century and thereafter. Shortages of raw materials, pollution, and changes in salient societal attitudes are likely to force public policymakers to demand increased corporate attention to consumer welfare. The author examines what the role of the marketing function may be in this kind of milieu. Although significant changes in marketing practices, and shifts of emphases among the various marketing activities are anticipated, the author concludes that marketing will remain an essential force in an economy where the service sector will dominate.     

员工满意调查在服务企业文化建设中的应用

服务企业的文化建设是服务企业内部营销的主要目标,旨在建设一种以人为本的服务文化.内部营销的实施是以人事管理策略为基础的,员工满意度是衡量内部营销效果的主要指标,也是了解企业文化建设,寻找制定文化建设策略依据的重要指标.实例研究表明,员工满意度调查结果能用来分析企业精神文化、制度文化、亚文化的现状以及文化建设管理.     

基于政府视角的马鞍山市城市营销策略研究

马鞍山市城市营销存在定位不明确、推广手法单一、力度不够等问题。马鞍山市应采取城市定位、城市建设与管理、城市服务营销、城市文化营销、城市营销传播五大营销策略进行城市营销,以期扩大城市知名度、享誉度,提高城市竞争力,获取城市竞争优势,促进经济社会全面、协调、可持续发展。     

Gender,income differences,and marketing: Examining the “earnings gap” in three areas of marketing

This research explores empirically a socioeconomic/equity issue that has been extensively investigated in many areas, but never marketing—the so-called “earnings gap.” Specifically, the study investigates income differences between men and women in marketing, while controlling for differences in business experience, level of education, corporate level, type of industry, and size of firm. The research focuses on three areas in marketing: (1) marketing management, (2) marketing research, and (3) advertising agency management. Findings indicate that there is an “earnings gap” for marketers. Importantly, however, the data show that a substantial portion of the gap can be explained by variables other than sex.     

Environmental marketing strategy and firm performance: Effects on new product performance and market share

Recent studies on marketing and the natural environment have called for research that links environmental marketing strategies to the performance of the firm. This research operationalizes the enviropreneurial marketing (EM) construct and examines its relationship with firm performance. It is the first empirical research to operationalize the EM construct. The new scale, albeit a first attempt, demonstrates encouraging psychometric properties. According to the resource-based view of the firm, a resource such as EM should directly influence firms’ capabilities (e.g., new product development success) but not competitive advantage (e.g., change in market share). A nationwide study of top-level marketing managers supports this perspective. In addition, although market turbulence also affects new product development success, it does not have an impact on EM. This suggests that EM formation is driven by internal rather than external forces. William E. Baker (william.baker@sdsu.edu) is an associate professor of marketing at San Diego State University. His research interests lie primarily in advertising effectiveness, new product success, organizational learning, and market orientation. He has published in leading scholarly journals including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Product and Innovation Management, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Advertising, Psychology & Marketing, and theJournal of Market Focused Management. He has also served as the head of research in a major communications firm and is actively involved in consulting. James M. Sinkula (james.sinkula@uvm.edu) is John L. Beckley Professor of Marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Vermont. His research interests lie primarily in the areas of organizational learning, market orientation, product innovation, environmental marketing strategy, and organizational performance. He has published in the leading scholarly journals, including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Product and Innovation Management, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Market Focused Management, theJournal of Business and Industrial Marketing, theJournal of International Marketing, and others.     

Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation

Because extant literature on the service logic of marketing is dominated by a metaphorical view of value co-creation, the roles of both service providers and customers remain analytically unspecified, without a theoretically sound foundation for value creation or co-creation. This article analyzes value creation and co-creation in service by analytically defining the roles of the customer and the firm, as well as the scope, locus, and nature of value and value creation. Value creation refers to customers’ creation of value-in-use; co-creation is a function of interaction. Both the firm’s and the customer’s actions can be categorized by spheres (provider, joint, customer), and their interactions are either direct or indirect, leading to different forms of value creation and co-creation. This conceptualization of value creation spheres extends knowledge about how value-in-use emerges and how value creation can be managed; it also emphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for value co-creation opportunities.