Kundenbindung in der Versicherungswirtschaft: Ergebnisse einer theoretischen und empirischen Analyse

In this article customer retention is analysed both theoretically and empirically, especially the retention of customer to insurance intermediaries. After the construct of customer retention has been conceptualised, the determinants of customer retention in the insurance business are derived. The empirical analysis is based on interviews of German customers of an internationaly operating financial services company. A total of 1,003 interviews were conducted. The analysis of customer retention through the usage of structural equation modelling forms the main part of this article. A comparison of three methods — structural equation modelling, neural networks and decision trees — shows that they are complementary and a combined application of these methods brings additional insights. On the basis of the determinants of customer retention, a typology of customers is built through hierarchical cluster analysis. The management of customer retention can be realised either by manipulating the determinants of customer retention or by ad dressing the identified customer types with a segment specific marketing mix.     

Antecedents to customer satisfaction with financial services: The moderating effects of the Need to Evaluate

In this study, we examine how the personality trait Need to Evaluate (NES) moderates the effects benevolence, image and service quality have on customer satisfaction. We initially establish a theoretically derived baseline model of causes to customer satisfaction, and then argue how these effects should be moderated by NES. Based on a survey of retail banking customers, the hypothesised effects are tested by means of two-group analysis, and we find that the effects differ dependent of the NES levels of the consumers. The results are then discussed and their implications briefly offered.     

物流企业COSE及其驱动因子解析

孜孜以求顾客价值与竞争力的提升,不可停留在临渊羡鱼的层面,而应根植于顾客价值之驱动因素的剖析与培育。本文基于服务企业的特征,把服务员工顾客导向意识作为提升顾客价值的重要驱动因素,并在综合考虑工作意义、组织认同、报酬满意度、工作动机、心理受权、顾客导向技能等多阶因子的基础上,构建了服务员工顾客导向意识驱动模型。     

Business marketing: understand what customers value

How do you define the value of your market offering? Can you measure it? Few suppliers in business markets are able to answer those questions, and yet the ability to pinpoint the value of a product or service for one's customers has never been more important. By creating and using what the authors call customer value models, suppliers are able to figure out exactly what their offerings are worth to customers. Field value assessments--the most commonly used method for building customer value models--call for suppliers to gather data about their customers firsthand whenever possible. Through these assessments, a supplier can build a value model for an individual customer or for a market segment, drawing on data gathered form several customers in that segment. Suppliers can use customer value models to create competitive advantage in several ways. First, they can capitalize on the inevitable variation in customers' requirements by providing flexible market offerings. Second, they can use value models to demonstrate how a new product or service they are offering will provide greater value. Third, they can use their knowledge of how their market offerings specifically deliver value to craft persuasive value propositions. And fourth, they can use value models to provide evidence to customers of their accomplishments. Doing business based on value delivered gives companies the means to get an equitable return for their efforts. Once suppliers truly understand value, they will be able to realize the benefits of measuring and monitoring it for their customers.     

We are who we are: Incorporation of individual culture in customer satisfaction models

Despite the increasing recognition that cultural values have a major impact on consumer behavior, few studies have investigated the effect of individual culture on customer satisfaction in the global banking sector. This study designs a model of customer satisfaction that incorporates Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), and tests it among a sample of 227 Arab customers in the UAE banking sector through structural equation modeling using LISREL. Arab customers are reported to have a high UA, and it would thus be pertinent to determine how this cultural trait affects their consumer satisfaction. It was determined that perceived value and UA are direct antecedents of corporate reputation that in turn has a strong effect on satisfaction. Unexpectedly, service quality was not found to affect satisfaction. Various theoretical and managerial implications arising from the study findings are discussed, as well as potential avenues for further research in this important area.     

Customer-centered brand management

Most executives today agree that their efforts should be focused on growing the lifetime value of their customers. Yet few companies have come to terms with the implications of that idea for their marketing management. Oldsmobile, for example, enjoyed outstanding brand equity with many customers through the 1980s. But as the century wore further on, the people who loved the Olds got downright old. So why did General Motors spend so many years and so much money trying to reposition and refurbish the tired,tarnished brand? Why didn't GM managers instead move younger buyers along a path of less resistance, toward another of the brands in GM's stable--or even launch a wholly new brand geared to their tastes? Catering to new customers, even at the expense of the brand, would surely have been the path to profits. The reason, argue the authors, is that in large consumer-goods companies like General Motors, brands are the raison d'etre. They are the focus of decision making and the basis of accountability. But this overwhelming focus on growing brand equity is inconsistent with the goal of growing customer equity. Drawing on a wide range of current examples, the authors offer seven tactics that will put brands in the service of growing customer equity. These include replacing traditional brand managers with a new position--the customer segment manager; targeting brands to as narrow an audience as possible; developing the capability and the mind-set to hand off customers from one brand to another within the company; and changing the way brand equity is measured by basing calculations on individual, rather than average, customer data.     

How does customer motivational orientation affect satisfaction?

This study examines the link between customer motivational orientation and customer satisfaction in the Chinese context. The customer motivational orientation–satisfaction model was tested on 349 Chinese bank customers in Macao, China. Results of structural equation modelling indicated that task-oriented and interaction-oriented customers were not equally responsive to the financial services provided. Specifically, task motivational orientation was directly and indirectly related to customer satisfaction through customer perceived service quality, whereas interaction motivational orientation only linked to customer satisfaction through customer perceived service quality as a mediator. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Default Risk in Futures Markets: The Customer-Broker Relationship

The traditional view of the futures clearinghouse as an insurer that eliminates the need for customers to evaluate default risk is inaccurate. A clearinghouse member default in 1985 confirms that the clearinghouse only guarantees payment from member to member, not from customer to customer or member to customer. Thus, non-defaulting customers are subject to losses as a result of the action of individuals with whom thay have no contractual obligations. This study models the behavior of customers choosing a futures commission merchant (FCM) given the current legal position of the clearinghouse. In a single-period model with symmetric information, customers can eliminate their exposure to defaults of other customers or of their FCM only by choosing to trade through “boutique” (undiversified) FCMs. In practice, monitoring and rebalancing costs may impede the attainment of zero default risk. However, FCM diversification remains an important factor in customer choice of an FCM. When setting capital requirements, clearinghouses and government regulators need to consider the implications of diversification for both customer and market protection.     

Improving the effectiveness of banks' service guarantees: The role of implementation

The negative impact of frequent service delays on customer loyalty and retention is widely recognised. To address this issue, many banks have initiated some form of service improvement programme and attempted to communicate the change to their existing and prospective customers. Often, however, this rightfully sceptical audience continues to doubt the provider's ability to resolve the problem and may not notice service improvement even when it is achieved. Service guarantees are a powerful mechanism for firms to express their commitment to satisfaction as well as their willingness to compensate customers in the event of service failure. This paper presents the results of a multi-stage study of a major bank's effort to provide a wait-time guarantee. The potential value of the guarantee to customers, the impact of the guarantee on customer dissatisfaction following a negative service experience, and customers' willingness to invoke the guarantee are examined. The implications of the findings highlight the role of implementation in a successful guarantee programme. Recommendations for improving banks' service guarantees are provided.     

Loyalty-based management

Despite a flurry of activities aimed at serving customers better, few companies have systematically revamped their operations with customer loyalty in mind. Instead, most have adopted improvement programs ad hoc, and paybacks haven't materialized. Building a highly loyal customer base must be integral to a company's basic business strategy. Loyalty leaders like MBNA credit cards are successful because they have designed their entire business systems around customer loyalty--a self-reinforcing system in which the company delivers superior value consistently and reinvents cash flows to find and keep high-quality customers and employees. The economic benefits of high customer loyalty are measurable. When a company consistently delivers superior value and wins customer loyalty, market share and revenues go up, and the cost of acquiring new customers goes down. The better economics mean the company can pay workers better, which sets off a whole chain of events. Increased pay boosts employee moral and commitment; as employees stay longer, their productivity goes up and training costs fall; employees' overall job satisfaction, combined with their experience, helps them serve customers better; and customers are then more inclined to stay loyal to the company. Finally, as the best customers and employees become part of the loyalty-based system, competitors are left to survive with less desirable customers and less talented employees. To compete on loyalty, a company must understand the relationships between customer retention and the other parts of the business--and be able to quantify the linkages between loyalty and profits. It involves rethinking and aligning four important aspects of the business: customers, product/service offering, employees, and measurement systems.     

Customer value propositions in business markets

Examples of consumer value propositions that resonate with customers are exceptionally difficult to find. When properly constructed, value propositions force suppliers to focus on what their offerings are really worth. Once companies become disciplined about understanding their customers, they can make smarter choices about where to allocate scarce resources. The authors illuminate the pitfalls of current approaches, then present a systematic method for developing value propositions that are meaningful to target customers and that focus suppliers' efforts on creating superior value. When managers construct a customer value proposition, they often simply list all the benefits their offering might deliver. But the relative simplicity of this all-benefits approach may have a major drawback: benefit assertion. In other words, managers may claim advantages for features their customers don't care about in the least. Other suppliers try to answer the question, Why should our firm purchase your offering instead of your competitor's? But without a detailed understanding of the customer's requirements and preferences, suppliers can end up stressing points of difference that deliver relatively little value to the target customer. The pitfall with this approach is value presumption: assuming that any favorable points of difference must be valuable for the customer. Drawing on the best practices of a handful of suppliers in business markets, the authors advocate a resonating focus approach. Suppliers can provide simple, yet powerfully captivating, consumer value propositions by making their offerings superior on the few elements that matter most to target customers, demonstrating and documenting the value of this superior performance, and communicating it in a way that conveys a sophisticated understanding of the customer's business priorities.     

A structural equation modelling of the antecedents of relationship quality in the Malaysia banking sector

The intense competition among firms in the new global environment has made it inevitable for firms to seek ways to create and maintain quality relationship with customers, and Malaysia banks are no exception. However, little is understood from empirical viewpoint about the antecedents of relationship quality specifically, the actual influence of overall customer satisfaction and its indicators. Based on data collected from 220 customers of 15 retail banks in Malaysia and analysed using the structural equation modelling technique, findings are that overall customer satisfaction is a key determinant of relationship quality. The indicators of customer satisfaction include trust, commitment, communication, service quality, service satisfaction and conflict handling. These results are not confounded by any service differential among the participating banks. Important theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

Why are some modes of acquisition more profitable? A study of the credit card industry

A key challenge in financial services marketing is attracting good customers to the firm. For most financial services firms, including credit card firms, a good customer is also a profitable customer. Managers would like to use marketing tactics that attract the most profitable customers while closely monitoring and perhaps limiting expenditures on marketing tactics that tend to attract relatively less profitable customers. Therefore, managers need to understand the relative effectiveness of different modes of new account acquisition and the impact that the various modes of acquisition may have on overall account profitability. To date, there have been very few studies that have calculated individual level customer profitability and then investigated the relationship between new customer acquisition source and customer profitability. That is, how do modes of acquisition differ in their ability to attract profitable customers? We answer this question using a proprietary and novel data set from the credit card industry. Of the four modes of acquisition used in this industry, we find that Internet and direct mail efforts generate more profitable customers than telemarketing and direct selling. We provide possible explanations for these findings. Our work adds to the growing literature in customer relationship management and our results have important managerial implications for resource allocation among acquisition strategies.     

Online banking in India: An approach to establish CRM

Technology is fast altering the business servicescape. Its role in improving customer service levels is being used strategically and increasingly by service organizations. The service attributes and quality can be enhanced by deployment of technology. The Internet has facilitated convenience in customer interactions and transactions with the banks. Online banking is currently emerging as a new approach in India for providing improved accessibility and expediency to customers. Most banks have their own websites for improving the customer interface and offering online services. The article studies the applicability of online banking in India and its role in fostering relationships with customers and giving them more value. The research was conducted on customers familiar with online banking in India, and their perceptions about online banking were studied. The findings reveal that customers are using the services but are skeptical about the financial transactions and service quality dimensions.     

Segmenting retail banking customers

The desire to treat all customers equally, irrespective of their value to the organisation reflects the laudable but uneconomic service mantras of the past. New Zealand banks, using modern database management tools in conjunction with individual customer information, are migrating customers to cheaper delivery systems and adjusting their customer service levels (customer support, privileges, fee waivers, discounts, etc) according to customer profitability. The essence of this database management is still customer segmentation. Using a retail bank's proprietary customer contribution data in combination with survey-based customer data, this paper presents a quantitative eight segment ‘extension’ of Reinartz and Kumar's (2002) behavioural segmentation solution. Potential profitability in the customer-bank relationship is drawn from incorporation of share of wallet into the segmentation solution, providing insight into the management of each segment's customers, especially the ‘barnacles’ (loyal, loss-making customers) and the ‘butterflies’ (short-term, profitable customers).     

券商客户积分分级的模型设计与应用

中国证券行业服务严重同质化,客户对证券公司品牌的忠诚度低,如何有效衡量客户价值并持续跟踪客户价值量的变化,是券商提供差异化服务和提高客户忠诚度的前提。本文通过研究券商客户分级方法,指出传统客户分类模式的不足,提出了基于客户积分的客户分级模型,并选取4家营业部客户真实交易数据进行实证分析,进一步论证积分分级模式在量化客户价值、挖掘最有价值客户、营销新客户和服务老客户等方面的独特优势,从而为券商提高客户关系管理水平提供崭新的工具。     

Valuing customers and loyalty: The rhetoric of customer focus versus the reality of alienation and exclusion of (de valued) customers

The accounting practice of customer valuation ostensibly emerged from the so-called “customer revolution" of the 1980s. Early conceptions centred around notions such as customer focus and providing value to customers, but these ideas have latterly given way to calculation of the financial value of customers to an organisation. Integral to customer valuation are the reconstruction of the customer as an asset (or liability) of the organisation, the segmentation of customers into identifiable groups, and the treatment of customers as dollars rather than people. Whilst rhetoric of “the customer is king" persists, accounting for customer valuation brings its own transformative terminology and has become a means for organisations to selectively focus on particular customers, rather than the customer in general. The paper examines the health insurance and banking industries as exemplars of the affects of customer valuation, and discusses pivotal issues of access, equity, alienation, and social exclusion. Customer valuation is shown to have become a means to increase shareholder income and wealth, almost inevitably at the cost of (further) marginalising the poor and disadvantaged.     

Customer value exchange

This paper discusses the state of the US banking industry — its challenges and some of the common shortcomings of their current strategies — and presents compelling reasons why banks must re-formulate new strategies for growth and profitability focused on the customer. It proposes a framework, called the customer value exchange (CVE), as a potential solution that would enable banks to develop effective strategies tailored to their customers’ specific needs and perceptions of value, which are the drivers for profitability. This framework is organised into capabilities, which are explained in this paper. A sample process for how these capabilities are applied is provided with an emphasis on an iterative, dynamic refinement process. The iterative approach includes strategy, people, process, analyses and information that companies can integrate to yield higher value and exchange with the banks’ customers. The paper also presents a real company case study. This framework can be utilised by academics and industry practitioners of customer relationship programmes alike.     

Manage customer-centric innovation--systematically

No matter how hard companies try, their approaches to innovation often don't grow the top line in the sustained, profitable way investors expect. For many companies, there's a huge difference between what's in their business plans and the market's expectations for growth (as reflected in firms' share prices, market capitalizations, and P/E ratios). This growth gap springs from the fact that companies are pouring money into their insular R&D labs instead of working to understand what the customer wants and using that understanding to drive innovation. As a result, even companies that spend the most on R&D remain starved for both customer innovation and market-capitalization growth. In this article, the authors spell out a systematic approach to innovation that continuously fuels sustained, profitable growth. They call this approach customer-centric innovation, or CCI. At the heart of CCI is a rigorous customer R&D process that helps companies to continually improve their understanding of who their customers are and what they need. By so doing, they consistently create or improve their customer value proposition. Customer R&D also focuses on better ways of communicating value propositions and delivering the complete experience to real customers. Since so much of the learning about customers and so much of the experimentation with different segmentations, value propositions, and delivery mechanisms involve the people who regularly deal with customers, it is absolutely essential for frontline employees to be at the center of the CCI process. Simply put, customer R&D propels the innovation effort away from headquarters and the traditional R&D lab out to those closest to the customer. Using the example of the luggage manufacturer Tumi, the authors provide a step-by-step approach for achieving true customer-centric innovation.     

商业银行与客户价值互换——提升商业银行创值能力的有效途径

随着企业边界的扩大，商业银行的可用资源已经扩展到经营的上游和下游世界。商业银行与客户之间的关系从利益对立方正逐步向利益共同体转变。商业银行只有。为客户创造了价值，客户才会对银行贡献价值。客户的价值贡献能力已经成为商业银行创值活动的主要影响因素；实现商业银行与客户在价值创造活动中的共赢，是提升商业银行创值能力、更新管理理念、培养核心竞争能力的必然选择。