When Online Visibility Deters Social Interaction: The Case of Digital Gifts

One of the defining features of online social networks is that users' actions are visible to other users. In this paper, we argue that such visibility can have a detrimental effect on users' willingness to exchange digital gifts. Gift giving is an intimate activity that comes with social risk, and the public nature of online environments can deter interactions that usually occur in smaller, more intimate settings. To study the effects of online visibility on the decision to give, we analyze a unique dataset from a large online social network that offers users the option of buying a digital gifting service. We find that purchase rates of the service increased with the number of ties that users kept on the network, but decreased with the extent to which those ties were connected to each other. We argue that the latter effect is due to the fact that, when a user's ties are connected, any gift sent between the user and one tie is visible to their mutual contacts. We explore how characteristics of users' networks moderate the effect of online visibility, and argue that firms should take consumer network structure into account when designing digital products and promoting engagement online.     

在线品牌社群成员关系如何促进品牌忠诚——基于强弱连带整合的视角

文章从强弱连带整合的视角,探讨在线品牌社群成员强关系和弱关系数量对品牌忠诚的促进机制。借鉴社会资源理论的研究框架,基于品牌社群相关理论,本文提出了研究假设,并采用偏最小二乘法进行实证检验。结果显示：弱关系数量不会增强品牌社群信息价值和社群社交价值;强关系数量则对两种社群价值都有促进作用;品牌社群信息价值只能促进持续性社群承诺,而品牌社群社交价值会促进持续性社群承诺、情感性社群承诺和规范性社群承诺;情感性社群承诺和持续性社群承诺都会促进品牌忠诚,规范性社群承诺则不能。研究结论从连带强度的视角丰富了品牌社群理论,同时对在线品牌社群建设具有指导意义。     

Social perspectives of e-contact center for loyalty building

Recently, e-contact centers have gained popularity among online companies as a preferred channel to communicate with their customers. E-contact centers are respected among e-retailers and online customers because they provide customers value within a social construct. This research suggests that an e-contact center serves as an effective marketing vehicle, which can be used for establishing and maintaining desired relationships with customers. E-contact centers enhance the relationship between e-retailers and online customers by providing social values and quality interpersonal service to customers. Despite the strategic importance of e-contact centers in relation to customer loyalty, little attention has been given to the topic. To remedy this, the primary objective of this study is to assess the impacts of social elements (i.e. perceived social value and interpersonal service quality) delivered by e-contact centers on customers' loyalty formation processes. Loyalty formation process is parsimoniously explained by an integrative model, which incorporates interpersonal service quality, social value, retailer satisfaction, and e-contact center satisfaction constructs.     

Designing an emotional strategy: Strengthening digital channel engagements

The emergence of new technologies has revolutionized the way companies interact and build relationships with customers. The channel–customer relationship has traditionally been managed via a push approach in communication (“What can we sell customers?”) with the hope of cultivating customer loyalty. However, emotional understandings of customers and how they feel about a product, service, or business can drastically alter consumers’ engagement, behavior, and purchasing preferences. This rapidly evolving landscape has left managers at a loss, and what they are experiencing is likely the beginning of a tectonic shift in the way digital channels are designed, monitored, and managed. In this article, digital channel relationships are examined, and useful concepts for clarifying and refining the emotional meaning behind company strategy and their relationship to corresponding digital channels are detailed. Using three case study examples, we discuss the process and impact of such emotionally aware digital channel designs. Recommendations are made regarding how companies can select, design, and maintain digital engagements based on their strategy and industry needs.     

Comparing email and SNS users: Investigating e-servicescape,customer reviews,trust, loyalty and E-WOM

For better or worse, satisfied or dissatisfied customers function as trusted branding faces for organizations as they transmit potentially viral messages through E-WOM. These E-WOM messages can prove marketers' best friends or worst enemies, depending on their tenor. With data from actual customers of an e-tailer, this research enriches our understanding of how e-servicescape is linked to E-WOM. E-servicescape captures the online environmental factors of marketers’ websites. Two forms of E-WOM are examined; i.e., emails and social network postings. Customer reviews were investigated as a prospective sub-dimension of e-servicescape. Findings suggest that customer reviews play an integral role in the e-servicescape construct, that e-servicescape positively impacts trust and that trust positively influences E-WOM and customer loyalty. Two groups of customers were compared, and results indicated differences between email and SNS users. Theoretical and managerial insights related to E-WOM and electronic commerce shopping behavior were generated.     

Developing social capital to achieve superior internationalization: A conceptual model

A conceptual model is proposed for analyzing the strategies of startups in the context of building social capital to achieve superior performance in internationalization. The study responds to calls for theoretical predictions based on comprehensive distinctions of network relationships, such as in the strength, number and content of ties. The effect of tie characteristics on formulating startup internationalization strategies and on subsequent performance depends on the combination of many weak ties and a few strong ties.     

The Future of Managing Customers as Assets

SUMMARY

Most companies do a very poor job of determining the economic value of their customers. There are three primary reasons that this has been the case: (1) inadequacy of technology, (2) managements' internal focus on products (as opposed to customers), and (3) inadequacy of accounting systems. Each of these areas, however, has undergone rapid transformation in terms of their sophistication and managerial usefulness. As a result, it is manifest destiny that asset valuation and management will evolve to the evaluation of a company's most fundamental asset, its customers (i.e., customer lifetime value). Most managers have come to accept this inevitability. What managers fail to realize is just how radically an understanding of customer lifetime value will transform the business landscape. It will dramatically impact the breadth and type of data collected; the way managers view and segment customers; the types of experiences firms offer customers; the metrics executives provide to the financial markets; and the way companies structure and staff their organizations.     

Can you hear me now? Learning from customer stories

A large business generally knows its customers through quantitative analyses and summary reports, which are staples of market research and corporate reporting. Too often, the voices of individual customers are muffled by a torrent of numbers, and the stories they would tell are garbled. Few managers and even fewer executives hear customers speak, in their own words and ways, about the company's products and services. Yet, as we discuss, these stories may suggest enhanced customer service, better products, and organizational innovation; indeed, a number of companies have shown that the value of attentiveness to customer stories can be great. Herein, we describe a controlled, exploratory approach a company might take to develop its own engagement with customer storytelling—one that encompasses not only its interactions with customers along the front line, but also conversations ongoing in social media. Our proposal demands sustained commitment from senior management. We counsel senior executives to lead by example, to listen to customer stories, to learn from them, and to share them with others in the executive suite. By truly caring about storytelling, business leaders can better serve their customers and their companies.     

Two-sided effects of customer participation: roles of relationships and social-interaction values in social services

This research aims to extend customer participation and value co-creation theory to the social-services sector, where consumer choice is restricted. This study examines the relationship between the value creation of participation and customer satisfaction in social services. The perceived value corresponding to different types of relationships was divided into company–customer (relationship value) and customer–customer (social-interaction value). To test hypotheses, data were collected via an online survey of customers using child-care centers in Korea. The participating customers had children who attended day-care centers, and the proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Empirical result shows that customer participation as information resource and customer participation as co-developer affect the relationship and social-interaction values. The most important and interesting result is that the relationship value has a positive effect, but the social-interaction value has a negative one on customer satisfaction. These results suggest that customer participation in social services has both positive and negative outcomes, which means that the social-interaction value of co-creation does not always lead to customer satisfaction in a choice-limited service such as child care. This study explains a counterintuitive and interesting relationship between the social-interaction value and customer satisfaction by validating the moderating role of social network service-based interaction intensity in child-care services.     

Managing customer experiences in online product communities

Many companies have established online product communities or forums as a vehicle to extend product support services to their customers. Customers' interactions in such online forums with peer customers and vendor representatives resolve their product-related queries as well as inform on their product purchase decisions. Despite the significance of such interactions, there has been limited theoretical attention so far on how companies can manage customer experiences in online product communities. Drawing on theories and concepts from diverse areas including computer-mediated communication, consumer psychology, and online communities, this study proposes a four dimensional construct - Online Community Experience (OCE) - to capture customer experiences in such online product communities, and examines its impact on customer attitudes regarding the product, the company, and the quality of service. Data collected from customers in online product forums offered by four companies is used to test the study hypotheses. Implications for research on online consumer behavior and marketing are discussed.     

Experience, socialization and customer retention: Lessons from the dance floor

Experience and socialization are key factors in customer commitment and defection decisions. To study the effect of experience and social relationships on customer retention, we analyze a reality-mined co-presence network of health club members over a period of 4 years. Since central customers in the network have more social ties they will lose if they defect, we use centrality as a proxy for customer relationship switching costs. We find that long-standing customers do have a lower chance of renewing their contracts. However, in line with theoretical predictions (Burnham et al., Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 31(2):109–126, 2003), the consumer’s centrality in the network (reflecting a social cost of defection) reduces customer churn rate. This study’s results indicate that the inclusion of social effects increases the predictive power of the customer churn model (Nitzan and Libai, Journal of Marketing 75(6):24–38, 2011), thus contributing to our understanding of the role social networks play in customer decisions.     

Better or Worse? Effects of online promotion habits on customer value: An empirical study

Online frequent and uninterrupted price discounts easily cause customers to form general tendencies to purchase promotions, or ‘online promotion habits’. Compared with offline promotion shopping, the distinct features of online promotion shopping make customer behaviours highly changeable and leave the effects of online promotion habits on customer value a puzzle. Using a dataset of real transactions from a leading online apparel retailer in China, this study makes continuous observations of customers’ online promotion habits. Drawing on the behavioural learning theory, we empirically investigate the dynamic effects of online promotion habits on customer value. The results reveal that after customers form online promotion habits, their customer value increases significantly. Furthermore, among customers with online promotion habits, online promotion habits exert an inverted U-shaped effect on customer value. Namely, as online promotion habits strengthen, customer value increases accordingly, yet negative outcomes show if online promotion habits exceed a certain level. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings, which will enable researchers and practitioners to measure and dynamically manage customers’ online promotion habits.     

礼品生鲜的网络适应性探索研究

产品的网络适应性在多渠道战略规划中起到了非常重要的作用。随着现阶段消费者线上、线下的感知属性和感知价值的变化,产品的网络适应性也随之发生变化。文章通过实证分析重新测量了礼品生鲜的网络适应性,进一步分析结果表明,现阶段礼品生鲜的网络适应性大于1,即消费者更偏向通过网络渠道购买礼品生鲜;产品质量、售后服务、退换货政策是消费者网购礼品生鲜的重要感知属性;高学历的非学生女性消费者网购礼品生鲜时,愿意支付的价格最高。     

关系营销视角下的企业个人关系对策研究

在商务交往中,个人关系是一种双刃剑,既能够促进甚至决定顾客和企业关系的发展,又由于稳定性的缺乏或过于强调个人关系给企业带来风险。企业应客观认识个人关系的作用,加强基础管理工作和客户关系管理,完善客户档案,建立与顾客之间互动的关系网络,做好关键时刻的具体工作。同时,企业应采取措施,留住关键员工,促进个人关系向企业层面关系转化,促进和带动顾企关系的发展,实现企业的经营目标。     

Transformative value co-creation with older customers in e-services: Exploring the influence of customer participation on appreciation of digital affordances and well-being

This study challenges the negative assumption that older customers struggle to adapt to e-service by exploring the positive influence of their participation on transformative value co-creation. A two-phase mixed-methods approach was adopted to develop and validate the research model. The results found that customer participation, including information sharing, responsible behaviors, and in-role feedback, promotes older customers' digital skills and basic needs satisfaction, leading to higher appreciation of digital affordances and well-being. Additionally, online employees’ customer orientation positively moderates the above relationships. This study provides insight for service providers to include older customers in e-services.     

Evaluating discounts as a dimension of customer behavior analysis

Today, increased competition between organizations has led them to seek a better understanding of customer behavior through identifying valuable customers. Customers’ expectations about the price and quality of products and services play an important role in their selection process. In online businesses, competition and price differences between suppliers is high, so discounts will attract different customers. As a result, discounts and the frequency and amount of purchases can lead to better understanding of customer behavior. Customer segmentation and analysis is essential for identifying groups of customers. Hence, this study uses a model based on RFM called RdFdMd, in which d is the level of discount used to analyze customer purchase behavior and the importance of discounts on customers’ purchasing behavior and organizational profitability. The CRISP-DM and k-mean algorithm were used for clustering. The results indicate that using the R_dF_dM_d model achieves better customer clustering and valuation, and discounts were identified as an important criterion for customer purchases.     

How Online Consumer Segments Differ in Long-term Marketing Effectiveness

Online commerce gives companies not only a growing global sales platform, but also powerful consumers enjoying 24/7 availability, choice proliferation and the power to opt in and out permission-based communication. Unfortunately, our knowledge is limited on long-term marketing effectiveness in this space and on how it differs across customer segments. Managers appear overwhelmed by the combination of rich online data on hundreds of thousands of customers and the typical aggregate-level data on offline marketing spending.This paper is the first to investigate the long-term impact of coupon promotions, TV, radio, print, and Internet advertising across customer segments for a major digital music provider with over 500,000 customers. We first segment customers and subsequently analyze how these segments respond in the long run to different marketing activities when purchasing music downloads. Our findings reveal that the effectiveness of marketing differs across segments, while standard segmentation approaches fail to identify the most valuable catches in a sea of consumers. In contrast to empirical generalizations on consumer packaged goods, heavy users of digital music products are least sensitive to price and most sensitive to TV advertising and to multiple touch points. Light users, the majority of consumers, are price sensitive and tend to opt out of targeted communication. Our research enables managers in the digital media space to target high-value customer segments with the most effective actions.     

When Plentiful Platforms Pay Off: Assessment Orientation Moderates the Effect of Assortment Size on Choice Engagement and Product Valuation

Popular digital platforms, such as Netflix and GrubHub, purposefully aggregate offerings, according to the premise that customers value products chosen from plentiful assortments. Yet academic literature provides little clarity about when, for whom, or how larger online retail assortments affect the value of the products. To provide new insights, the current article aims to address ambiguous extant findings about the effects of larger product assortments. Specifically, this research tests whether customers with high, as opposed to low, assessment orientation value products more when they have chosen them from larger, as opposed to smaller, assortments. Four experiments affirm this idea, such that customers with a high assessment orientation value products more when they have chosen them from platforms with relatively larger assortments. Sequential mediation of the effect occurs through increased choice engagement and attitude certainty. For managers, customer segmentation along the assessment dimension offers benefits, while assessment type marketing communications can increase the likelihood of product selection, like in our field study, where we find an increase of 27%.     

Effect of social support on customer satisfaction and citizenship behavior in online brand communities: The moderating role of support source

Customers often join online brand communities to seek support from others when they encounter product problems. Some customers who receive good social support exhibit customer citizenship behavior. This study develops a theoretical model to investigate how social support influences customer citizenship behavior through customer satisfaction with firms in online brand communities. Moreover, the moderating role of support source (i.e., firms vs. other customers) is measured. The research model is tested by using the Partial Least Squares technique. The results show that informational and emotional support significantly affects the customer citizenship behavior of providing feedback to the firm, recommendations, and helping other customers through customer satisfaction in online brand communities. Moreover, informational and emotional support from firms and other customers exert different effects on customer satisfaction.