Atmospherics,Pleasure And Arousal: The Influence Of Response Moderators

The pressure to develop cost-effective retail design solutions has heightened the need to understand better the atmospherics-behaviour relationship. Drawing upon a review of salient literature, this paper develops a conceptual model highlighting the influence of response moderators, including expectations, familiarity with the environment and shopping motives. Using LISREL, the model is calibrated and tested through a survey of 1,000 shoppers within one of Europe's largest, city centre shopping malls. Consumers with strong shopping motives are found to experience more pleasure and arousal; expectations also moderate the atmospherics-mood states relationship. The shortcomings of measurement scales, developed in previous studies with student samples, when applied to real shoppers are also noted.     

顾客参与服务创新、顾客人力资本与知识转移的关系研究

在后现代社会,服务经济在促进经济发展和就业方面越来越重要.随着服务行业竞争的日益加剧,服务企业需要不断进行新服务开发,从而获得竞争优势.顾客参与新服务开发过程,有利于促进知识的转移.顾客作为知识转移的发送方,其转移知识能力和意愿具有积极的影响,顾客的转移能力和意愿可以视为顾客人力资本.文章在文献回顾和综述的基础上,研究了顾客参与服务创新行为和知识转移的关系,并构建一个基于顾客人力资本中介机制的理论模型,试图进一步揭示顾客参与和知识转移之间关系的内在机制.最后探讨了本文的不足和未来的研究方向,为下一步实证研究提供了理论基础.     

Commitment,Trust, and Social Involvement: An Exploratory Study of Antecedents to Web Shopper Loyalty

Winning customer loyalty is viewed as a priority by many electronic (e) businesses. Grounded in the theory of reasoned action, our proposed model suggests that commitment is a key attitudinal antecedent to Web shopper loyalty. In the model, we introduce trust in the Internet and social involvement in a Web consumption community as moderators of the commitment-loyalty relation. The model was tested using data from a survey of Web users. Preliminary results provide general support for commitment as a determinant of loyalty and social involvement magnifying the strength of that relation. Trust in the Internet did not attenuate the commitment-loyalty relation. We offer implications and directions for future research.     

How Customer Requests Influence Frontline Employee Job Outcomes: The Role of Personal Appraisal Tendencies and Situational Customer Demandingness

This study investigates how customer requests, a common phenomenon, influence frontline employee (FLE) job outcomes. We propose and demonstrate that (1) FLEs possess tendencies to appraise customer requests in both positive (i.e., challenge appraisal tendency) and negative (i.e., hindrance appraisal tendency) ways, (2) higher levels of challenge appraisal tendency result in higher levels of FLE performance and lower levels of turnover (mediated through job engagement), (3) higher levels of hindrance appraisal tendency lead to increased FLE turnover (mediated through job stress), (4) the effects of FLE appraisal tendencies on situational engagement and stress are magnified when a specific customer request is deemed to be more (rather than less) demanding, and (5) customer request appraisal tendencies are shaped by the interaction between FLEs’ level of prosocial motivation and intrinsic motivation. These results are very encouraging for managers as they imply that FLE responses to customer requests are not determined by the nature of the requests themselves (which is beyond their control) but, rather, they are a function of how FLEs construe customer requests, a process that can be influenced through organizational human resource practices.     

Web Site spill over to email campaigns: The role of privacy,trust and shoppers' attitudes

Email campaign effectiveness is a real challenge for the web industry. According to the literature, privacy concerns, trust and attitude toward a company web site influence consumers' intentions to return to a web site (Chelappa and Pavlou, 2002; Belanger et al., 2002; Eastlick et al., 2006). The objective of this paper is to investigate whether those variables spill over to the email campaign response process. The research framework is an opt-in marketing campaign, with email planned as a loyalty-generating tool and based on a quantitative survey on 330 shoppers of a web retailer. The study results indicated a positive effect of intention to return to the web site on attitudes toward the email campaign; however, consumers' attitude toward a web site had no influence on attitude toward the email campaign in this study. Finally, attitude toward the email campaign had a positive influence on the response process.     

Inferring Market Structure from Customer Response to Competing and Complementary Products

We consider customer influences on market structure, arguing that market structure should explain the extent to which any given set of market offerings are substitutes or complements. We describe recent additions to the market structure analysis literature and identify promising directions for new research in market structure analysis. Impressive advances in data collection, statistical methodology and information technology provide unique opportunities for researchers to build market structure tools that can assist real-time marketing decision-making.     

A Web of Watchdogs: Stakeholder Media Networks and Agenda-Setting in Response to Corporate Initiatives

This article seeks to model the agenda-setting strategies of stakeholders equipped with online and other media in three cases involving protests against multinational corporations (MNCs). Our theoretical objective is to widen agenda-setting theory to a dynamic and nonlinear networked stakeholder context, in which stakeholder-controlled media assume part of the role previously ascribed to mainstream media (MSM). We suggest system dynamics (SD) methodology as a tool to analyse complex stakeholder interactions and the effects of their agendas on other stakeholders. We find that largely similar dynamics of interactions occur among stakeholders in these cases, and that the costs for managements of maintaining their agendas steadily rises. We conclude that the “web of watchdogs” comprises a powerful reason for managers to engage in responsibility negotiations with their stakeholders.     

Receiving,Recording, and Responding to Customer Complaints: The Effects of Formalizing Customer Complaint Handling Policies in Retail Firms

ABSTRACT

Given the critical need for retail firms to provide high quality customer service and satisfaction, this article investigates the importance of formalizing customer complaint handling policies and procedures with regard to its relationship to the ways in which retail companies receive, record, and respond to customer complaints. A survey of 184 firms from the retail environment of a midsized community reveals that the existence of such formalized procedures is significantly associated with firm size, better channels of communication with customers, mechanisms of recording customer feedback, and better-trained employees, which have been shown to relate to higher firm performance.     

The Personal Involvement Inventory: Reduction,Revision, and Application to Advertising

Abstract

The conceptualization of the Personal Involvement Inventory was a context-free measure applicable to involvement with products, with advertisements, and with purchase situations. The empirical work to develop this measure was mainly validated with respect to product categories. This paper extends the construct validation of the PII to involvement with advertisements and also demonstrates that the PII may be reliably reduced from twenty items to ten items. There is some indication the revised PII may then be broken into two subscales representing a cognitive and affective grouping.     

顾客参与、吸收能力与新服务开发成效的关系研究——动态环境的调节作用

顾客参与对企业新服务开发具有显著的正向作用,既会直接影响新服务开发的速度和品质,还会通过吸收能力间接促进新服务开发的成效,但在需求不确定性持续增加和竞争强度日益激烈的动态环境下,顾客参与对新服务开发的影响程度有所不同：市场需求旺盛时,竞争强度会强化顾客参与对新服务开发成效的正向作用,需求不确定性的调节作用不显著;市场需求疲软时,需求不确定性会强化顾客参与对新服务开发成效的正向作用,竞争强度的调节作用不显著。上述研究结论启示企业管理者,积极吸引顾客参与新服务开发,并提升自身吸收能力,发挥吸收能力的中介作用。此外,当市场需求旺盛时,企业应更关注竞争对手,通过差异化竞争;当市场需求疲软时,企业应更专注于顾客需求的变化,从而提升新服务开发的成效。     

Customer perceived value,satisfaction, and loyalty: the role of willingness to share information

This study proposes and tests an integrative model to examine the relationships among customers’ willingness to share information, satisfaction, perceived value, and loyalty in a retailing context. This study extends research on customers’ willingness to share information from trust and privacy concerns toward key outcome measures such as perceived value, customer satisfaction, and loyalty, and is thus among the first to model customers’ willingness to share information with companies in robust theoretical retailing frameworks. The proposed relationships were tested using data from two retailing contexts – groceries (N = 429) and do-it-yourself (DIY) (N = 895). Findings from the two samples suggest that both perceived value and satisfaction are significant determinants of customers’ willingness to share information with a company. Although some differences emerge in the two studies, structural modeling largely supports the hypothesized framework and positions customers’ willingness to share information as an important antecedent of their loyalty intentions and behavior. This study provides practitioners with preliminary insight into the relationship between willingness to share information and perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. This study advances retailing research, as it is one of the few empirical studies investigating the role of customers’ willingness to share information in driving loyalty and its relationship with perceived value and satisfaction in a retailing context.     

Attribute Perceptions,Customer Satisfaction and Intention to Recommend E-Services

Academic research has focused on the quality perceptions that drive customer satisfaction as the key to achieving e-service success. This paper develops a process-based model that relates perceptions of managerially actionable site characteristics to online satisfaction, which mediates the effects of site characteristics on intention to recommend e-services. A unique data set provided by Web Mystery Shoppers International Inc. (webmysteryshoppers.com), a market research supplier, enables the model to be refined using data from samples of responses to each of the competitive websites for one financial service, and then to be tested using similar data for another financial e-service and then for a travel e-service. The model, which accounts for most of the variance in online satisfaction and online intention to recommend in the fitted data, is largely confirmed on cross validation. Process evaluations and satisfaction mediate the effects of actionable website characteristics on intention to recommend e-services.     

Customer Rage Episodes: Emotions, Expressions and Behaviors

In this research, we examine customer rage-associated emotions, expressions, and behaviors following service failure. Three independent studies involving 656 respondents and multiple methods are employed to investigate customer rage. Scales for each form of rage emotion, expression, and behavior were developed and used to assess their interrelationships. Results suggest that different forms of customer rage emotions tend to be linked to different types of expressions and behaviors. For example, both Rancorous Rage and Retaliatory Rage emotions tend to increase Verbal expressions (such as raising one's voice, yelling, and making insulting remarks). In contrast, Retaliatory Rage emotion increases Physical expressions (tried to physically harm a service employee, tried to cause damage to property, and threatened to damage property) and Displaced expressions (took anger out on other people nearby, yelled at other people, and took their anger out on other people later on) whereas Rancorous Rage emotion decreases Physical and Displaced expressions. Interestingly, Verbal expressions are linked to passive-aggressive behaviors, such as switching service providers and spreading negative word of mouth while Physical expressions are linked to relatively aggressive behavior, such as a desire for revenge. Implications for scholarly research and retailers are discussed.     

顾客体验:理论渊源、演变及其梳理

随着体验经济时代的来临,顾客体验受到了理论界和企业界的重视,相关的研究也较多,但是比较零散。通过对相关文献收集、回顾、梳理,对国内外学者有关顾客体验概念、维度和应用研究进行了比较分析。结合我国国情,指出顾客体验研究的未来方向:一是基于我国消费者新特征的顾客体验研究,二是顾客体验的测量研究;三是以顾客体验作为企业品牌资产提升和竞争力提高的切入点的应用研究。     

Dynamics of Customer Response to Promotional and Relational Direct Mailings from an Apparel Retailer: The Moderating Role of Relationship Strength

Although direct mails have traditionally been used to sell a product or service, they can also be effective in enhancing retailer-customer relationships. This study examines how customers respond to ‘promotional’ (‘call to action’) and ‘relational’ (‘retailer-image enhancement’) direct mailings. The study develops a model that includes: (i) the dynamic effects of both types of direct mailings over time; and (ii) the moderating role of strength of the relationship that a customer enjoys with the retailer. Past purchase behavior is also considered. The model is then used in a study of customers of a Belgian apparel retailer. The results show that relational mailings positively affect customer response, irrespective of when they are sent. In contrast, the effects of promotional mailings are less clear-cut: although they work well in the short term, their effects can vary in the longer term. In addition, the study finds that a direct-mailing strategy should be planned in accordance with the strength of the relationship between the retailer and the target customers. The results of the study provide valuable insights for retailers in optimizing the effectiveness of their direct-mail initiatives.     

Web site customer orientations, Web site quality, and purchase intentions: The role of Web site personality

This research extends the concept of salesperson customer orientation to Internet marketing by conceptualizing and studying the effects of Web site customer orientation on perceived Web site quality and consumer behavior. This research also adapts the concept of brand/store personality to Internet marketing by investigating the effects of Web site personality on perceived Web site quality and consumer purchase intention. The model is tested on apparel Web sites using data from multiple sources. Implications of managing Web site personality and Web site customer orientation are discussed.     

The Launching of Transactional Web Sites: Market Response to Announcements by Incumbent B2C Companies

Stock market responses to announcements of transactional Web site launches by business-to-consumer retail outlets are examined. In general, announcements by retail firms yielded positive average abnormal returns (AAR). More specifically, announcements by catalog firms yielded higher AAR than announcements by physical (brick-and-mortar) retail firms. Announcement of portal tenancy also leads to higher AAR for the subsample of firms making such announcements. Responses to announcements of plans to launch transactional Web sites are also explored. The implications of the results for multiple theoretical perspectives are discussed.     

Customer Experience Creation: Determinants, Dynamics and Management Strategies

Retailers, such as Starbucks and Victoria's Secret, aim to provide customers a great experience across channels. In this paper we provide an overview of the existing literature on customer experience and expand on it to examine the creation of a customer experience from a holistic perspective. We propose a conceptual model, in which we discuss the determinants of customer experience. We explicitly take a dynamic view, in which we argue that prior customer experiences will influence future customer experiences. We discuss the importance of the social environment, self-service technologies and the store brand. Customer experience management is also approached from a strategic perspective by focusing on issues such as how and to what extent an experience-based business can create growth. In each of these areas, we identify and discuss important issues worthy of further research.     

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.