When does salespeople’s customer orientation lead to customer loyalty? The differential effects of relational and functional customer orientation

Is a customer orientation universally effective for salespeople? Or does its effectiveness depend on the selling situation? While previous research has largely neglected this question, this study investigates contextual influences on the link between customer-oriented behaviors and customer loyalty. To do so, it takes a role theory perspective on salesperson customer orientation by distinguishing functional customer orientation and relational customer orientation. It then investigates which type of customer orientation is more effective with regard to establishing and maintaining customer loyalty, given the specific situation. Here, the authors analyze the moderating impact of a customer’s communication style (task orientation and interaction orientation) and specific characteristics of a supplier’s products (product individuality, importance, complexity, and brand strength). Multilevel analysis of triadic data from a cross-industry survey of 56 sales managers, 195 sales representatives, and 538 customers provides empirical support for positive, non significant, and even adverse effects of salespeople’s customer-oriented behaviors on customer loyalty, depending on contextual variables.     

Cause marketing and customer profitability

This research marks the first attempt to investigate the cause marketing–customer profitability relationship, and to assess whether features can moderate the influence of cause marketing (CM) on customer profitability for a focal brand and its main rival. We obtain a panel dataset on 7257 customers to evaluate the Yoplait–Susan G. Komen partnership. On a propensity score matched sample, we estimate a multilevel model and find that Yoplait’s CM initiative positively influences Yoplait’s customer profitability (2.70%), along with a deleterious effect on Dannon’s customer profitability (?13.31%). These findings are theoretically meaningful and pragmatically useful as they: (1) provide behavioral evidence of CM’s profit impact, (2) establish CM as an “offensive” strategy that cultivates the rival’s customers, (3) suggest features can amplify the effect of CM on the focal brand’s customer profitability, and (4) support that managers can add CM to their strategic marketing arsenal as an instrument to strengthen brand equity.     

Intelligence generation and superior customer value

It has become conventional wisdom that an organization's ability to continuously generate intelligence about customers' expressed and latent needs, and about how to satisfy those needs, is essential for it to continuously create superior customer value. However, intelligence generation typically has been treated as a generic firm activity. The authors propose that there are four distinct modes of intelligence generation, each of which is part of a welldeveloped intelligence-generation capability. The article reports the results of an exploratory study that supports this proposition. Stanley F. Slater is the vice chancellor for academic affairs and a professor of business administration at the University of Washington, Bothell. His research interests lie primarily in the areas of market-based organizational learning and market strategy implementation. He has published more than 30 articles in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theStrategic Management Journal, and theJournal of Management, among others. He has won “Best Paper” awards from the International Marketing Review and from the Marketing Science Institute. He currently serves on five editorial review boards including those of theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. John C. Narver is a professor of marketing in the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Washington, Seattle. His general research interests lie in the area of strategic marketing. His current research is primarily concerned with the creation and effects of a market orientation in an organization. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theAcademy of Management Journal, and theJournal of Market-Focused, Management, among other scholarly journals. He has won the “Best Paper” award from the Marketing Science Institute.     

A customer perspective on product eliminations: how the removal of products affects customers and business relationships

Regardless of the apparent need for product eliminations, many managers hesitate to act as they fear deleterious effects on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Other managers do carry out product eliminations, but often fail to consider the consequences for customers and business relationships. Given the relevance and problems of product eliminations, research on this topic in general and on the consequences for customers and business relationships in particular is surprisingly scarce. Therefore, this empirical study explores how and to what extent the elimination of a product negatively affects customers and business relationships. Results indicate that eliminating a product may result in severe economic and psychological costs to customers, thereby seriously decreasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. This paper also shows that these costs are not exogenous in nature. Instead, depending on the characteristics of the eliminated product these costs are found to be more or less strongly driven by a company’s behavior when implementing the elimination at the customer interface.     

Customer value impact of sales contests

Although firms spend more than $26 billion annually on sales contests, no empirical research has investigated the effects of contests on individual customers. While some short-term firm effects of contests have been documented, the impact on long-term customer value has remained a matter of speculation. This research investigates the long-term customer impact of sales contests, by applying the customer value framework. We add to previous research that has used customer value of marketing programs by employing the acquired, retained, and add-on framework to segment customers based on their purchase history. We develop hypotheses drawing on theories in the buyer behavior, customer loyalty, and sales management domains. By disaggregating the overall customer value into initial and subsequent components, we demonstrate a greater long-term value per customer in the retained customer cohort and lower short-term and long-term value per customer among the two other cohorts (acquired and add-on customers). There is no adverse impact on other drivers of customer value such as customer churn and purchase frequency. While our study focuses on individual customer effects, we note the significantly higher volume of customers during the contest leads to a positive aggregate-level assessment. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for managers and researchers.     

An attitude-behavior model of salespeople’s customer orientation

The goal of this article is to provide deeper insights into the construct of customer orientation at the individual level. The article has three main objectives: First, this study provides a two-dimensional conceptualization of customer orientation that distinguishes between attitudes and behaviors. Second, it explores direct and indirect effects of customer-oriented attitudes on customer satisfaction. Third, the authors propose and examine a positive moderating effect of empathy, reliability, and expertise on the link between customer-oriented attitude and customer-oriented behavior and a negative moderating effect of salespeople’s restriction in job autonomy. The analysis is based on dyadic data that involve judgments provided by salespeople and their customers across multiple manufacturing and services industries in a business-to-business context. Results support the authors’ two-dimensional conceptualization of customer orientation. The authors also find that customer-oriented attitudes have a direct effect on customer satisfaction. The four proposed moderating effects are also in evidence. Ruth Maria Stock (ruth.stock@gmx.net) is a professor of business administration and management at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany. She holds a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Hagen, Germany, a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Mannheim, Germany, and a ha-bilitation degree from the University der Bundeswehr in Hamburg, Germany. She has published in various forums including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Psychology & Marketing, and theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing. Her main research areas include market-oriented management and business-to-business marketing. Wayne D. Hoyer (wayne.hoyer@mccombs.utexas.edu) is the James L. Bayless/William S. Farish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise, the chair of the Department of Marketing, and the director of the Center for Customer Insight in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.A. from Purdue University in the area of consumer psychology. He has published more than 60 articles in various forums including theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Advertising Research, and theJournal of Retailing. His research interests include customer insight and relationship management, consumer information processing and decision making (especially low-involvement decision making), and advertising effects (most particularly, miscomprehension and the impact of humor).     

The link between salespeople’s job satisfaction and customer satisfaction in a business-to-business context: A dyadic analysis

Although it has frequently been argued that the job satisfaction of a company’s employees is an important driver of customer satisfaction, systematic research exploring this link is scarce. The present study investigates this relationship for salespeople in a business-to-business context. The theoretical justification for a positive impact of salespeople’s job satisfaction on customer satisfaction is based on the concept of emotional contagion. The analysis is based on a dyadic data set that involves judgments provided by salespeople and their customers collected across multiple manufacturing and services industries. Results indicate the presence of a positive relationship between salespeople’s job satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the relationship between salespeople’s job satisfaction and customer satisfaction is found to be particularly strong in the case of high frequency of customer interaction, high intensity of customer integration into the value-creating process, and high product/service innovativeness.     

B2B relationship calculus: quantifying resource effects in service-dominant logic

Increasingly, knowledgeable business-to-business (B2B) customers and evolving customer needs are leading to seismic shifts in vendor–client interactions. Across industries, sellers are changing their business models from a simple goods orientation to a hybrid goods–services model, placing greater emphasis on delivering complete customer solutions. In such an environment, companies must find ways to prioritize investments in resource development. The service-dominant (S-D) logic framework offers significant insights into this challenge; however, these effects have not been tested quantitatively. This study addresses that gap, examining the influence of various seller resources on buyer satisfaction. An empirical analysis of buying organizations that purchased and implemented business intelligence systems finds that “augmented” operant resources that the buyers ascribe to the software’s sellers—resources that go above and beyond expectations—are the most significant predictors of both successful technology assimilation and overall customer relationship quality. In particular, an augmented operant resource reflecting a seller’s ability to see value creation opportunities from the buyer’s perspective (value mindset) has up to three times the effect on relationship satisfaction as “core” operant resources such as product-specific expertise or basic interpersonal service skills. These results can help sellers prioritize resource investments.     

The chain from customer satisfaction via word-of-mouth referrals to new customer acquisition

It has often been argued that word-of-mouth (WOM) can contribute significantly to a firm’s success in a variety of ways. Here, we analyze the functional linkage between customer satisfaction, WOM, and new customer acquisition. Using data from two empirical studies we conceptualize and test the direct, non-linear, and moderated relationship between satisfaction and WOM. We further explore the circumstances under which WOM leads to new customer acquisition using a logistic regression model. We do so for two groups (new customers and long-term customers) from the customer base of a large energy provider (n = 688), and for a random sample of B2B customers (n = 416) in the same market. Results indicate that the satisfaction-WOM link is non-linear and is moderated by several customer involvement dimensions. Based on our results, we demonstrate how the satisfaction-WOM-new customer acquisition link can enrich return on quality and satisfaction models. Further, we draw conclusions about how companies can make use of both the satisfaction-WOM and the WOM-new customer acquisition link for better allocating their marketing resources.

顾客让渡价值与旅游景区经营管理系统建设

顾客让渡价值理论是一个全新的营销理论,它要求企业着眼于顾客的附加价值,通过各种措施,增加顾客的总价值和降低顾客总成本,以求实现顾客让渡价值最大化.从顾客让渡价值理论角度看,旅游景区经营管理需要以游客为中心,狠抓顾客让渡价值系统建设,提升景区品牌的识别性和竞争力.     

Customer response capability in a sense-and-respond era: The role of customer knowledge process

An organization’s customer response capability, its comptence in satisfying customer needs through effective and quick responses, is critical for sustained success. In this article, the authors examine how customer knowledge process influences customer response capability. They highlight two dimensions of customer response capability, customer response expertise and customer response speed. It is observed that apart from its direct positive association with customer response expertise and speed, the customer knowledge process also diminishes the positive association between risk propensity and these dimensions of customer response capability. The influence of customer response expertise and speed on performance is also examined. The hypotheses are tested using survey data collected from a sample of retailing firms and the findings triangulated using qualitative data collected through depth interviews with managers. The results highlight the importance of customer knowledge in enhancing customer response capability. Satish Jayachandran is with the Department of Marketing at the University of South Carolina. His research interests are in the area of marketing strategy, specifically market responsiveness of firms and the impact of organizational performance on subsequent managerial and firm behavior. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He was a recipient of the Harold H. Maynard award for 2001 from theJournal of Marketing. Kelly Hewett is with the Department of Marketing at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers, as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Marketing, among others. Peter Kaufman is with the Department of Marketing at Illinois State University. His research focuses on buyer-seller relationships, retailing, and distribution issues. He received an Honorable Mention in the Marketing Science Institute’s 2003 Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition.     

Beyond market orientation: When customers and suppliers disagree

The essence of market orientation is the successful management of a relationship between suppliers and customers. During the past 15 years, a body of scholarship on antecedents and consequences of market orientation has emerged. But what is the appropriate level of market orientation, and what happens when customers and suppliers disagree about the appropriate level of a supplier's market orientation? To what extent does such disagreement concerning market orientation affect the customer-supplier relationship? Do answers to these questions vary by country? The authors examine these issues using data from a survey of leading Japanese and U.S. business firms and their key customers that employed a unique matched supplier-customer sampling methodology. The authors report several interesting results.     

The effect of relational constructs on customer referrals and number of services purchased from a multiservice provider: Does age of relationship matter?

The authors examine the effect of relational constructs (e.g., satisfaction, trust, and affective and calculative commitment) on customer referrals and the number of services purchased, as well as the moderating effect of age of the relationship on these relationships. The research reported, based on data obtained from a large sample of customers of an insurance company, combines archival and survey data. The results provide evidence that supports the moderating effect of relationship age on the relationship between satisfaction, affective and calculative commitment, and the number of services purchased. Peter C. Verhoef is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Department of Marketing and Organization in the School of Economics at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is also a member of the Erasmus Research Institute in Management (ERIM). In 2001, he received his Ph.D. in marketing from Erasmus University. In his dissertation, he investigated how companies can affect the lifetime value of customers. His research interests include customer relationship management, waiting times, and private labels. His work has been or will be published in theJournal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Decision Support Systems, and various other journals. Philip Hans Franses is a professor of applied econometrics at the Econometric Institute and a professor of marketing research in the Department of Marketing and Organization, both at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. His research interests include applied econometrics, marketing, empirical finance, political science, and environmetrics. He publishes on these topics in various journals. Janny C. Hoekstra is a professor in direct marketing at the University of Groningen. Her research interests include the development of the marketing concept, market orientation, customer lifetime value, direct marketing, and e-commerce. She has published papers in theJournal of Retailing, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Direct Marketing, andJournal of Market-Focused Management, among others.     

构建客户忠诚度模型 提升企业竞争力

通过提高客户满意度和扩大忠诚客户群为目标，以客户研究为基础，最终帮助企业实现销售和利润持续增长。在客户忠诚度研究模型基础上，结合实际采样数据，并通过忠诚度指标因子定量分析各变量对客户忠诚度的影响，为企业有效提升客户满意度提供新的途径，为寻找增强企业竞争力的有效途径提供理论支持。     

Developing customer orientation among service employees

A conceptual framework is proposed that considers the customer orientation of service employees and its relationship with their perceived level of organizational socialization and perceptions of the organizational climate for service, motivational effort and direction, and organizational commitment. Structural equation modeling techniques are applied to data collected from employees in the financial services industry to test the framework. The results of this study indicate higher levels of customer orientation result from favorable perceptions of the organizational climate for service and higher levels of motivational direction and organizational commitment. In addition, organizational socialization was found to have a positive impact on perceptions of climate, levels of motivation, and organizational commitment.     

Implications of loyalty program membership and service experiences for customer retention and value

Companies that offer loyalty reward programs believe that their programs have a long-run positive effect on customer evaluations and behavior. However, if loyalty rewards programs increase relationship durations and usage levels, customers will be increasingly exposed to the complete spectrum of service experiences, including experiences that may cause customers to switch to another service provider. Using cross-sectional, time-series data from a worldwide financial services company that offers a loyalty reward program, this article investigates the conditions under which a loyalty rewards program will have a positive effect on customer evaluations, behavior, and repeat purchase intentions. The results show that members in the loyalty reward program overlook or discount negative evaluations of the company vis-à-vis competion. One possible reason could be that members of the loyalty rewards program perceive that they are getting better quality and service for their price or, in other words, “good value.” Ruth N. Bolton is Ruby K. Powell Professor of Marketing in the Michael F. Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. Her current research is concerned with high-technology services sold to business-to-business customers. Her most recent work in this area studies how organizations can grow the value of their customer base through customer service and support. She previously held positions at the University of Maryland, GTE Laboratories Incorporated, the University of Alberta, Carnegie-Mellon University, and the University of British Columbia. Her business experience involves a variety of consulting projects addressing services marketing, customer satisfaction, and quality management issues in the telecommunications and information services industries. Her earlier published research investigates how organizations' customer service and pricing strategies influence customer satisfaction and loyalty. She received her B.Comm. with honors from Queen's University at Kingston and her M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University. She currently serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Marketing Letters, theJournal of Marketing Research, and theJournal of Service Research. She has published articles in these and other journals. P. K. Kannan is Safeway Fellow and Associate Professor of Marketing in the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University. His research and teaching interests are in electronic commerce, and marketing research and modeling. His research on competitive market structures, consumers' loyalty, variety seeking, and reinforcement behaviors, and the effects of promotions on competition have appeared inMarketing Science, Management Science, Journal of Business Research, andInternational Journal of Research in Marketing. His current interests center on the marketing of information products such as market research, software, and data products using electronic channels such as the Internet covering issues of strategy, pricing, and product reliability. Articles focusing on these issues have appeared or are forthcoming inCommunications of the ACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, and theHandbook of Electronic Commerce. He is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Institute of Management Science, and the American Statistical Association. He has corporate experience with Tata Engineering and Ingersoll-Rand and has consulted for companies such as Frito-Lay, Pepsi Co, SAIC, and Fannie Mae. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, he was on the faculty of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Matthew D. Bramlett is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and a faculty research assistant in the Department of Marketing at the University of Maryland, College Park. His dissertation is an event history analysis of the effects of children on the stability of marriages and cohabitations. His current research focuses on high-technology services sold to business-to-business customers. His other research interests include the commodification of sports and the exploitation of the consumer in professional sports, and the fertility effects of family planning programs in developing countries over time. He is a member of the Population Association of America and a member of the Family, Sociology of Population, and Race, Gender, and Class sections of the American Sociological Association. His work on the exploitation of the consumer in the National Football League will be published as a chapter in the forthcoming bookConsumers, Commodification and Media Culture: Perspectives on the New Forms of Consumption, edited by Mark Gottdiener, University of New York at Buffalo.     

Customer mind-set of employees throughout the organization

Previous research has provided strong evidence for the benefits of embracing a market orientation, an organizational focus highlighting the needs of customers, and the creation of customer value. This study extends this focus on the customer to the individual worker level. A construct, customer mind-set (CMS), is developed that reflects the extent to which an individual employee believes that understanding and satisfying customers, whether internal or external to the organization, is central to the proper execution of his or her job. In this exploratory study, the authors develop a parsimonious scale for measuring CMS. Relationships between CMS and significant organizational variables are examined to establish CMS's validity and provide some tentative insights into its value to researchers and practitioners. The authors believe the CMS construct will allow for operational-level analysis of the extent to which a customer orientation is embraced throughout an organization, permitting managers to implement targeted improvement strategies. Karen Norman Kennedy is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include customer orientation and cultural change in organizations, as well as the evolving role of customers and employees in today's marketplace. Her work has been published in theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theJournal of Services Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Marketing Education. Felicia G. Lassk is an assistant professor in the Marketing Group of Northeastern University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include customer orientation, salesperson job involvement, and measurement issues. Her articles have appeared in the theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Marketing Education, among others. Jerry R. Goolsby is the Hilton/Baldridge Eminent Chair of Music Industry Studies at Loyola University New Orleans. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. His research interests include issues related to market orientation and its implementation, customer and employee relationships, and sales interactions. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and other marketing journals.     

The theoretical underpinnings of customer asset management: A framework and propositions for future research

Most research in customer asset management has focused on specific aspects of the value of the customer to the company. The purpose of this article is to propose an integrated framework, called CUSAMS (customer asset management of services), that enables service organizations (1) to make a comprehensive assessment of the value of their customer assets and (2) to understand the influence of marketing instruments on them. The foundation of the CUSAMS framework is a careful specification of key customer behaviors that reflect the length, depth, and breadth of the customer-service organization relationship: duration, usage, and cross-buying. This framework is the starting point for a set of propositions regarding how marketing instruments influence customer behavior within the relationship, thereby influencing the value of the customer asset. The framework and propositions provide the impetus for a research agenda that identifies critical issues in customer asset management. Ruth N. Bolton (ruth.bolton@owen.vanderbilt.edu) is a professor of marketing in the Owen Graduate School of Business at Vanderbilt University. Her current research is concerned with high-technology services sold to business-to-business customers. Her most recent work in this area studies how organizations can grow the value of their customer base through customer service and support. Her earlier published research investigates how organizations’ service and pricing strategies influence customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as company revenues and profits. She has published articles in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Service Research, Marketing Letters, Marketing Science, and other journals. Katherine N. Lemon (katherine.lemon@bc.edu) is an associate professor in the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Her current research investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer-firm relationships. In addition, her research examines relevant metrics for measuring and managing the value of customer relationships. Her earlier published research investigates how emotional reactions (such as anticipated regret) inflence customer retention decisions. She has published articles in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Service Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, and other journals. Peter C. Verhoef (verhoef@few.eur.nl) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His main research interest is customer asset management. He has also done research on other topics, such as waiting times, private labels, and out-of-stocks. He has been a visiting professor at the Tuck School of Business Dartmouth College in fall 2003. He has published a wide variety of articles in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Consumer Psychology.     

Understanding the co-creation effect: when does collaborating with customers provide a lift to service recovery?

Because co-creation allows customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience, it can affect customer satisfaction with recovery efforts, as well as offer a more cost-effective alternative to compensation. This article identifies specific situations in which co-creation is and is not useful. Study 1 tests the impact of co-creation in comparison with compensation for enhancing satisfaction with the recovery process and demonstrates that co-creation offers a cost-efficient strategy for companies when customers must deal with severe delays. Study 2 extends these results by showing that the impact extends to repurchase intentions. Study 3 details conditions in which co-creation harms evaluations. Finally, Study 4 explores whether it is necessary for the company to meet the customer??s requests when co-creating a recovery, as well as what happens when the company exceeds a customer??s requests. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and research directions that emerge from the studies.     

Do institutional investors pay attention to customer satisfaction and why?

Extant marketing, accounting, and finance research has neglected to examine the relevance of customer satisfaction information for institutional investors, despite their potential importance. This study develops and supports a framework suggesting that firms with positive changes in customer satisfaction are more attractive to transient institutional investors than to non-transient institutional investors. We also find that the impact of customer satisfaction on transient institutional investor holdings is contingent upon firm intangible asset intensity, product-market demand uncertainty, and financial market volatility. In addition, transient institutional investor holdings at least partially mediate the effects of changes in customer satisfaction on firm abnormal return and idiosyncratic risk. Thus, transient institutional investor investments represent a mechanism through which customer satisfaction affects firm value.