Superior Service Quality in Indian Cellular Telecommunication Industry

Abstract

This study deals with the measurement of service quality at cellular retail outlets in the Indian environment with a focus on perception and expectation of service quality from the customer's perspective. The research was conducted via a structured questionnaire based on the SERVQUAL model. A literature review was conducted on service quality and its potential offering competitive advantage. This study provides evidence supporting the proposition that customers distinguish between the performance cues of the customer-contact employees. Service delivery systems should create positive moments of truth by ensuring that the point of customer's contact is reduced to minimum.     

An Investigation of Trust,Satisfaction, and Commitment on Repurchase Intentions in Professional Services

Abstract

The predictive ability of trust, satisfaction, and commitment regarding a customer's intent to retain professional service providers is explored. Trust, in business relationships, is typically perceived as a consequent of satisfaction and experience. However, professional service customers may be unable to commence relationships without trusting their providers; thus, the stance that trust leads to commitment may not hold. Given the difficulty that professional service customers have regarding their ability to assess their providers' trustworthiness, customers may take trust for granted once the relationship begins. Regression analyses suggest that professional service customers utilize satisfaction and commitment, rather than trust, to determine repurchase intentions.     

Every step counts: When physical movement affects perceived value

Physical movement is an important contextual factor during customer's decision-making. Yet, little is known about how movement can affect customer's response to mobile promotions, or how it can influence the search and evaluation of products in a retail setting. Across three studies, this research shows that physical movement improves the perceived value of products and promotions for customers with a predominant locomotion motivation. Such effects are mediated by engagement. One implication is that retailers may increase engagement for individuals with a predominant locomotion motivation by playing mobile adverts when cellular sensors indicate movement.     

On Closeness to the Customer in Industrial Markets

ABSTRACT

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of academic and practitioner interest in the way companies interact with their customers. While there has been considerable scientific progress in the understanding of market orientation and buyer-seller relationships, limited attention has been given to the concept of closeness to the customer. Specifically, there has been no valid measure of the construct as a whole. This paper reports the development of a valid 28-item measure (called CLOSCUS) for assessing industrial firms' closeness to the customer. The development of the scale is based on a literature review, field interviews as well as statistical analyses of two independent samples from different sides of the buyer-seller dyad. Results indicate that seven factors underlie the 28 items. These are related to product, service, and process quality (two factors), flexibility in dealing with customers (one factor), and the way of interacting with customers (four factors), respectively. Based on the CLOSCUS scale, closeness to the customer is shown to impact on a customer's commitment, trust, and satisfaction. It is also demonstrated that closeness to the customer is both conceptually and empirically distinct from market orientation which contradicts some marketing researchers' prior statements. The paper concludes with some experiences from applications of the scale in a number of German companies.     

Customer Valuation as a Driver of Relationship Dissolution Sabrina Helm Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet,Germany

Abstract

As all customers are not created equal (Hallberg & Ogilvy, 1995), the different contributions of customers to a supplier's goals have to be evaluated to grant efficient relationship marketing. Furthermore, a handling system has to be developed for unprofitable customer relationships. This is a hitherto neglected field, as marketing researchers and practitioners are generally rather interested in attaining and keeping customers, not in the ending of relationships. The article aims at integrating the concepts of customer equity and profitability with approaches of relationship dissolution, which have recently emerged in the literature. Different aspects of calculating the value of customer relationships and value-based criteria that focus on monetary and non-monetary components of a customer's value are discussed. In an exploratory study undertaken in the German mechanical engineering industry, the relevance of customer valuation to dissolution decisions is analyzed.     

Towards an Improved Understanding of Industrial Services: Quality Dimensions and Their Impact on Buyer-Seller Relationships

ABSTRACT

The rapidly growing field of services marketing has had a strong focus on consumer services. This article deals with industrial services, i.e., services provided by a manufacturing company to organizational customers. The authors suggest a triangular model of industrial service quality involving a distinction between structural, process-related, and outcome-related aspects. These three quality dimensions are shown to have strong impacts on the customer's trust, satisfaction, and commitment. The authors discuss theoretical and managerial implications of their findings.     

Customer Participation Behavior in High- Versus Low-Contact Services: The Multiple Roles of Customer Trust

ABSTRACT

In light of the changing roles of customers from service co-producer to value co-creator, the customer participation literature has conceptualized two types of participation behavior: co-production and value co-creation. However, there is a dearth of knowledge concerning both the antecedents of customer co-creation behavior and the outcomes of such behavior in relation to customer-perceived value and loyalty. Anchored in the trust-commitment theory, the present research (a) examines the effect of how a customer's trust in the service personnel could affect his/her cooperative behavior over the service design and delivery processes; and (b) investigates how the potential impact of a customer's trust in service personnel on his/her co-design and co-delivery behavior could be made contingent upon the customer's trust in the service brand and the types of high- versus low-customer-contact service contexts. Filling the aforementioned research gaps, the present research contributes to advance our knowledge of the roles played by trust at different levels of analysis in facilitating customer participation behavior and improving our appreciation of the customer contact service contexts when designing the service organization for maximizing service value and sustaining brand loyalty over time.     

Scoring More After Service Failures: Why Do Customers Overclaim?

ABSTRACT

More and more customers attempt to claim what they can, rather than what they are offered by the service firm after service failures. The present article empirically investigates the role of situational characteristics in triggering the intention to overclaim through a mediating process of customer's cognitive and emotional responses to the service failure. The model goes beyond predicting the likelihood of overclaiming behavior and offers some insights related to the magnitude or the extent of such claims. The results indicate that cognitive and affective drivers of overclaiming behavior have different impacts on the magnitude or the extent of such claims.     

Understanding online product ratings: A customer satisfaction model

Online product ratings have become a major information source for customers, retailers, and manufacturers. Both practitioners and researchers predominantly interpret them as a reflection of product quality. We argue that they in fact represent the customer's satisfaction with the product. Accordingly, we present a customer satisfaction model of online product ratings which incorporates the customer's pre-purchase expectations and actual product performance as determinants of ratings. We validate our model by applying it to two datasets collected at the German website of Amazon.com. The results indicate that both factors have a significant influence on online product ratings, supporting the proposed interpretation of ratings.     

First-Store Loyalty and Retention

Stores prosper when customers give them a high share of their spending (share loyalty) and retain them over long periods (retention). We investigate share loyalty by measuring the percentage of the customer's spending in their first store. Retention is measured as first-store retention over a period of 21 months. We study the association between these two forms of loyalty both directly and, by examining their correlates, indirectly.

We find that first-store loyalty and retention are positively related but have only two correlates, brand loyalty and attitude to the store, in common. Several factors are correlated with only one form of loyalty. Store retention is particularly related to the accessibility of the store; approximately half of the reasons given for defection are related to store access. Specific age-income segments may have high first-store loyalty but low retention and practitioners can use this evidence in their choice of target segments.

Store loyalty is explained as the outcome of several customer processes: as a 'time-saver' effect – a rational allocation of effort given available time and money, control by the environment, attitude to the store and a propensity for routine. The first was not well supported; there was evidence in favour of the last three.     

On the Go: How Mobile Shopping Affects Customer Purchase Behavior

Mobile shopping (M-shopping) has become increasingly important in marketing and retailing. Using a unique dataset from an Internet-based grocery retailer, we evaluate changes in customers’ spending behavior upon adopting M-shopping, i.e., using smartphones or tablets to compose, modify, or place orders online. We find that order rate, i.e., number of orders placed per year, increases as customers adopt M-shopping. Especially for low-spending customers, both their order rate and order size, i.e., the amount of the order in dollars, increase as they become accustomed to M-shopping. In addition to the effect on customer's spending behavior, we also find that M-shoppers tend to use mobile devices to shop for habitual products that they already have a history of purchasing. We propose that customers utilize mobile devices because the technology provides convenient access, which leads them to incorporate M-shopping into their habitual routines. Managerially, we recommend that firms should fully leverage their mobile platforms, but they should also keep in mind that mobile devices may not be the most optimal channel for launching new products or promoting products that require more consideration during the buying process.     

Explaining Market Heterogeneity in Terms of Value Perceptions

In the past decade, companies and academics have become aware of the great benefits of creating value for customers. However, little empirical research has yet been conducted in the area of services with respect to how customers may differ in their perceptions of value and what variables can explain such differences. This article provides an insight into how three relationship-based contingencies are likely to explain market heterogeneity in customers' perceptions of value. In particular, we explore how special treatment of the customer by the service provider, the level of customer involvement with the service, and the customer's accumulated experience with a particular company may act as predictors of market heterogeneity in the customer's perceptions of value within a service setting. Results offer evidence for the important role of relationships and experience in a service context mainly characterised by standard encounters, and provide interesting managerial insights to tailor strategies that effectively respond to market heterogeneity.     

Value and Satisfaction Evaluations During a Service Relationship

Abstract

The research used a sample of credit union customers to determine (a) the relative importance of core and peripheral service attributes on customer evaluations of service value and customer satisfaction, and (b) how the relative importance of these criteria change over the life of the service relationship. For the overall sample, peripheral service attributes accounted for over three-fourths of the variance for service value and customer satisfaction. Dividing the sample into three sub-samples based on age of the customer's relationship with the credit union, peripheral service attributes drove evaluations of service value and customer satisfaction for the first stage of the relationship (ten years or less) and the middle stage of the relationship (eleven to nineteen years). Once the relationship aged to twenty or more years, core attributes drove evaluations of service value and customer satisfaction. Findings indicate that relationship strategies for the credit union may need to be customized based on the amount of time customers have had a relationship with a service firm.     

A detailed behavioral analysis on consumer and customer changing behavior with respect to social networking sites

The main purpose of the study is to analyze the changing behavior of the customers on various products by conducting a customer review. The analysis is performed in three major steps such as, calculating customer review quality, calculating behavior quality of customer and review comparison. Behavioral analysis is a kind of science which helps to study and understand the behavior of human beings. It studies the factors that influence the behavior of living beings and non-living beings on a larger aspect. A special emphasis is placed on understanding, describing, predicting and changing behavior. Understanding the behavior of individuals is a tedious job to be performed and hence to evaluate the final result, the study used Chi-Square Method. As a tool, the paper employs customer reviews to gather primary and secondary data. These reviews inform, educate and explain the benefits of using customer reviews in gathering data. It is one of the best and easiest methods to formulate the score of comparison between customer's profile and their review. Findings of the study proved that depending on the customer's profile, the quality of the product varied. Furthermore, high rates of efficiency and accuracy is observed in gathering information on the products via customer's profile and review. Study authenticates an inclusive approach to explain factors manipulating consumer awareness, observation and sensitivity on product value. A depth analysis was carried out to identify the purchase decision, brand behavior, price influence the buying behavior and opinion of the customers. However, the factors such as high quality, social media networking sites and customer's profiles had a greater impact on buying behavior of the customers.     

Fighting churn with rate plan right-sizing: a customer retention strategy for the wireless telecommunications industry

Prior literature suggests that wireless customers have difficulty in predicting their usage requirements and they often subscribe to rate plans that are not financially optimized. However, the benefits of having wireless customers on optimal rate plans are relatively unknown due to limited research in this area. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap and presents a customer retention strategy for the wireless telecommunications industry. The usage and payment records of 1403 Canadian post-paid wireless customers are examined over a 3.7-year study period. Pearson's χ ² test and hazard function graph are used to reveal how customer churn rate is influenced by rate plan suitability. The statistical analysis demonstrates that customers who are using optimal rate plans have lower churn rate than those with non-optimal ones.     

Customer Relationship Stage and the Use of Picture-Dominant versus Text-Dominant Advertising: A Field Study

This research reports the results of two field experiments designed to help determine what format of email advertising is most effective with customers at different lifecycle stages. The experiments examine customer response to picture-dominant versus text-dominant advertising. Although the relative effectiveness of picture- versus text-dominant advertising has received some attention in previous research, the issue of which type would be most effective at different points in the customer's relationship with the brand and for different metrics has not been explored. The two field experiments were executed by a major fashion retailer that sells clothing and accessories for special events. The first experiment was conducted with prospective customers and focused on advertising for the retailer's primary product, which typically occurs first in the purchase cycle. The second experiment was conducted with customers who had already purchased the primary product and focused on advertising for an accessory typically purchased later in the cycle. The investigation was conducted from a customer relationship management perspective, examining the financial impact of each type of advertisement at different stages in the customer's relationship with the brand. At the aggregate level we find only minor differences in the performance of the picture-dominant versus text-dominant advertisements. However, we find that the retailer can greatly improve revenue by customizing ad format based on observed customer traits.     

The existence and persistence of the pay-per-use bias in car sharing services

A key benefit of using car sharing services (relative to car ownership) is that they are more cost effective. Car sharing firms offer a menu of pricing plans to make this happen. The two most common plans are flat-rate and pay-per-use pricing. However, little is known about how consumers choose among these pricing plans. In this study, we analyze consumers' choices between pay-per-use and flat-rate pricing using data from a car sharing provider in a large European city. In contrast to previous research, we find a prevalent and time-persistent pay-per-use bias. Specifically, depending on the definition of the bias, 21% to 32% of customers exhibit this bias. This bias also persists over time within customer. We propose three potential explanations for the existence and persistence of this bias. First, we suggest that customers underestimate their usage. Second, we propose that customers have a preference for flexibility, leading them to pay more. Finally, we show that the physical context, such as weather, increases the likelihood of a pay-per-use bias. Our findings suggest that more research into consumer response to pricing in the Sharing Economy is needed.     

The role of organizational service climate in generating control and empowerment among workers and customers

Previous studies have found a relationship between service climate and customers’ satisfaction. This paper presents two studies that used structural equation modeling to examine the role of control and empowerment in mediating this relationship. In the first study, questionnaires were administered to 113 pairs of customers and service workers. The results show that service climate is related to a customer's satisfaction through the mediation of a service worker's self-reported control of the service situation. In the second study, the service worker's sense of empowerment was predicted with service climate and the supervisor's empowering behavior. The data was gathered with questionnaires administered to 255 workers in service roles. Service climate was found to have a positive effect on empowering leadership behaviors of the service worker's supervisor which, in turn, enhance the service worker's sense of empowerment. The results are discussed in regard to the role of control and empowerment in service organizations.     

Using AI Techniques in the Grocery Industry: Identifying the Customers Most Likely to Defect

The food retailing market has reached a mature stage where companies need to be competitive if they are to survive. Customers are ever more demanding and retailers need to design and introduce new ways of learning about their customers if they are to retain them (Leeflang & Van Raaij ). This article examines the efficiency of the LAMDA classifier (Learning Algorithm Machine for Data Analysis) (Aguado ; Aguado et al. ) in identifying customer's behaviour; specifically examining which customers are most likely to defect when a new retailer appears on the scene. The study carried out in this project is based on data gathered from a Spanish grocery chain: Supermercats Pujol, SA – ‘Plus Fresc’, winner of the 1998 Global Electronic Marketing Award, www.plusfresc.es     

Facing a Biased Adviser While Choosing a Retirement Plan: The Impact of Financial Literacy and Fair Disclosure

Buying a retirement saving plan in Israel involves meeting with an agent whose interests may differ from those of his or her customers. The aim of the present study was to explore the effect of the advice given by the agent, along with that of two further factors: a fair disclosure statement regarding the agent's conflict of interest, and the customer's degree of financial literacy. Two experiments conducted among undergraduate students in Israel showed that customers mostly follow the agent's recommendation, even against their best interest, and despite the presence of a fair disclosure statement. Only participants with high financial literacy, who received a disclosure statement, did examine the alternatives closely and rejected the advice when the recommendation was damaging. We also ruled out the existence of a negative psychological reactance response to a disclosure statement that would work to the detriment of financially literate participants.