Customer Expectations Essays (Examples)

Customer Management Practices at AC Guy Ltd.

For services businesses that deliver highly specialized knowledge and expertise to customers, their ability to set reasonable and realistic expectations and then deliver exceptional experiences is critical to their long-term growth. The essence of customer management in services businesses including each area of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) industry is predicated on this concept of customer management. Concentrating on setting realistic expectations then delivering excellent experiences is the essence of excellence in customer management. Creating expectations and delivering remarkable experiences for customers in service industries gets quickly beyond technical ability to the innate sense of what really matters to customers and addressing those issues clearly, candidly and honestly (Ang, Buttle, 2009). The bottom line is that by continually delivering exceptional customer service experiences based on realistic expectations builds trust and reinforces a reputation of excellence in customer service. Trust is the…

References

Ang, L. & Buttle, F. 2009, "Customer development strategies for exceeding expectations - An exploratory study," Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 267-275.

Arnett, D.B. & Badrinarayanan, V. 2005, "Enhancing Customer-Needs-Driven Crm Strategies: Core Selling Teams, Knowledge Management Competence, and Relationship Marketing Competence," The Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 329-343.

Ballantyne, D. 2005, "Customer Relationship Management: Creating Competitive Advantage through Win-Win Relationship Strategies," Managing Service Quality, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 485-488.

Crosman, P. (2008). SaaS gains street traction -- providers are pitching software-as-a-service as a universal answer to application needs. But will wall street firms adopt SaaS beyond CRM? Wall Street & Technology, 26(9), 37-n/a.

Even customers who are satisfied with something do not always return to that specific business, especially if the business is somewhat out of the way or relatively inconvenient to get to (Jackson, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1988).

Customer loyalty is generally thought to be achieved when a customer returns to buy something that they have bought before from the same company (Jackson, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1988). There are many other ways to measure loyalty statistically, but it basically boils down to a customer returning to a business even though there are so many other choices available (Jackson, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1988).

There are many ways to increase customer loyalty and it is significant to discuss some of them here (Rackham, Honey, Colbert, Fields, Hinson, Morgran, Morris, Sugden, & Tribe, 1971). One of the best ways is to meet or exceed many of the service standards that others in the industry have…

Bibliography

Achrol, R. & Stern, L.W. (1988). Environmental Determinants of Decision Making Uncertainty in Marketing Channels. Journal of Marketing Research, 25: 36-50.

Assael, H. (1987). Consumer Behavior and Marketing Action. Third Edition, Boston, MA: PWS-Kent.

Bitran, G., and Hoech, J. (1990). The Humanization of Service: Respect at the Moment of Truth. Sloan Management Review, 31(4), 89-96.

Boyan, l. And Enright, R. (1992). High Performance Sales Training. New York: AMACOM Division of American Management Association.

Customer elationships

Managing relationships is one of the critical success factors in managing sales. What form might relationships between selling organisations and customers take?

There are many forms that relationships taken between selling organizations and customers. The most critical determinant of how the relationships and selling organizations is the business model of the company itself. For those companies whose business models are predicated on solving complex, intricate problems for customers, direct selling relationships are the most common. The reliance on a consultative, relationship-based selling strategy is often used by companies whose business models focus on complex, challenging problems other businesses have. This approach to selling often puts the role of being a trusted advisor at the center of the selling relationship strategies (Czerniawska, 2005).

In companies who have products that rely primarily on price and availability, the selling relationship are focused on direct selling, persuasive selling, and price-based selling (Leibowitz,…

References

Fiona Czerniawska. (2005). The New Business Consulting Landscape. Consulting to Management, 16(4), 3-6.

Leibowitz, J.. (2010). Rediscovering the art of selling. The McKinsey Quarterly,(2), 117.

All those nice customer-friendly marketing techniques notwithstanding, hite notes, customer-centered personalization can't work well without being linked with high-quality, high-visibility customer service.

Even some of the most successful corporations, like IBM, apparently stumbled along for a time, totally failing to "get it" when it came to customer-centric strategies. According to the industry publication Chain Store Age, in the early 1990s, a customer-centric culture "was foreign to Big Blue" - and to al-Mart - until fairly recently. The writer goes on to explain that when considering al-Mart and Target (two retail giants that are becoming "more alike than different"), "sameness" is a "trap" that happens when a company "takes its eye off the brand to focus on the numbers, loyalty goes by the wayside. It happened to Sears," the article asserts.

RESISTANCE TO CCS/CRM: In the Jossey-Bass book, Designing The Customer-Centric Organization (Galbraith 2005), the author suggests that businesses that hesitate…

Works Cited

Angel, Robert. (2004). Sustaining Profitable Customer Relationships Requires Real Leadership.

Ivey Business Journal, 1-7.

Berry, Leonard L. (2001). The Old Pillars of New Retailing. Harvard Business Review on Customer Relationship Management.

Chain Store Age. (2006). The Retail Life Cycle. Retrieved 10 Jan 2007 at  http://www.chainstoreage.com .

Customer relationship management (CM) is an essential component of organizational management. The purpose of this discussion is to focus on a CM strategy for United Behavioral Health a subsidiary of United Health Care . . United Behavioral Health is dedicated to presenting customers with high quality, cost-effective, managed mental health and substance abuse services to its customers. The investigation suggests that the company's core values have been successfully implemented into the company's CM Strategy. The current CM strategy utilizes technology to allow customers to voice their opinions. Currently the company's website ubhweb.uhc.com provides a page that offers help to members that are experiencing problems. In addition, it provides customers with "coaches" that can help whenever problems arise. The company's customers are currently divided into three different groups; the employer division, the health plan division and the public sector. We found testimonials of customers who were extremely satisfied with the care…

REFERENCES

Your Customers are Speaking To You. Do You Hear Them? 2002. 2 December 2004

 http://www.jandlmarketing.com/pages/articles/article13.html 

Gupta S. Binggeli U., Poomes C.D., CRM in the Air. The McKinsey Quarterly. Page Number: 6+.

Jacobs F.A., Claire Kamm Latham, Choongseop Lee. 1998. The Relationship of Customer Satisfaction to Strategic Decisions. Journal of Managerial Issues. Volume: 10. Issue: 2. Page Number: 165+.

It is possible to find examples of nearly every service business in existence using SEVQUAL or a variation of this methodology to quantify customer service performance. An interesting second development is the correlation found between customer satisfaction, market share and profitability (Anderson, Fornell, Lehmann, 1994). Based on the strength of this association many companies are investing heavily in analytics to evaluate just how effective their customer service strategies are in earning satisfaction in the short-term and trust in the long-term.

Conclusion

Values-based differentiation and advanced methodologies for measuring customer satisfaction are re-ordering the global marketing landscape today. The emphasis on analytics is what many multinational and global marketers are using to unify these strategies, with the core focus being on how to translate their many combined efforts into the role of trusted advisor (Dimitriadis, Kouremenos, Kyrezis, 2011). Trust is the most powerful differentiator there is and is also highly effective…

References

Aksoy, L., Cooil, B., Groening, C., Keiningham, T.L., & Yalcin, A. (2009). Does customer satisfaction lead to an increased firm value? GfK Marketing Intelligence Review, 1(2), 8-15,61.

Anderson, E.W., Fornell, C., & Lehmann, D.R. (1994). Customer satisfaction, market share, and profitability: Findings from sweden. Journal of Marketing, 58(3), 53-53.

Badri, M.A., Abdulla, M., & Al-Madani, A. (2005). Information technology center service quality: Assessment and application of SERVQUAL. The International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 22(8), 819-848.

Boote, A.S. (1981). Market segmentation by personal values and salient product attributes. Journal of Advertising Research, 21(1), 29-29.

2 of the respondents were self-employed and 11.2% of respondent were white-collar workers with 1.2% of respondents being blue-collar workers. The following chart shows the factor analysis results with VARIMAX rotation of traveler's perceptions of hotel attributes in the study of Choi and Chu (2000).

Factor Analysis Results with VARIMAX Rotation of Traveler's Perceptions of Hotel Attributes

Source: Choi and Chu (2000)

The following chart shows a 'regression analysis results of hotel factors according to Asian and Western travellers overall satisfaction levels.

Regression Analysis Results of Hotel Factors According to Asian and Western Travelers Overall Satisfaction Levels

Source: Choi and Chu (2000)

2.3 Loyalty

2.3.1 Definition of customer loyalty

Kandampully and Suhartanto (2000) define a loyal customer as "a customer who purchases from the same service provider whenever possible, and who continues to recommend or maintain a positive attitude toward the service provider" (p. 346).

2.3.2 Loyalty dimensions

There is…

Bibliography

Andreassen, Tor Wallin and Lindestad, Bodil (1998) Customer Loyalty and Complex Services: The Impact of Corporate Imagine on Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty for Customers with Varying Degrees of Service Expertise. International Journal of Service Management Vol. 9, No. 1, 1998. MCB University Press.

Bowen, John T. And Chen, Shiang-Lih (2001) the Relationship Between Customer Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 13/5 2001. MCB University Press.

Kandampully, Jay and Suhartanto, Dwi (2000) Customer Loyalty in the Hotel Industry: The Role of Customer Satisfaction and Image. Vol. 12 Issue 6. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Abstract Online available at  http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=A7BB20EB4B5CF3B4A2F5E96AD85BD78B?contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkpdf&contentId=867348 

Lindberg-Repo (nd) Word-of-Mouth Communication in the Hospitality Industry. CERS Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management. Hotel School Cornell University. Online available at http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/chr/pdf/showpdf/chr/research/wordofmouth.pdf-my_path_info=chr/research/wordofmouth.pdf

In conclusion, this book shows conclusively that customers' expectations are continually increasing while the most forward-thinking companies are attempting to continually integrate social networks and social media into their marketing, selling and service platforms. Based on the assessment of Mr. reenberg and his case studies, the early adopter companies are very successful with this strategy of meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

Xu, M., & Walton, J. (2005). aining Customer Knowledge through Analytical CRM. Industrial Management + Data Systems, 105(7), 955-971.

Analytics have become the foundation of marketing in the 21st century as marketers continue to measure interactions with prospects and customers and quantify the performance of their strategies over time. The continually evolving role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has also led to increasing reliance on dashboards and balanced scorecards as a means to continually track marketing strategy performance gains goals and objectives (Kim, Suh, Hwang, 2003). The research…

Greenberg, P. (2010). The impact of CRM 2.0 on customer insight. The Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 25(6), 410-419.

Luck, D., & Lancaster, G. (2013). The significance of CRM to the strategies of hotel companies. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 5(1), 55-66.

Kim, J., Suh, E., & Hwang, H. (2003). A model for evaluating the effectiveness of CRM using the balanced scorecard. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 17(2), 5-19.

Much marketing research has been done on analysing customer behaviour and retention. As a consequence, it is crucial for online companies to create a loyal customer base, as well as to monitor the profitability of each segment (Reinartz and Kumar, 2002)

Definition of customer e-loyalty

Customer loyalty has been defined as "a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviour" (Oliver, 1999). This general definition appears to apply to e-loyalty as well. Another briefer and more specific definition is provided by Anderson and Srinivasan (2003), who define e-loyalty as "the customer's favourable attitude toward an electronic business, resulting in repeat purchasing behaviour" (p. ____).

Since it is considered difficult to gain loyal customers on the internet without directly contact (Gommans et al., 2001),…

Bibliography and Reference

Journals

Anderson, R.E. And Srinivasan, S.S. (2003), E-satisfaction and e-loyalty: a contingency framework, Psychology and Marketing, Vol.20 No.2, pp. 123-38

Arregle, J.L., Borza, A., Dacin, M.T., Hitt, M.A., and Levitas, E. (2000), Partner selection in emerging and developed market contexts: Resource-based and organizational learning perspectives. Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 449-67. In Everett & Lo, p. 17.

Bailey, Scott and Schultz, D.E. (2000), Customer/brand loyalty in an interactive marketplace. Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 40, No. 3, p. 41.

Customer Perspective alanced Scorecard

On what specific customer perspectives did each company focus, and what measures did each company use to ascertain how well it was meeting the goals implied by those specific perspectives?

As far as Hyde Park Electronics is concerned, they were concentrating on the quality of the product that was delivered to determine customer perspectives. The measures that were used to achieve these objectives were: manufacturing / labor efficiency and new product sales. In the case of Futura, they were focusing on customer perceptions about the product and services they were receiving. To measure this, they focused on randomly calling the customers and determining how employee retention affected the underlying quality of the product. While SGC, was concerned about the quality of orange juice that they were selling to retail customers. The way they analyzed how effective they were at meeting this goal was to focus on…

Bibliography

Gumbus, A. (2006). Entrepreneurs Use a Balanced Scorecard. Journal of Small Business Management, 44 (3), 407 -- 425

Niven, P. (2011). EPM View. Retrieved from: http://www.epmreview.com/Resources/Articles/Customer-Perspective.html

Customer Loyalty

Affecting Customer Loyalty

Customer Grade Course

This research study introduces a comprehensive conceptual framework of customer loyalty within the retail sector. It emphasizes on the perceived loyalty amongst fast moving consumer goods and attempts to explore the moderating effects of the various different factors that might influence them.

The researcher will begin by creating an understanding of the term "customer loyalty" and its significance importance in the retail sector. Additionally, the researcher shall also attempt to explore the purchase decisions made by the consumers and what really prompts them to be loyal to certain brands of product while simultaneously evaluating the importance of price, quality, brand or any other factor that might impact their loyalty status and purchase decision.

Finally, the research study will conclude by delineating the factors which impacts consumer loyalty at the same time trying to establish a means of measuring the impact of consumer…

REFERENCES

Aaker, Kumar & Day, 1995, Marketing Research, 5th edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., United States

Assael, Henry., 1984, Consumer Behavior and Marketing Action, 2nd edition, Kent Publishing, USA

Buttle, Francis (2006, July 11), Does service failure influence customer loyalty? Available from  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cb.67/abstract  [May 19th 2011]

Dick, Alan S., 1994, Customer Loyalty: Towards an Integrated Conceptual Framework, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science

This is significant, because it allows a particular restaurant to use this technology to improve the customer experience by: creating a unique solution that will reach out to everyone. Over the course of time, this will help them to be able to build their brand image, while being able to maintain a low cost structure in achieving these different objectives. The information for understanding how and when this applies was located through the source titled Making Customer Relationship Management Work (2001). It was found based upon the specific background reading that we were required to look at as a part of the assignment itself. ("Making Customer Relationship Management Work," 2001)

When it comes to in house CRM solutions, many large corporations that have information that they need to protect will often utilize this kind of platform. For example, a large bank will more than likely have some kind of onsite…

Bibliography

Barclays Bank PLC. (2009). Microsoft. Retrieved from: http://crm.dynamics.com/en-us/featured-customers/case-study-details?casestudyid=4000004155&title=Barclays-Bank-PLC

CRM. (2011). Webopedia. Retrieved from:  http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CRM.html 

Making Customer Relationship Management Work. (2001). University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from:  http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=390&CFID=36709485&CFTOKEN=96362038&jsessionid=9a30fd71d42e213b6970

There are processes engrained in many healthcare providers that also protect the political balance of power and any change of these processes is seen as a demotion of political clout by senior managers. In many healthcare providers the accounting and finance departments are more concerned with managing their invoices and getting the bills out on time and accurate than ensuring a high level of customer service is delivered (Fishman, 2006). A second major factor in healthcare companies not addressing this issue of automating their systems is that there is the perception of new systems being a threat to the data itself; there is fear that once the date is put into the system it will somehow be lost or compromised. This fear of a lack of control over the data is often driven by information systems departments, who also fear their jobs will be taken over by the new system.…

References

Fishman, C (2006, April). Record Time. Fast Company, 62-66. Retrieved May 7, 2008 from the Business Source Premier database. (an 20038869).

Nussbaum, B, (2004, May 17). The Power of Design. Business Week, 3883(96). Retrieved May 4, 2008 from the Business Source Premier database. (an 13083784).

This creates a strong customer base that can help the company through financially difficult periods and gives the company a leeway in terms of price control and product development. A company that can keep customers also tends to have a higher market share than its competitors. Customer care usually works its way back around and acts as advertising through the company, generally by word of mouth from satisfied customers. The more impressed a customer is with the service and care provided, the more likely they will be to recommend the business and mention its virtues to friends and family, increasing the customer pool through indirect advertising.

5.7 Warranties

To ensure that out clients are assured of their pick and choice, as the Marketing director I recommend that the company gives warranties to all the electronics that ordinarily our competitors would not give. It is noted by the research conducted by…

References.

Bob L, (2001). Beat your Competition without cutting your prices.

www.soho.org/Marketing_Articles/competition_without_cutting_price.htm

Bosses Go "Undercover" to Learn, Engage Employees. (2010). Retrieved on March 30, 2010

from www.effectivehrcommunications.com.

Tesco, the largest UK company, employs 260,000 people. This corporation has global aspirations and has come a long way in a relatively short period of time" (2003, p. 3).

According to the company's promotional literature, the employment figure for 2003 has almost doubled today, as shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Current Key Figures for Tesco

Category

Statistic

Staff worldwide

472,000

Staff in the UK

287,669

Stores worldwide

5,008

Total stores in the UK

2,545

Extra

13

Homeplus

Superstore

Metro

Express

OneStop

Number of markets

14

Which markets

China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA

Note: Facts correct October 2010

Source: Tesco Quick Facts 2010

Figure 1. Respective Number of Tesco Retail Formats in the U.K.

Source: Based on tabular data in Tesco Quick Facts 2010

A brief summary of the company's guiding corporate strategy is provided in…

Lastly differentiating on the extent of experience our customers have had with Internet-based software is useful in defining how much extra time is necessary for software application training.

Discuss your efforts to create customer intimacy.

As our company relies intensively on long-term relationships with customers, taking a very active approach to creating customer intimacy is critical to our business. Our approach is to first concentrate on total accountability for our software by having our CEO visit each and every customer just after an installation to show a high degree of support and accountability. Next, we offer each customer the opportunity to join a customer advisory council specific to their industry and special interests. At present there are three customer advisory councils which give customers an opportunity to discuss their concerns, interested in new product ideas and see what is presently in development.

How will you customize your offering for particular…

In addition, there will be a follow-up interview process to capture specific area of low customer satisfaction scores. These scores will be used for process improvement and business process reengineering within the company. One of the most critical aspects of these measures is the need to use them to fundamentally re-architect the company and make it more customer-centric. This is critical for the Zapper to reflect customers' needs and requirements and for the company to have a very solid fidelity and transparency to its customers.

Measuring and Acting on Gaps Between Customer Expectations and Experiences

One of the innate strengths of the SEVQUAL methodology is the ability to quickly assess the differences between expectations and experiences quickly, and in very quantitative terms. These differences across expectations and experiences are measured with a minimum of 32 different variables, which can be highly effective in pinpointing just what areas of public relations,…

References

Allen, E., & Fjermestad, J. (2001). E-commerce marketing strategies: An integrated framework and case analysis. Logistics Information Management, 14(1), 14-23.

Genestre, a., & Herbig, P. (1996). Service expectations and perceptions revisited: Adding product quality to SERVQUAL. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 4(4), 72-82.

Gurau, C. (2008). Integrated online marketing communication: Implementation and management. Journal of Communication Management, 12(2), 169-184.

Hopen, D. (2003). The message is clear. Quality Progress, 36(10), 50-58.

However, simply hiring more people is only a part of the solution; in addition, these new employees, as well as current employees need additional training in order to allow them to serve customers more rapidly and in a more friendly manner. These goals should be tied to a compensation/bonus program for employees if the levels of customer satisfaction in the areas of improvement are enhanced. By doing so, the needs of the firm, its customers and employees are all met, thereby fulfilling the role of an effective business entity.

eferences

Brown, a. (2004, August). What's Brewing at Starbucks?. Black Enterprise, 35, 25.

Clark, P. (1999). Organisations in Action: Competition between Contexts. London: outledge.

Culpan, . (2002). Global Business Alliances: Theory and Practice. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.

John, J. (2003). Fundamentals of Customer-Focused Management: Competing through Service. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Karp, H. (1998, February). Worth More Than a Hill of Beans:…

References

Brown, a. (2004, August). What's Brewing at Starbucks?. Black Enterprise, 35, 25.

Clark, P. (1999). Organisations in Action: Competition between Contexts. London: Routledge.

Culpan, R. (2002). Global Business Alliances: Theory and Practice. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.

John, J. (2003). Fundamentals of Customer-Focused Management: Competing through Service. Westport, CT: Praeger.

In contrast, Harley-Davidson is selling more of an experience and also a lifestyle change. For Harley, the open road and freedom is the catalyst of their unique value proposition. For Dunkin' Donuts, the trust they have created and sustain makes them a perfect choice for millions of consumers rushing to work in the morning who may have skipped breakfast at home. Harley-Davidson is all about a lifestyle change and freedom while Dunkin' Donuts has become a trusted source of excellent coffee, bakery items and excellent service.

American Express Video

After viewing the American Express video, can you identify a card that might fit your needs?

The Optima card which allows a card holder to carry a balance would be best, as the work I do has unequal payment dates. Freelance work pays irregularly so the Optima card would work best.

Also describe a credit card that you have. Is the…

The Amazon Customer Experience: How to Improve It
Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world. It is the retailer to which most consumers turn to when they wish to make a purchase, particularly if the consumer has Amazon Prime, which offers free, two-day shipping on many goods. This might lead most consumers to assume that Amazon customer service is superior to any and all alternatives. However, like all large companies, Amazon has had issues arises with its customer experience. Overall, Amazon has earned very positive reviews in terms of its customer relationships, but there is always room for improvement and Amazon strives to set a higher and higher bar for itself, not merely surpass its competitors. In fact, according to Coleman (2018), Amazon calls itself the most customer-centric company on earth. This sets a very high level of expectations for consumers.
What Amazon Is Doing Right
According…

Quality, cost-competitiveness, customer service and first-to-market are all essential determinants to global commercial success. All sectors of the economic market are obliged to reduce costs and production times while increasing profits and market share. Ambitious organizations are turning to systems management programs such as Six Sigma or Total Quality Management to develop and maintain exceptional standards across the whole of an organization. This includes all aspects of production and manufacturing processes, as well as marketing, sales and distribution, financial considerations, employee motivation and customer service. Finally, product development in the form of a perennial portfolio of projects helps to ensure the viability of a company.

The incorporation of systems management programs has become integral to the renaissance and future of an organization. Often, enterprises will combine qualities from several methodologies such as integration aspects of Six Sigma with Project Management; the very topic of consideration for this essay that examines…

References

(1) Anbari F.T. (2004) A Systems Approach to Six Sigma Quality, Innovation, and Project Management. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Systems Thinking, Innovation, Quality, Entrepreneurship and Environment (STIQE 2004). Maribor, Slovenia.

(2) Anbari F.T. (2003). An Integrated View of the Six Sigma Management Method and Project Management. Proceedings of IPMA 17th World Congress on Project Management. Moscow, Russia.

(3) Anbari F.T. (2002). Six Sigma Method and Its Applications in Project Management. Proceedings of the Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium, San Antonio, TX.

(4) Kwak Y.H., Anbari F.T. (2004). Benefits, Obstacles, and Future of Six Sigma Approach. Technovation: The International Journal of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Management, 26 (5-6), pp. 708-715.

As the authors note the study utilizes more reflective constructs rather than formative (Hsu et al., 140). KBCP is measured through ease of navigation of the KB and other similar questions. SSE refers to the problem solving experiences of customers through independent use. PA is operationalized as "possible factors for customers to select a certain brand" (Hsu et al., 140). The other dependent variable PI is measured through would you buy this brand?

The problem of purchase intention is complex and it is not possible to capture the variability within the construct with a single question. Additionally consideration should be given to directly measure the value received from prior experience with the product or service. While there seems to be a tacit acceptance of this variable its omission from the model limits the explicative power of the model. It is reasonable to assume that self-efficacy is correlated to the prior…

References

Hsu, S., Balasubramanian, S., Thakur, R., & Kulviwat, S.. (2011). Knowledge-base and online self-service. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 12(2), 133-151.

Kerlinger, F.N. & Lee, H.B. (2000). Foundations of Behavioral Research. London:

Thompson Learning.

Reliability and Item Analysis (2012). StatSoft electronic statistics text book. Retrieved from  http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/reliability-and-item-analysis/

The employees should be firmly committed to the firm, they are the face of a firm (also its eyes and ears). The staff focus should be involved in the process management, also their measurement and knowledge as well as initial contact with customers, all contribute to the performance of the organization.

Firms need to provide results on a consistent basis, be innovative and should respond quickly to any changes in environment for giving exceptional results and satisfying customers. Further in continuous improvement, aspects such as redesign of processes or services, upgraded technology systems, proper paperwork should be focused upon. Continuous improvement requires all firms' members to look for opportunities to improve. Overall, the continuous improvement process involves customers, leadership, employees and quality. It is the customers who determine if the firm is providing quality. They are the judges of it. The leadership is useful for setting direction of the firm.…

References

Brown, S.A. (1998). Breakthrough Customer Service. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons.

Buttle, F. (2004). Customer Relationship Management. Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.

Els, W. (2003). Winning at Service. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Horrell, E. (2006). The Kindness Revolution. New York: AMACOM.

Customer Value Funnel Approach. The reference appends four sources in APA format.

Marketing

The "customer value funnel approach" (p. 153) is a highly significant implement for clearly comprehending and evaluating business mechanisms and other marketing-related critical situations. esides a priceless strategic marketing framework, this approach focuses on the satisfaction of customers, the main marketing target of various giants in the business industry to reap the benefits of high productivity and massive volume due to broad clientele. As Stanley Slater states "As marketers, we should be committed to the proposition that the creation of customer value must be the reason for the firm's existence and certainly for its success" (p. 153).

Hence for effective business practices and performance, customer values play a vital role and therefore all focal organizations must take into consideration all the four levels of the Customer Value Funnel approach just like Southwest Airline did when it began…

Bibliography

Designing and Delivering Superior Customer Value. Part 2: Customer Value Cases. Case 17: Southwest Airlines- Value Added Customers. Pages: 153- 311

American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition

Spend Less = Make More. That's The Marketing Equation Driven by ADP's CRM Solutions (2001). Retrieved February 11, 2003 at  http://www.adpcrm.com/pages2/cust.html 

Price Optimization System (2002). Retrieved February 11, 2003 at http://www.nationalanalysts.com/marketing/pricing-strategy-research/price-optimization.asp

Customers Drive Location: An Investigation into Logistics Planning

Most people believe that a company's location strategy is internally driven, because the company itself chooses its location. However, this approach to location ignores the fact that companies choose locations with their customers in mind; businesses are located where the company believes it will find customers to frequent the business. Furthermore, businesses tend to be either located in close proximity to suppliers, or where they can have ready access to supplies. This paper will look at a specific industry, beverage manufacturing, specifically The Coca Cola Company, and compare the location decisions of the manufacturing company, distributors, and retail locations. It is important for the company to have defined objectives that it can break into pieces that can be accomplished, rather than trying to run a global company from a single location; instead, the company must identify quantitative, measurable results (Hill, 2000). It…

References

Cohen, M.A., Agrawal, N., Agrawal, V. (2006). Achieving breakthrough service delivery through dynamic asset deployment strategies. Linthicum, 36(2), 259-73.

Cramner, L.J. & Wegfahrt, A.M. (2006). Area development site and facility planning; Easton,

41(5), 26-28.

Hill, S. (2000). Hanes printables: Supply chain optimizing. Apparel Industry Magazine, 61(5),

Disney manages a wide variety of expectations that not only vary by demographics but also by culture by managing the desired services through rapid new service delivery coupled with a high-touch service strategy. Disney excels at expectations management by working very hard to make sure there are few adequate service moments in their parks, instead concentrating on how to set and achieve expectations across a very wide demographic and cultural customer base. In effect the managing of desired expectations (Zeithami and Bitner, 2005) is strategically defined for the long-term, supported with marketing campaigns and strategies, and launched to specific customer segments, in effect setting their expectations and then fulfilling or exceeding them.

eference:

Zeithami, V, & Bitner, M (2005). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm.…

Reference:

Zeithami, V, & Bitner, M (2005). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

The Cincom CRM system also has areas where the sales teams can also enter in total contract value and the total budget for a given initiative as well. Both internally gained financial information from within the customer and the reported financial results, more easily obtained if the customer is publicly held, go into deciding which customers are the most worth investing in over time. There are also analyses completed of the churn characteristics of certain customers. These profiles of high probability churn clients are used for narrowing down the customers who are going to be invested in for the long-term as well. The company also looks at the average lifecycles of the customers' enterprise systems, creating an index of opportunity by system type over the life of a customer relationship. All of these factors are used for rank-ordering new prospect sales and for defining where up-sell and new contract renewals…

anking and financial services includes such firms as investment banks, commercial banks, brokerage firms, and credit card institutions. The common it pulse throughout the daily operations of these organizations involves utilizing systems to communicate between branches and subsidiaries, establishing operations throughout the world, communicating with the end customer in order to facilitate transactions, and analyzing customer and market attributes in order to reduce uncertainties in such aspects as pricing policies" (p. 24). Some of the more salient issues affecting the financial services industry today are described further in Table ____ below.

Table ____.

Examples of utilization of information technology in order to enhance efficiency and productivity by the financial services industry.

Area Impacted

Description of Impact

Credit card institutions store, retrieve, and analyze vast amounts of demographic customer information enabling them to more accurately target potential markets for new products and also identify less-attractive, credit-risk customers.

This allows them to…

Bibliography

Brewster, Chris, Hilary Harris and Paul Sparrow. (2004). Globalizing Human Resource Management. New York: Routledge.

Cocheo, S. (2006). "Does Your Product Line Need a Trim?" ABA Banking Journal, 98(7), 7.

Das, Dilip K. (2004). Financial Globalization and the Emerging Market Economies. New York: Routledge.

Dennis, Charles and Lisa Harris. (2002). Marketing the E-Business. London: Routledge.

Business Ethics: Using Top Quality Parts

Today, every business recognizes the importance of its customers to enhance its longevity. Indeed, customers, even more than investors, are responsible for the strength or weakness of a business. If the customer base is weak and relationships are not up to par, it is more than likely that the business will also suffer. For this reason, businesses have certain codes of ethics when entering into relationship with their customers to optimize these relationships. This is echoed throughout business publications, since a high sense of ethics fosters positive and high quality customer relationships. This, in turn, will create a positive image of the company among customers, who will in turn spread the word regarding the excellence of the company. For this reason, On-Time Technology Products (OTTP) cannot in good conscience succumb to pressure, even from large investors, to save expenses in unethical ways, including using…

References

Knauss, D. (2010, Jan. 19). The Role of Business Ethics in Relationships with Customers. Forbes. Retrieved from:  http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/19/knauss-clorox-ethics-leadership-citizenship-ethics.html 

Stack, L. (2014, Sep. 9). The Customer Code of Ethics: The 7 Beliefs of a great service attitude. Forbes. Retrieved from:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/salesforce/2014/09/09/customer-code-ethics/ 

Yonyx (2014, Dec. 4). Importance of Ethics in Customer Dealings. Retrieved from:  http://corp.yonyx.com/customer-service/importance-of-ethics-in-customer-dealings/

difficulty with customer retention for Storz & Bickel is that their chief high-end product, the Volcano Vaporizer, lacks "planned obsolescence."

I am using the term that was devised by Alfred P. Sloan for the Ford Motor Company, but this is now basically a strategy implemented by all major manufacturing corporations -- in some sense, the point of an iPhone 5 is that it will eventually be made obsolete by an iPhone 6, and thus customer retention strategies are built around maintaining brand loyalty. As Medeiros (2003) writes about the original planned obsolescence strategy: "Sloan's idea was that automobiles should change each year, and should each year become more expensive (at least to the cost of production)….Each year, the new-model cars would have more improvements added on, different engines, different styling, different comfort features" (287).

The problem is that this strategy -- which works well with Ford automobiles or Apple iPhones…

References

Medeiros, CA. (2003) High-wage economy, Sloanism and Fordism. In Wood, JC and Wood, MC. Alfred P. Sloan: Critical evaluations in business and management. New York: Routledge.

itz vs. Mayo Clinic

When it comes to purchasing and spending, there are two things that perhaps do not always compare equally and favorably and that would be healthcare and hotels. Luxury hotels like itz Carlson stand out simply because not everyone can or chooses to stay at hotels like itz Carlton whereas everyone will need healthcare at some point. What draws these two firms together is that customer service is the epicenter of what they focus on and they do so in a way that is unique. Even with all of that, there are some clear differences between the two and it comes down to their motivations and why they do what they do. While both firms have impeccable customer service, there is clearly one firm that stands out from the two and it is for more than one reason.

Analysis

As noted in the introduction, both itz Carlton…

References

Dayaratna, K. (2012). Studies Show: Medicaid Patients Have Worse Access and Outcomes than the Privately Insured. The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 23 May 2017, from  http://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/studies-show-medicaid-patients-have-worse-access-and-outcomes-the 

Hartman, M. (2016). The middle class vacation squeeze. Marketplace.org. Retrieved 23 May 2017, from  https://www.marketplace.org/2016/07/11/world/middle-class-vacation-squeeze 

Solomon, M. (2017). 7 Ways To Improve Patient Satisfaction, Experience, And Customer Service, From Consulting In Hospitals And Healthcare. Forbes.com. Retrieved 23 May 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2013/11/02/quick-truths-for-improved-patient-satisfaction-and-customer-service-from-consulting-in-hospitals-and-healthcare/#1eea6b7d7cef

Ubel, P. (2017). Is The Profit Motive Ruining American Healthcare?. Forbes.com. Retrieved 23 May 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/02/12/is-the-profit-motive-ruining-american-healthcare/#2ae81cce37b9

Customer Service

We shall, for the purposes of this paper, accept the proposition that we are moving from a culture that can be categorized as "you get what I give" to one where the customer is always right. In the real world, there are companies that do either, depending on their business model. But for the sake of argument we will assume the position of a company that is seeking to shift from the former to a more customer-centric vision of customer service. There are two elements to such a shift -- operational and cultural. Operations can be laid out in such a way that barriers to customer service that may have existed in the past are now removed, for example. Yet, because service is inherently customer-oriented, based on interactions, it is critical that the organization shifts to a customer-service-based culture. This is a massive cultural shift from an organizational…

References

Brady, M. & Cronin, J. (2001). Customer orientation: Effects on customer service perceptions and outcome behaviors. Journal of Service Research. Vol. 3 (3) 241-251.

Homburg, C., Muller, M. & Klarmann, M. (2011). When does salespeople's customer orientation lead to customer loyalty? The differential aspects of relational and functional customer orientation. Journal of the Acad. Mark. Sci. Vol. 39 (2011) 795-812.

Leggett, K. (2014). Forrester's top trends for customer service in 2014. Forrester. Retrieved March 22, 2014 from  http://blogs.forrester.com/kate_leggett/14-01-13-forresters_top_trends_for_customer_service_in_2014 

Linnenluecke, M. & Griffiths, A. (2010). Corporate sustainability and organizational culture. Journal of World Business. Vol. 45 (2010) 357-366.

Customer Service and Marketing

Customer Centric usiness

The customer-centric business model is a necessary hybrid delivery system of goods and services in today's business environment. With the advent of the Internet, and e-business, customers are no longer limited by traditional geographic parameters for their purchase choices. Other factors which established boundaries to the consumer's choices, such as limited knowledge of purchase options, and time constraints, or the inability to travel, and research options before making a purchase choice have been dissolved.

Today's consumer is driving the marketplace in much more powerful ways, since he or she can sit at a desktop computer, and become aware of the options, prices, and product selection in minutes. Armed with this power, the retailer, or provider of good and services that are not also in touch with the advancing level of consumers desires will be left with full shelves, few customers, and falling revenues.…

Bibliography

Almasy, Erich. Building a Customer-Centric Organization. 2000. Mercer Management Conculting. Accessed 12 Dec 2002.  http://www.mmc.com/views/00winteralmasy.shtml 

Drucker, Peter. (1982) In Search of Excellence. SanFrancisco: HarperCollins.

Ryan, Janet. Creating a Customer-Centric Online Business. 2001. Clickz.com. Accesses 12 Dec 2002  http://www.clickz.com/res/analyze_data/article.php/843481

Improving Customer Service on a Medical Surgical Nursing Unit

Quality Improvment Project-Customer service on the nursing unit

The hospital medical-surgical nursing unit is usually referred to as the "catch-all" department for different types of patients. This is because it includes renal patients, cancer patients, cardiac and surgical patient. It also includes other patients who do not particularly fall into any of these specialized units. The medical-surgical nursing unit is a conglomeration of all kinds of adults with all sorts of health problems and thus the nurses in this unit need to be dynamic, quick to respond and are almost on their toes at all times. Patients in the medical-surgical nursing unit are likely to develop changes in their condition quite rapidly and therefore they become more unstable even though they may have been admitted in a stable condition. This is because most patients in the medical-surgical nursing unit have unpredictable…

References

Amba-Rao, S.C. (1994). Human Resource Management Practices in India: An Exploratory Study. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 30(2), 190-202.

Dirks, K.T., & Ferrin, D.L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(1), 611-628.

Glickman, S.W., Baggett, K.A., Krubert, C.G., Peterson, E.D., & Schulman, K.A. (2007). Promoting quality: the health-care organization from a management perspective. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19(6), 341-348. doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzm047

Judge, T.A., & Piccolo, R.F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 755-768.

Consequently, marketing efforts become more and more important.

Glyn Atwal and Alistair Williams (2009) for instance argue that the creators of luxury products have to use marketing efforts to identify new customers' needs even before the customers become aware of these needs. In other words, they have to "stay in front of luxury consumers" (Atwal and Williams, 2009, p.338). And in order to do so, the luxury products manufacturers strive to create positive experiences for their customers in order to inspire them and to stimulate their purchase decisions.

Otherwise put, in the context of luxury products, experiential marketing is growingly present and critical and this is due to the complex nature of the luxury sector. Here, the producers seek to transmit the image of high quality, product authenticity, as well as performance. However, aside from these statements, the luxury products must also transmit and sell a customer experience; and this…

References:

Alperovich, a.L., 2012, London Design Museum's Swarovski's exhibition features light painting, holograms and other mind blowing digital technologies, Inhabitat,  http://inhabitat.com/london-design-museums-swarovski-exhibition-features-light-painting-holograms-and-other-mind-blowing-digital-technologies  / last accessed on September 6, 2012

Atwal, G., Williams, a., 2009, Luxury brand marketing -- the experience is everything! Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 16

Bak, O., Stair, N., 2011, Impact of e-business technologies on public and private organizations: industry comparisons and perspectives, IGI Global, ISBN 1609605020

Bevolo, M., Gofman, a., Moskowitz, H., 2011, Premium by design: how to understand, design and market high end products, Gower Publishing Ltd., ISBN 1409418901

DVD Rental

Improving Customer Service at Vista DVD Rentals

The Vista DVD Rentals store is at a crossroads. After a number of years in operation, the store is facing a critical turning point that could dictate future survival or the suspension of any further business. The transformation must revolve on vastly improved customer service. As is the case for most businesses in New Zealand, customer service has come to play an increasingly important role in Vista's relevance. Consumers have come to expect a certain level of accommodation on the part of a retail or rental operation and this imposes a high level of importance on the decisions that companies make with respect to the customer experience. Essentially, customer service can be defined as the set of standards, practices and procedures that shape the customer's experience through the course of a business transaction. This denotes two primary aspects of customer service:…

Works Cited:

Blodgett, J.G.; Wakefield, K.L. & Barnes, J.H. (1995). The Effects of Customer Service on Consumer Complaining Behavior. Journal of Services Marketing, 9(4), 31-42.

Doolin, B.; Dillon, S.; Thompson, F. & Corner, J.L. (2005). Perceived Risk, the Internet Shopping Experience and Online Purchasing Behavior: A New Zealand Perspective. Journal of Global Information Management, 13(2), 66-88.

Ennew, C.T. & Binks, M.R. (2005). The Impact of Service Quality and Service Characteristics on Customer Retention: Small Businesses and their Banks in the UK. British Journal of Management, 7(3), 219-230.

Lyman, A.R. (2004). Customer Service: Does Family Ownership Make a Difference? Family Business Review, 4(3), 303-324.

Once this takes place, is when ABC Office Supplies will be able to increase sales by offering better service. (Vitez 2011)

Identify three customer service strategies and explain how these will be effectively implemented and managed within the work team.

Three customer service strategies that can be used to increase sales include: responding quickly, keeping clients informed and making everyone feel important. The way these different ideas can be implemented into the branch is through changing the policies. This means that everyone must take a more professional approach when dealing with a host of issues. In the future, this will help to create a foundation of trust in the quality of services that are provided by the firm. (Hess 2011)

Develop a standard procedure for dealing with customer issues / complaints?

The best way for dealing with customer complaints is to have the compliance department randomly call customers about their…

References

Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams, 2007, Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams, Business Talent DNA. Available from: [11 May 2012].

Importance of Compliance and Risk Control, 2011, it News Africa. Available from: [11 May 2012].

Hess, E, 2011, Competing on Service, Business Know How. Available from: [11 May 2012]

Vitez, O, 2011, Definition of Business Research, E How. Available from: [11 May 2012].

Based on the attributes of luxury brand, the luxury brand requires special marketing strategy to achieve brand objectives. The strategy assists in developing global brand reputation as well as forming brand awareness within the global competitive environment. (Moore and Birtwistle 2005).

In the contemporary marketing environment, experiential marketing has become a cornerstone of marketing, and retailing for luxury brand. Experiential marketing is the technique of viewing consumer as an emotional and rational being who aims to achieve pleasurable experiences. (Atwal et al. 2008). Typically, experiential marketing offers customer memorable experiences in order to achieve customer satisfaction and competitive market advantages. The experiential marketing uses different tools to create the memorable experiences for customers. For example, experiential marketing organizes entertainment for customers in order to educate them, allow them to escape the reality, as well as giving them aesthetic objects or places to see. Experiential marketers use different tools to create…

References

Atkin, D. (2004). The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers. New York: Portfolio.

Atwal, G. & Williams, a. (2008). Luxury brand marketing -- the experience is everything! Brand Management .16 (5/6):338 -- 346.

Belch, G.E. & Belch, M.A. (2003). Advertising and Promotion, an Integrated Marketing Communication Perspective (Sixth Edition). The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Bruce, M . And Kratz, C .(2007). Competitive Marketing Strategies in Luxury Fashion Companies. in: T. Hines and M. Bruce (eds.) Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, 2nd edn., New York: Elsevier / Butterworth-Heinemann.

Question 6: We have outine o egula measues of custome sevice.
At a scoe of 3, which indicates that the company's senio management sees
thei pefomance as neutal on this specific question, indicating the
consultancy has pocesses in place fo outinely measuing custome
sevice. Yet fom the esponses to ealie questions it is clea that
thee is a lack of commitment and a lack of ugency to using these outine
o egula measues to quantify thei pefomance in custome sevice
stategies.
What the consultancy needs to specifically focus on is ceating a set of
custome listening stategies, and as been mentioned befoe, Voice of the
Custome pogams, to develop the discipline of gaining valuable custome
feedback on thei pefomance. A patten is beginning to emege in the
question esponses of senio management on the one hand seeing custome
centicity as a coe stength of the company, yet thee ae no…

references the greater the credibility in many
prospects' opinions.
3. Index management bonuses to the customer satisfaction score the
company earns every year, and also index specific project teams'
salary increases and bonuses to per-project satisfaction. This is a
critical step for the consultancy to make so it can change the culture
to be one that values and finds a passion for seeking out customers'
feedback of both the good and bad, and acting on it. Two of the
questions in the survey specifically illustrate that there is a major

Brand Equity and Customer Purchasing Behavior

Taking into account the numerous modifications witnessed in the marketing milieu- viz. The accessibility to plethora of knowledge through various electronic devices, the emergence of modern methods of buying, the ability of the companies to use technology to target consumer more specifically, getting a feel of customer tendencies is still more difficult. Purchasing activities is the sequence of choice and actions of individuals occupied in procuring and consuming the same. An enterprise must evaluate its purchasing activities. Purchaser's responses to the marketing technique of the enterprise put an enormous influence on the achievement of the enterprise. The marketing perception highlights that an enterprise must build up a unique blend of marketing initiatives that makes the customers happy, and hence the urgency to evaluate the substance, the place, the time and the purchasing pattern of consumers and by way of addressing this, marketing personnel can…

References

Aaker, David A. 1996. "Measuring Brand Equity across Products and Markets" California Management Review. Volume: 16; No; 2; pp: 43-47

AMR Research Report. 2004. "POS Data: The Beginning of DDSN for Consumer Products Manufacturers" February.

Anderson, J.C; Cleveland, G; Schroeder, R. 1989. "Operations Strategy: A Literature Review" Journal of Operations Management. Volume: 8; No: 1; pp: 56-64

Baker, M. 2000. Marketing Management and Strategy" Macmillan Business.

Managerial Expectations for Technology at QVC, Inc.

During the early 1990s, tens of millions of American consumers gained access to cable television and a number of retailers took note of this technological innovation by launching cable television programming featuring their products. These new shopping venues quickly became enormously popular with many consumers because of their convenience, value and wide range of merchandise. One of the companies that emerged from this initial foray into unknown marketing waters was QVC, Inc., which has used emerging technologies to grow its business in innovative ways. To determine how managerial expectations for technology have affected QVC's growth in recent years, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning past expectations as well as how current technologies are meeting the company's business needs. A summary of the research and important findings are provided in the conclusion.

eview and Analysis

By the early 1990s, nearly…

References

Copley, P. (2004). Marketing communications management: Concepts and theories, cases and practices. Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Grens, K. (2007, March). A nobelist's QVC debut. The Scientist, 21(3), 23-24.

Kunz, M.B. & Hackworth, B.A. (2011). Are consumers following retailers to social networks?

Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 15(2), 1-3.

Alliances and partnerships that enrich the customer service experience of any online self-service application are exceptionally effective across other industries as well.

Conclusion

The introduction and support of an online self-service application is a multifaceted and highly coordinated strategy that requires system and process integration to be successful. In addition the support for roles-based access and preferences definitions is also critically important as consumers are increasingly expecting this from their online applications and will often reject and not use those that assume a one-size-fits-all mentality in their design. Finally gaining user input and designing with consideration of their needs is crucial for change management to occur. As online self-service is part of a CM strategy in many organizations (egan & O'Connor, 2002) the marketing of the application in addition to its inherent value must both be actively communication clearly.

eferences

Sven C. Berger. (2009). Self-service technology for sales purposes in…

References

Sven C. Berger. (2009). Self-service technology for sales purposes in branch banking: The impact of personality and relationship on customer adoption. The International Journal of Bank Marketing, 27(7), 488-505.

Campbell, D., & Frei, F. (2010). Cost Structure, Customer Profitability, and Retention Implications of Self-Service Distribution Channels: Evidence from Customer Behavior in an Online Banking Channel. Management Science, 56(1), 4-24.

Robert Kapanen. (2004). Customer relationship management and service delivery. International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 5(1), 42-55.

Chor-Beng Anthony Liew. (2008). Strategic integration of knowledge management and customer relationship management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 12(4), 131-146.

Nearly every major gaming and gambling, entertainment and promotional company relies on analytics to determine how best to choose which customers to retain, and which to let go (Todd, 2009).

Often the decision of which strategies to automate for customer retention vs. termination can be defined by integrating financial data with predictive analytics to create entirely new models of predictive financial value of customers (Sharma, 2008). Entertainment companies in gambling routinely use this approach to find the customers who are draining profits and also those who take a disproportionally high level of support and service to maintain (Baillie, 2003). Once the analysis has been completed of customer lifetime value by segment, companies can quickly determine the best possible approach to protect their most profitable customers and dis-incent others (Kapanen, 2004). educing customer churn through this technique shows significant potential, especially in industries that have relatively low lifetime customer loyalty.

Conclusion…

References:

Susanne Baillie. (2003, November). How to fire your customers. Profit, 22(5), 72,74.

Robert Kapanen. (2004). Customer relationship management and service delivery. International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 5(1), 42-55.

David M. Raab. (2008). Demand Generation System Requirements. DM Review, 18(11), 48.

Sharma, A. (2008). Improving Customer Service and Profitability through Customer Intervention in Service Relationships. Journal of Relationship Marketing, 7(4), 327.

Employee Customer Service Training

New Employee Customer Service Training Plan

Justify the use of a needs assessment of your company's proposed employee customer service training, stressing five (5) ways in which such an assessment would expose any existing performance deficiencies.

The employees of an organization act like the 'driving force' which can either lead the organization towards success or can turn out to be the cause of its failure. A company's progress not only depends on an employee's individual performance but the way these employees communicate with the customers has its own significance. Thus, in order to run a successful organization, it is quite essential to monitor the correlation between the outcomes and the employees' input on a regular basis. To ensure employees' effectiveness, organizations usually remain concerned about training their employees.

Training means a methodical intentional process of changing behavior of organizational members in a direction which contributes to…

Bibliography

Eisenberger, R., Rhoades, L. & Cameron, J. (1999). Does pay for performance increase or decrease perceived self-determination and intrinsic motivation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1026-1040.

Gerow, J.R. (1997). Psychology -- An Introduction. 5th Edition. New York: Longman.

Hinrichs, J.R. (1976). Personnel training. In M. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. Skokie, IL: Rand MsNally.

Miller & Osinski (1996). Training Needs Assessment. Retrieved November 18,

elationships and expectations form one of the three main domains of the PEN-3 model. These three factors, perceptions, enablers, and nurturers, refer to the cultural component of health-seeking behaviors. The relationships and expectations domain can inform healthcare workers about how to encourage health-seeking behaviors in patients, and is a culturally sensitive approach. The PEN-3 concept shows how culture is a major determinant of both individual and public health.

Perceptions refer to the individual's perceptions about health, disease, medication, doctors, and healthcare systems. The perceptions are related directly to the cultural values, beliefs, and norms that are already embedded in the community. Individual and collective group health behaviors may be strongly determined by perceptions. For example, is there a perception that heart disease is not a serious problem in the African-American community? Or, is there a perception that healthcare is too expensive, or that doctors are too paternalistic? Perceptions might also…

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2010) A Closer Look at African-American Men and High Blood Pressure Control: A Review of Psychosocial Factors and Systems-Level Interventions. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved November 1, 2011 from  http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/docs/African_American_Executive_Summary.pdf 

Perez, M.A. & Luquis, R.R. (2008). Cultural Competence in Health Education and Health Promotion. John Wiley & Sons.

US Department of Health & Human Services [USDHHS], Maternal Child Health Bureau [MCHB] (2009). Core Concepts in Cultural Competence. Retrieved November 1, 2011 from  http://support.mchtraining.net/national_ccce/case0/home.html

The reinforcement power of this feedback loop strengthens the customer service culture to the point where it has become for HMS Host a source of competitive advantage.

Another way in which HMSHost develops its customer service expertise is through its partnerships. The company utilizes these partnerships to institute a two-way transfer of a wide range of competencies, including technology, logistics and training (QSR Magazine, 2002). These partnerships allow partners like Starbucks and Burger King to contribute their own strong customer service values to HMS managers, who can in turn transfer this knowledge throughout the organization. This infusion of creativity allows for a wider range of ideas and best practices to be introduced into the organization, thereby enhancing organizational learning. The same occurred when HMSHost was taken over by Autogrill -- the parent company was able to influence customer service standards and bring in new ideas with regards to enhancing the…

Works Cited:

HMS Host website. Various pages. (2010). Retrieved March 13, 2010 from  http://www.hmshost.com 

No author. (2010). Host/Hostess. Simply Hired. Retrieved March 13, 2010 from  http://www.simplyhired.com/job-id/jv4ritjh67/host-hostess-jobs/ 

QSR Magazine. (2002). HMSHost and Burger King improve efficiency with a two-phase kitchen upgrade. QSR Magazine. Retrieved March 13, 2010 from  http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/news/story.phtml?id=3641 

Turner, C. (2009). How Etihad's marketing set new global airline standards. UTalkMarketing.com. Retrieved March 13, 2010 from  http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=11214&Title=How_Etihad%27s_marketing_set_new_global_airline_standards

For accounts that have not purchased this level of service, Cincom relies on its own Socrates constraint engine technology to deliver the most possible patches and product fixes electronically based on remote analysis of the customers' problem. This remote diagnostics analysis, which the customer can turn on at any time, is also responsible for the high renewal rate as well. Third, there are escalation paths through customer service to also solve customers' problems, and a hot line for all customers directly to the General Manager of each Cincom division if they are not getting their problems solved.

Managing post-purchase dissonance is managed using a completely different series of processes and technologies. As the annuity revenue stream from new customers is crucial for Cincom's business, customer satisfaction is critically important. Post-purchase dissonance is often managed through intensive face-time with customers, where the sales, service, software engineering and professional services will often…

Balanced Scorecard: Customer Perspective

he balanced scorecard (BSC) developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton is "one of the most highly touted management tools today" (Gumbus, A. & Lussier, R. 2006), and is used extensively by Fortune 1000 companies to "set strategy and align operations to achieve breakthrough results" (Gumbus, A. & Lussier, R. 2006). Is the balanced scorecard a tool only for the multinational or conglomerate firm? Increasingly no, as small to mid-sized firms are embracing BSC as an effective "strategic planning and measurement system" (Balanced Scorecard Institute) which allows for organic growth, greater profitability, "innovation, and outstanding customer service" (Niven, P.N.D.). An analysis of three firms: Hyde Park Electronics, Futura Industries, and Southern Gardens Citrus demonstrate the positive impact of the BSC for small to mid- size entities.

he balanced scorecard was designed with the understanding that "financial measures alone were not sufficient to measure performance" (Gumbus, A.…

The BSC at Southern Gardens Citrus utilizes the customer perspective in regards to percent of shipments within specification, loading cycle time, and customer service. On shipment specification the percentage has hit 99.86 in 2002 from a low of 70% in 1995. The result of the customer perspective metrics and the BSC overall; catapulted SGC to a Balanced ScoreCard Collaborative Hall of Fame winning company. (Gumbus, A. & Lussier, R. 2006).

Analysis

"Customer Centric" is an approach to doing business in which a company focuses on creating a positive consumer experience at the point of sale and post-sale" (Business Dictionary N.D.). The success of adopting a "customer centric" approach depends on the Customer Value Proposition which is the unique added value an organization offers customers through its operations" (Balanced Scorecard Institute. N.D.). Succinctly,

E-businesses challenged create trust customers. People don't send money strangers . ead article: Mangiaracina,

When considering a business model for you company it is highly important to pattern it on that of other successful companies that are also based online. Jeff Beer's article "Outlook 2011: The new dotcom boom" provides several case studies of online companies with robust business models that have proven records of success. The unifying factor of all organizations mentioned, and the ones that provide the most tangible examples of success, Groupon and Twitter, is that their models are all based on solid marketing. One of the most critical elements of marketing for online businesses is to create a sense of community with one's customer base. Doing so in turn increases that customer base by readily involving more members of the general population as part of an organization's community. However, there are a set of management concerns…

References

Downes, Larry and Mui, Chunka (2000). "Unleashing the killer app." Harvard Business School Press. Retrieved from  http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1388.html 

Hof, Robert (2003), "The eBay economy." Business Week. Retrieved from  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_34/b3846650.htm 

Merrill, Duane (2006) "Mashups: The New Breed of Web App." www.ibm.com. Retrieved from  http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-mashups.html

Managing the elationship Between Customer and E-Banking

Banking

E banking or the Electronic banking is an Electronic method of money transfer or the EFT. This is a means whereby, an individual transfers money directly from different accounts by use of an Electronic system. This service allows clients to make use of computers or electronic gadgets to access the accounts information and conduct the various transactions involved. The service is beneficial for customers working in remote locations or a workplace. Its biggest advantage is that the service is convenient to customers. A customer can access a transaction at any given time of the day whether at night or during the day. Other advantages of E-Banking include; lower operating system in that, the general operating costs for the E-banking system is usually lower for the banks. A customer registered for the Electronic banking system is guaranteed few errors during the transaction. The…

References

Alessandrini, P., Fratianni, M., & Zazzaro, A. (2009). The changing geography of banking and finance. Dordrecht, Springer Verlag.

Amin, H 2009, 'AN ANALYSIS OF ONLINE BANKING USAGE INTENTIONS: AN EXTENSION OF THE TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL', International Journal Of Business & Society, 10, 1, pp. 27-40, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 May 2012.

Computer Crime research Center. Fears over e-banking in the UK, Research. Retrieved From:

Darsow, M, & Listwan, L 2012, 'Corporate practitioners moving to mobile banking: Key factors driving adoption', Journal Of Payments Strategy & Systems, 5, 4, pp. 360-372, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 May 2012.

BSC Customer

One of the aspects of the balanced scorecard framework is the customer service perspective. This perspective is based on the idea that there is "an increasing realization of the importance of customer focus and customer satisfaction in any business" (BSI, 2013). The general idea is that there is a strong link between pleasing the customer and achieving the desired financial results in particular. If nothing else, it is critical that the customer is able to be happy, because that encourages return customers, and these are essential to the success of any business. When a business pursues other objectives at the expense of the customer, then the business is unlikely to thrive.

At the Cattaraugus ehabilitation Center, there are several elements to the customer perspective. First, the patient outcome is the most important thing. That is the reason why we are in existence, to provide the best service and…

References

BSI. (2013). Balanced scorecard basics. Balanced Scorecard Institute. Retrieved December 8, 2013 from https://balancedscorecard.org/Resources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx

Emirate Airline Analysis

What follows in this report is a review and summary of the customer services aspect of Emirates Airline. The firm in question has most certainly established a name for themselves and there is the common refrain about how adept they are. Even so, there are opportunities for them to get better and all firms should commit to a culture and mindset of continuous improvement, fettering out what problems what do exist and finding common sense solutions for dealing with the same. Regardless of what problems are found, there need to be evidence-based and realistic solutions put forth, and that shall be the goal of this report. While Emirates Airlines does a lot of things well when it comes to their customer services, they could do even better and strive to do so whenever possible.

Company Summary


Before getting into the minutia of what should change and why,…

Job Task Analysis -- Customer Service

Job Task Analysis Customer Service

Position

Customer Service

Location: Corporate Office

shifts, 8-5, 4-12

Sat/Sun -- 9am-6pm

Full Time

Hourly (Entry 10.00/hour, range to $14.80/hour)

Position Objective

Call Center Agent

Preparation / Prerequisites

High School Diploma or Equivalent

Excellent Interpersonal Skills

Working Knowledge of Basic Computer Operations and MS Word and Excel

Must pass a background and drug screen

Organizational Skills

Ability to Multi-Task effectively

Clear speaking voice and good command of English

Flexible Schedule

Negotiating Skills

Typing skills of 25-30 wpm or greater

One year experience in Customer Service or Sales

Ability to problem solve and find win-win solutions

Pleasant "can-do" attitude

Excellent listening and empathy skills

Responsibilities

Work in a call center environment

Maintain customer service targets

Sales and Sales support

Consistently meets established guidelines

Effectively communicates with customers, coworkers and managers

Demonstrates accuracy and thoroughness to Quality Programs

Ability to service…

relationship of a salesperson with his customers. The authors have tried to formulate what factors into this relationship. The main focus is the right type of attitude and interaction between the sales person and the customer, which helps to build a long-term relationship between the two.

'Do communicator characteristics such as similarity and expertise, which have typified the short-term transaction perspective of previous sales research, contribute to sustaining an enduring relationship? How important are relational behaviors such as cooperative intentions, contact intensity, and mutual disclosure in building and maintaining long-term relations?' (Crosby, Evans, & Cowles, 1990)

However, the whole of the paper is based on how the customer looks at this relationship. A model has been made which helps to make it easier to understand the intricacies of a services salesman.

'The model is tested in the context of the agent policy holder relationship involving life insurance. By selecting relationship…

References

Crosby, L.A., Evans, K.R., & Cowles, D. (1990). Relationship Quality in Services Selling: An Interpersonal Influence Perspective. Journal of Marketing, 68-81.

Graham, J.R. (1997). The Subtleties of Selling Services. ABA Banking Journal .

Kasper, H., Helsdingen, P.V., & Vries Jr., W.D. (1999). Services Marketing Management: An international Perspective. New York: Wiley.

Career Preliminary Questionnaire

It is in line with the advert that appeared in the national daily paper concerning the vacancy in your organization that I wish to express my wish to feel the advertised position. I strongly believe I have adequate skills that meet the threshold requirements for a financial advisor trainee in your organization. I have a bachelor's degree in Economics (Honors) from Queen's University-Kingston, Ontario. This implies my vast knowledge in economics related fields such as Accounting, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Econometrics, and Statistics among other fields. Apart from this, I have a certificate in Canadian Security Course (CSC) and Investment Funds in Canada (IFIC) from the Canadian Securities Institute. I completed my high school level studies from the Langley Secondary School- Langley, British Columbia with Honors in Grade 11 and 12. Presently, I work with the CIBC Langley Banking Center as a Customer Service Representative (since 2012). Working with…

Project Management

Customer equirements

Being able to offer customization of tablet PCs and laptops to enterprises and small businesses, all configurable online and at low costs, will successfully differentiate Libertad from the many potential competitors it make encounter in the future. Time-to-market and the tight orchestration of the new product development and introduction (NPDI) process is also critically important to the success of Libertad's business model. CM systems often act as the unifying catalyst across the entire value chain of a business, ensuring customer requirements are accurately captured during the quote phase and then integrated successfully into the production schedules and fulfillment instructions to deliver the final product (Limbasan, usu, 2011). Cloud-based CM systems are providing to be especially adept at managing the wide variation in customer product and service needs while orchestrating internal systems to ensure customers' orders are filled and expectations met (Banerjea, 2011). Where legacy CM systems…

References

Banerjea, D. (2011). Calibrations in the cloud. Quality, 50(3), 40-45.

Cunningham, Patrick, CRM, F.A.I. (2010). IT's responsibility for security, compliance in the cloud. Information Management, 44 (5), HT6-HT8, HT10.

Gido, J., & Clements, J. (2012). Successful project management (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western.

Harding, D., Cheifetz, D., DeAngelo, S., & Ziegler, E. (2004). CRM's silver lining. Marketing Management, 13(2), 27-32.

Health Insurer

Using Business Analytics Responsibly

As members of the buying public, we understand to an extent that information about us is being bought and sold all the time. Marketers use demographic data to better target their respective messages to potential consumers. Healthcare firms use public health information in order to establish contact with to those who require information or medical outreach. And with every product we buy, we offer a greater wealth of data concerning our lifestyle habits and behavioral tendencies. Often, we do this with the expectation that our information will be handled with sensitivity and responsibility by the collecting firm or organization. This expectation is at the center of the case study outlined by Davenport & Harris. The authors describe a case in which health insurer IFA and supermarket chain Shop Sense must weigh the pros and cons of entering into a data-exchange agreement together. As the…

Works Cited:

Davenport, T.H. & Harris, J.G. (2007). The Dark Side of Customer Analytics. Harvard Business Review.