Nikita Cabeleireiros wants to improve the efficiency of its customer relationship management by adopting an appropriate CRM strategy

The positions SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) have in national economies have been increasing, being extremely important to the development of the economies. SMBs are seeking more and more CRM applications, for this reason, CRM as been having a rapid development in the last years. My master project will study a CRM implementation on Nikita Cabeleireiros, a small business in a common local market, and examine the CRM key risks and benefits. Another concept is presented, CEM (Customer experience Management), as the next competitive advantage and differentiator factor between SMBs. The literature review resulted from an intensive research and will analyze previous research concerning the topics mentioned above. The outcome of this research shows that SMBs should embrace a customer-centric strategy, as CRM strategy, in order to achieve higher customer service which will lead to higher customer retention and customer loyalty. This study should be a useful tool to SMBs adopting CRM and to initiate further investigation regarding these topics.A posição que as PMEs (Pequenas e Médias Empresas) ocupam nas economias nacionais tem vindo a crescer, sendo extremamente importantes para o desenvolvimento das economias. A procura de aplicações de CRM nas PMEs tem vindo a aumentar, por esta razão, a estratégia de CRM tem apresentado um rápido desenvolvimento nos últimos anos. A minha tese de mestrado, consiste num estudo aprofundado sobre a implementação de uma estratégia de CRM na Nikita Cabeleireiros, uma PME num mercado comum. Examina, também, os principais riscos e benefícios da implementação de uma estratégia de CRM. Outro conceito é apresentado, CEM (Gestão das experiências do cliente), como próximo factor competitivo e elemento de diferenciação entre PMEs. A revisão da literatura resulta de uma pesquisa intensiva e analisa artigos e documentos referente aos tópicos anteriormente mencionados. O resultado desta pesquisa mostra que PMEs devem “abraçar” uma estratégia focada no cliente, tal como a estratégia de CRM, com a finalidade de melhorar o serviço ao cliente o que irá aumentar a taxa de retenção dos clientes e a respectiva, lealdade. Este estudo acredito que será uma evidência útil para as PMEs adoptarem um estratégia de CRM e iniciar mais investigações relativamente a estes tópicos

The impact of chatbot technology attributes on customer experience : an example in telecom

The implementation of Artificial Intelligence technologies by companies is changing the nature of interactions with customers and it is seen as a business opportunity. The automation of repetitive and ordinary work is now possible, resulting in an increase of the productivity, creativity, and efficiency of organizations. However, there should be a preoccupation to understand the importance of the customer experience with the introduction of these innovations, not only because people react differently to technology, but also to ensure the overall brand impact is positive. The aim of this study is to investigate the chatbot perceived attributes impact in customer experience, by analyzing the effects of human-like design cues and customer satisfaction on this relationship, in the scope of telecommunications industry. In order to accomplish these goals, a cross-sectional online questionnaire was conducted. Findings from the quantitative data analysis indicated that both perceived technology attributes studied, Ease of Use and Usefulness, impact positively the customer experience. Overall, the effect of the chatbot attributes on the experience is mediated by the customer’s satisfaction with the chatbot and has no different effects depending on the presence of human-like design cues in the chatbot.A implementação de tecnologias de inteligência artificial por parte das empresas está a mudar a natureza das interações com os seus clientes e é vista como oportunidade de negócio. A automação de trabalho repetitivo e rotineiro é agora possível, resultando num aumento de produtividade, criatividade e eficiência por parte das organizações. Contudo, deve haver uma preocupação para perceber a importância da experiência do cliente com a introdução destas inovações, não só pelo facto das pessoas responderem de forma diferente à tecnologia, mas também para garantir que a marca sofre um impacto positivo geral. O objetivo deste estudo é investigar o impacto dos atributos tecnológicos percebidos de um chatbot na experiência do cliente, analisando o efeito dos sinais humanos no design e a satisfação do cliente nesta relação, no âmbito da indústria das telecomunicações. Para tal, um questionário transversal foi aplicado. Os resultados da análise de dados quantitativos indicam que os dois atributos tecnológicos estudados, Facilidade de Uso e Utilidade, impactam positivamente a experiência. De modo geral, o efeito dos atributos do chatbot na experiência é mediado pela satisfação do consumidor com o chatbot e não tem efeitos diferentes dependendo da presença de sinais humanos no design do mesmo

Customer relationship management for brand commitment and brand loyalty

This article examined the impact of customer relationship management strategy on customers brand commitment and brand loyalty in the Nigeria financial sector. Methodology: the positivist quantitative survey approach was used to collect primary for this research. Simple random sampling was used to select 250 customers of Nigerian deposit accepting banks. Findings: the study found that CRM strategy impacts positively on banks’customers brand commitment and loyalty behaviours. However, continuance loyalty weighted highly positive on customer advocacy behaviour than affective loyalty. Conclusions: the study concluded that customer relationship management strategy helps in winning customers brand commitment and loyalty. Thus, continuance factors are suitable for predicting advocacy intentions of customers of Nigerian banks. Recommendations: the study recommended for strategic policy makers in the Nigeria financial sector to improve on their firms’ CRM infrastructure in order to continually meet customers’ expectations. KEYWORDS: Customer relationship management, customer advocacy, brand commitment, loyalt

Energy Service Companies Market in Europe - Status Report 2010

The present report is the 2007-2010 European ESCO status report, continuing the work of the "Latest Development of Energy Services Companies across Europe European" (Status Report 2007) published by the European Commission DG Joint Research Center in 2007 and which covered the European ESCO market development during 2005-2007. The first ESCO report of this series is Energy Service Companies in Europe (Status Report 2005) published by the European Commission DG Joint Research Center in 2005. The aim of the present report is to update and to investigate the specific situation in every country in more detail. To this end, the authors sketch the current status of national markets, and identify changes that have occurred during 2007-2010. In addition, the factors influencing the development are investigated. Specific barriers are identified and potential interventions to increase energy efficiency investments and to exploit energy saving potentials through ESCOs across Europe are discussed.JRC.DDG.F.8-Renewable Energy (Ispra

Improving materials management in electronics manufacturing

The aim of this thesis is to determine how in-plant materials management in electronics manufacturing can be improved and to show how a strategy for improvement can be developed for Celestica Limited's Kidsgrove plant. The literature was reviewed to bring out the current issues and topics of interest in materials management. An industrial analysis, through company visits and case studies, was carried out. A number of "best practices" were identified from the literature and the case studies. The "best practices" identified were prioritisation methods, outsourcing of value added services, shop floor control systems, focused stores, tailored logistics, use of computers, trace ability, use of technology or automation, automatic identification, maintaining data integrity, internet-enabled supply-chain, JIT or hybridised JIT-MRP, Kanban, linking and communication of MPS's, application of technology, kitting and recording actual usage of material. [Continues.

The Role of Data for AI Startup Growth

Artificial intelligence (“AI”)-enabled products are expected to drive economic growth. Training data are important for firms developing AI-enabled products; without training data, firms cannot develop or refine their algorithms. This is particularly the case for AI startups developing new algorithms and products. However, there is no consensus in the literature on which aspects of training data are most important. Using unique survey data of AI startups, we find that startups with access to proprietary training data are more likely to acquire venture capital funding

Quadri-dimensional approach for data analytics in mobile networks

The telecommunication market is growing at a very fast pace with the evolution of new technologies to support high speed throughput and the availability of a wide range of services and applications in the mobile networks. This has led to a need for communication service providers (CSPs) to shift their focus from network elements monitoring towards services monitoring and subscribers’ satisfaction by introducing the service quality management (SQM) and the customer experience management (CEM) that require fast responses to reduce the time to find and solve network problems, to ensure efficiency and proactive maintenance, to improve the quality of service (QoS) and the quality of experience (QoE) of the subscribers. While both the SQM and the CEM demand multiple information from different interfaces, managing multiple data sources adds an extra layer of complexity with the collection of data. While several studies and researches have been conducted for data analytics in mobile networks, most of them did not consider analytics based on the four dimensions involved in the mobile networks environment which are the subscriber, the handset, the service and the network element with multiple interface correlation. The main objective of this research was to develop mobile network analytics models applied to the 3G packet-switched domain by analysing data from the radio network with the Iub interface and the core network with the Gn interface to provide a fast root cause analysis (RCA) approach considering the four dimensions involved in the mobile networks. This was achieved by using the latest computer engineering advancements which are Big Data platforms and data mining techniques through machine learning algorithms.Electrical and Mining EngineeringM. Tech. (Electrical Engineering

Employee experience as a foundation to build superior customer experience : IEC LV Motors, ABB Oy

Nowadays great products are not simply enough, rather companies are forced to produce a good service experience in addition to their range of products. Market leadership is universally shift-ing towards organizations, who succeed in creating the best possible customer experience in their field as a part of their business. Dissatisfied customers become costly to companies, both financially and in the form of loss of reputation, when customers switch to a competing company where their needs and desires are better met. Employees of companies are the executors of the company’s result, which is why their treatment is also directly reflected in the company’s cus-tomers. Therefore, employee experience is an important element to invest in when the desire is to create superior customer experience. This study has been conducted in collaboration with ABB as a part of the larger Superior Cus-tomer Experience (SCE) project. The aim of the thesis is to understand and reflect the connection of employee experience and customer experience in order to gain an understanding of the con-nection between these factors. Theoretical background was built to generate understanding of construction and scale of employee experience and psychological contract as well as the for-mation of customer experience and its appearance in business relationships. The study was im-plemented by interviewing employees working at different stages of the customer journey, in order to achieve the most comprehensive and diverse results possible to fully understand the service experience. Semi-structured interviews were held via Teams and in total eleven employ-ees were interviewed. The study identified six key themes, which were recognized to have a massive impact on ongoing business and consequently formulating the connection between employee experience and cus-tomer experience. These themes were identified to represent interaction and response time, workload and work community, skills and training, supervisory work and management, pro-cesses and systems, and tools. Results of the study acknowledged multiple critical points and targets for development, how the customer experience can be taken to a better level by paying attention to the indicated points initiated by employees. Above all, companies are not able to attain a superior customer experience without its most essential link between the company and the customers, its own employees

Service Undone: A Grounded Theory of Strategically Constructed Silos and Their Impact on Customer-Company Interactions from the Perspective of Retail Employees

This work elaborates the impacts of strategically constructed silos that are not byproducts of flagging cross-departmental cooperation or the cumulative effect of decades of decentralized command and control. Rather, these silos are strategically intended structures within organizations. Most significantly, the substantive theory of strategically constructed silos and their impact on customer service contributes to the field by illustrating the presence and consequence of silos occurring in suboptimal conditions. The existence of silos has implications that extend far beyond the retail area. A key take-away from this research is that contrary to how most customer service processes are designed, not all customer-company interactions are alike. As shown in the data, interaction types vary both in regard to the degree of knowledge needed by retail employees to fully serve customers, and the routine or nonroutine nature of the interaction. This is an important finding since it directly relates to whether the existence of a silo is appropriate (or optimal) for a specific interaction or task. Additionally, the findings suggest the role that a task\u27s routine-ness plays is secondary to the degree of specialized knowledge needed by retail employees to meet customer expectations. Understanding the various customer-company interaction types and how each interaction type may be affected by silos is crucial for designing customer experiences that will sustain over time. Likewise, identifying customer-company interaction types correctly and then subsequently developing strategies to support these interaction types is critical for both customer experience management (CEM) initiatives and customer relationship management (CRM) system design within the company. This work provides an overview of the implications of strategically constructed silos occurring in suboptimal conditions and provides recommendations for diagnosing customer-company interactions based on interaction type. By identifying strategically constructed silos as an intended structure of the company, the model elaborated here works to deliver prescriptive and specific strategies for managers and employees\u27 use as they attempt to improve their firm\u27s customer-company interaction outcomes