26,127 research outputs found
Effectiveness of Mobile Phone Customer Retention Strategies
Using the 419,194 customers of a mobile operator as the sample, this research investigates the effectiveness of the company’s retention strategies. It examines the effect of such strategies on extending customer life cycle. We find that the retention policies and the incremental average revenue per user (ARPU) in the retention period over the month prior are positively correlated. In addition, the correlation between the retention polices and the increments of consumer consumption variables, such as the number of calls, the number of short messages and the value-added services, are also positive. Moreover, the significantly positive interaction terms between the retention bonus and the consumption increments suggest that the bonus affects the relative ARPU through the consumption variables. Finally, the retention strategies demonstrate the different effectiveness according to the three different calling plans. The managerial implications of our findings are discussed
Sales Promotion and Consumer Loyalty: A Study of Nigerian Tecommunication Industry
In today’s competitive business world customers are considered to be kings. Customers have several choices to make among alternative products, and they exercise a high level of influence in the market with respect to product size, quality and price. Hence, it is important for
producers to meet the needs of customers in order to stay competitive. One of the marketing communication tools that is used in attracting the attention of the customer and build their loyalty is sales promotion. The aim of this paper therefore is to determine the effect of sales
promotion on customer loyalty in the telecommunication industry. In this study, the survey method was used in gathering information from the respondents. Simple random sampling was used to select a sample size of 310, while descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were
conducted with the aid of SPSS software. Producers spend a large part of their total marketing communication expenses on sales promotion. Hence, this paper attempts to find the effect of sales promotion on customer loyalty using a sample of customers of mobile telecommunication
services. The paper found that, there is positive relationship between sales promotion and customer loyalty. More importantly, it was discovered that non-loyal customers are more prone to switch to competing products as a result of sales promotion than loyal customer
Rural consumers' adoption of CRM in a developing country context
This paper illustrates how understanding consumer preferences through market research may enhance CRM adoption among the rural customers of a developing country like Bangladesh. It presents the case of Community Information Centre (CIC) established by Grameenphone, a company owned by Telenor, the Norwegian telecommunications company and Grameen Bank, the Nobel prize winning micro credit organisation in the rural settings of Bangladesh. The paper shows that CIC is an innovative way of building and maintaining customer relationships and technological interface with the financially constrained consumers in a poor developing economy like Bangladesh
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The sustainable clothing market: pragmatic strategies for UK fashion retailers
Sports Sponsorship As A Tool For Customer Engagement
This paper reports the findings from a series of semi-structured interviews with Sponsorship Managers in major UK-based sports sponsors. The key theme explored is the use of sponsorship leverage strategies as a means of deepening engagement with both existing and potential customers. Therefore, this study draws on literature from the field of customer engagement, relating this to sponsorship objectives, in order to assess the extent to which sponsors are actively seeking to engage customers through their sponsorship activities. Customer engagement and building an affinity with brands are cited as objectives now being pursued by sponsors. The findings suggest that sponsorship is increasingly being used by brands as a springboard for wider marketing communications activity, including social media and event-based customer experiences. Sponsorship success is not guaranteed simply by buying the rights to associate with a sporting property, but rather, is maximised when creatively activated to engage customers interactively, as opposed to the one-way communication medium of advertising. The evidence provided highlights examples of good practice among sponsors in a growing area of interest. Therefore, a wider ranging study of the use of event-based experiences and social media as sponsorship leverage strategies is proposed as an area for future research
To boardrooms and sustainability: the changing nature of segmentation
Market segmentation is the process by which customers in markets with some heterogeneity
are grouped into smaller homogeneous segments of more ‘similar’ customers. A market
segment is a group of individuals, groups or organisations sharing similar characteristics and
buying behaviour that cause them to have relatively similar needs and purchasing behaviour.
Segmentation is not a new concept: for six decades marketers have, in various guises, sought to
break-down a market into sub-groups of users, each sharing common needs, buying behavior
and marketing requirements. However, this approach to target market strategy development
has been rejuvenated in the past few years. Various reasons account for this upsurge in the
usage of segmentation, examination of which forms the focus of this white paper.
Ready access to data enables faster creation of a segmentation and the testing of propositions to
take to market. ‘Big data’ has made the re-thinking of target market segments and value
propositions inevitable, desirable, faster and more flexible. The resulting information has
presented companies with more topical and consumer-generated insights than ever before.
However, many marketers, analytics directors and leadership teams feel over-whelmed by the
sheer quantity and immediacy of such data.
Analytical prowess in consultants and inside client organisations has benefited from a stepchange,
using new heuristics and faster computing power, more topical data and stronger
market insights. The approach to segmentation today is much smarter and has stretched well
away from the days of limited data explored only with cluster analysis. The coverage and wealth
of the solutions are unimaginable when compared to the practices of a few years ago. Then,
typically between only six to ten segments were forced into segmentation solutions, so that an
organisation could cater for these macro segments operationally as well as understand them
intellectually. Now there is the advent of what is commonly recognised as micro segmentation,
where the complexity of business operations and customer management requires highly
granular thinking. In support of this development, traditional agency/consultancy roles have
transitioned into in-house business teams led by data, campaign and business change planners.
The challenge has shifted from developing a granular segmentation solution that describes all
customers and prospects, into one of enabling an organisation to react to the granularity of the
solution, deploying its resources to permit controlled and consistent one-to-one interaction
within segments. So whilst the cost of delivering and maintaining the solution has reduced with
technology advances, a new set of systems, costs and skills in channel and execution
management is required to deliver on this promise. These new capabilities range from rich
feature creative and content management solutions, tailored copy design and deployment tools,
through to instant messaging middleware solutions that initiate multi-streams of activity in a
variety of analytical engines and operational systems.
Companies have recruited analytics and insight teams, often headed by senior personnel, such as
an Insight Manager or Analytics Director. Indeed, the situations-vacant adverts for such
personnel out-weigh posts for brand and marketing managers. Far more companies possess the
in-house expertise necessary to help with segmentation analysis. Some organisations are also
seeking to monetise one of the most regularly under-used latent business assets… data.
Developing the capability and culture to bring data together from all corners of a business, the open market, commercial sources and business partners, is a step-change, often requiring a
Chief Data Officer. This emerging role has also driven the professionalism of data exploration,
using more varied and sophisticated statistical techniques.
CEOs, CFOs and COOs increasingly are the sponsor of segmentation projects as well as the users
of the resulting outputs, rather than CMOs. CEOs because recession has forced re-engineering of
value propositions and the need to look after core customers; CFOs because segmentation leads
to better and more prudent allocation of resources – especially NPD and marketing – around the
most important sub-sets of a market; COOs because they need to better look after key
customers and improve their satisfaction in service delivery. More and more it is recognised that
with a new segmentation comes organisational realignment and change, so most business
functions now have an interest in a segmentation project, not only the marketers.
Largely as a result of the digital era and the growth of analytics, directors and company
leadership teams are becoming used to receiving more extensive market intelligence and
quickly updated customer insight, so leading to faster responses to market changes, customer
issues, competitor moves and their own performance. This refreshing of insight and a leadership
team’s reaction to this intelligence often result in there being more frequent modification of a
target market strategy and segmentation decisions.
So many projects set up to consider multi-channel strategy and offerings; digital marketing;
customer relationship management; brand strategies; new product and service development;
the re-thinking of value propositions, and so forth, now routinely commence with a
segmentation piece in order to frame the ongoing work. Most organisations have deployed
CRM systems and harnessed associated customer data. CRM first requires clarity in segment
priorities. The insights from a CRM system help inform the segmentation agenda and steer how
they engage with their important customers or prospects. The growth of CRM and its ensuing
data have assisted the ongoing deployment of segmentation.
One of the biggest changes for segmentation is the extent to which it is now deployed by
practitioners in the public and not-for-profit sectors, who are harnessing what is termed social
marketing, in order to develop and to execute more shrewdly their targeting, campaigns and
messaging. For Marketing per se, the interest in the marketing toolkit from non-profit
organisations, has been big news in recent years. At the very heart of the concept of social
marketing is the market segmentation process.
The extreme rise in the threat to security from global unrest, terrorism and crime has focused
the minds of governments, security chiefs and their advisors. As a result, significant resources,
intellectual capability, computing and data management have been brought to bear on the
problem. The core of this work is the importance of identifying and profiling threats and so
mitigating risk. In practice, much of this security and surveillance work harnesses the tools
developed for market segmentation and the profiling of different consumer behaviours.
This white paper presents the findings from interviews with leading exponents of segmentation
and also the insights from a recent study of marketing practitioners relating to their current
imperatives and foci. More extensive views of some of these ‘leading lights’ have been sought
and are included here in order to showcase the latest developments and to help explain both
the ongoing surge of segmentation and the issues under-pinning its practice. The principal
trends and developments are thereby presented and discussed in this paper
Multichannel in a complex world
The proliferation of devices and channels has brought new challenges to just about every
organisation in delivering consistently good customer experiences and effectively joining up
service provision with marketing activity, data and content. A good multichannel strategy and
execution is increasingly becoming essential to marketers and customer experience
professionals from every sector. This report seeks to identify the key issues, challenges and opportunities that surround
multichannel and provide some best practice insight and principles on the elements that are
key to multichannel success. As part of the research for this report, we spoke to six
experienced customer experience and marketing practitioners from large organisations
across different sectors.
In Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success, Akin Arikan
(2008) said:
‘Because customers are multichannel beings and demand relevant, consistent experiences
across all channels, businesses need to adopt a multichannel mind-set when listening to
their customers.’
It was clear from the companies interviewed for this report that it remains challenging for
many organisations to maintain consistency across so many customer touchpoints. Not only
that, but the ability to balance consistency with the capability to fully exploit the unique
attributes of each channel remains an aspiration for many.
The proliferation of devices and digital channels has added complexity to customer journeys,
making issues around the joining up of customer experience and the attribution of value of
key importance to many. Whilst senior leaders within the organisations spoken to seem to be
bought in to multichannel, this buy-in was not always replicated across the rest of the
organisation and did not always translate into a cohesive multichannel strategy. A number of companies were undertaking work around customer journey mapping and
customer segmentation, using a variety of passive and actively collected data in order to
identify specific areas of poor customer experience and create action plans for improvement.
Others were undertaking projects using sophisticated tracking and tagging technologies to
develop an understanding of the value and role of specific channels and to provide better
intelligence to the business on attribution that might be used to inform future investment
decisions.
A consistent barrier to improving customer experience is the ability to join up many different
legacy systems and data in order to provide a single customer view and form the basis for
delivery of a more consistent and cohesive multichannel approach.
Whilst there remain significant challenges around multichannel, there are some useful
technologies allowing businesses to develop better insight into customer motivation and
activity. Nonetheless, delivery of seamless multichannel experience remains a work-inprogress
for many
INTERNET RETAIL IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS
This study investigates Internet retailers in a developing country. It aims to investigate the characteristic of business profiles and operations, and to describe performance measurement implemented and its use. Internet-based research was adopted by combining a questionnaire email survey with web content analysis to study Indonesian Internet retailers. The results show that the majority of Indonesian Internet retailers are immature, small size, and without store-presence. The business operation practices, such as ordering, payment, and communication, indicate some differences from those in
developed economies. Though Indonesian Internet retailers are still immature, they have measured various aspects of
business performance. Those measured more performance indicators are likely to use the information more intensively to support decision making. This study has limitations such as the small number of responses, which might prevent the generalization of the results. The findings could be used by local Internet retailers to improve the business operations and performance measurement, as well as global Internet retailers entering Indonesian market to adopt some local operation practices
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