Loyalty Programme Applications in Indian Service Industry

Retaining all customers would not be a good idea for any business. In contrast, allowing the profitable customers to leave would be an even worse idea. Consequently the real solution rests in knowing the value of each customer and then focusing loyalty efforts on those customers. Customers are more likely to be loyal to a group of brands than to a single brand. This is particularly true if the chosen brand is the category leader and costs more. In contrast to the one – brand- for – life mentality of the past, today’s consumers are blatant in their divided loyalties, for their own safety and pleasure. The conceptual framework presented helps to understand the evolving logic of loyalty programs and process of implementing the same. Applications in different service industry for building and sustaining loyalty provide an overview of the status of such programmes.

Electronic Ticketing in Public Transport

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15472450701293866 http://hdl.handle.net/1871/2368

Comparing and Scoring Selected Four Train Ticketing Mobile Phone Applications

To find the best train ticket booking mobile application on the bases of application features. Four widely used mobile phone applications (Ixigo, MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, and IRCTC) for railway ticket booking are selected and application features related to ease of download and use, rating, number of installs, etc. are compared. A practical attempt is made to book a train ticket using all these applications one by one and comparing features such as coach locator, platform locator, route map, fare break-up, showing seat availability, save and pre-fill passenger details, sort search list by train name/number, sort search list by journey duration, sort search list by class, train running status, etc. 1 point is allotted to the applications if a particular feature is available in the applications and 0 is allotted if the feature is not available. Sum of all the points is calculated separately for each application and then ranks are given from 1 to 4 considering the final score. Ixigo mobile application scores the highest among other three train ticketing mobile applications – MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, and IRCTC. Features such as downloading applications via a miss call or SMS; downloading application from websites of Ixigo, MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, and IRCTC; and sorting train search list by class on applications are not found in any of these four applications. Furthermore, features are grouped into groups such as – the features only available in top ranking Ixigo and the features not available in top ranking Ixigo but available in any or all other three applications. This research will be of a good value for mobile railway ticket booking application providers as competition is becoming acute and the booking pattern is shifting from using desktop or laptop to mobile phones and tablets

Paid content strategies for news websites: An empirical study of British newspapers' online business models

This study uses qualitative research interviews and a survey to quantify and analyse business models at online newspapers in the UK. Senior editors and executives reported that news websites rely on advertising income to a greater extent than their print counterparts. Despite this, British news sites continue to charge users for some content, although to a varying degree. The fact that online editions still contribute barely a tenth of total revenues explains this experimental approach towards business strategy. Although paid-for content has mostly failed as a mechanism for the online news business in the past, changes in technology and net culture may mean that it is becoming an option again. The authors examine what content is being charged for and why, and investigate: how the 12 newspapers studied are balancing the need to develop additional revenue streams with the demand for traffic in a buoyant advertising market; the extent to which cannibalisation of the print parent is still a concern; the complementary benefits of developing digital products; strategies towards archived content; the value of columnist content to online users; the success of digital editions and email alerts; the potential of mobile services; and the rapidly developing number of online services and commercial partnerships hosted by newspapers on the Web

Transport Direct market research programme: Findings and implications from phase 1

Department of Transport repor

Web Auctions in Europe

This paper argues that a better understanding of the business model of web auctions can be reached if we adopt a broader view and provide empirical research from different sites. In this paper the business model of web auctions is refined into four dimensions. These are auction model, motives, exchange processes, and stakeholders. One of the objects of this research is to redefine the blurry concept of the business model by analyzing one business model, the web auction model. We show in this research the complexity and diversity of factors contributing to the success of the web auction model. By generalizing the results to the level of business model we also show how complex and diverse business models can be. Motivated by the lack of empirically grounded justification for the mixed business results of web auctions, this paper adopts a qualitative approach that includes telephone interviews with web auctions developed in different European countries.exchange processes;stakeholders;Web auctions