Incorporating Experience Quality Data into CRM Models: The Impact of Gambler Outcomes on Casino Return Times

Enabled by modern interaction-logging technologies, managers increasingly have access to data on quality levels in customer interactions. We consider the direct marketing targeting problem in situations where 1) the customer\u27s experience quality level varies randomly and independently from occasion to occasion, 2) the firm has measures of the quality levels experienced by each customer on each occasion, and 3) the firm can customize marketing according to these measures and the customer\u27s behaviors. A primary contribution of this paper is a framework and methodology to use data on customer experience quality data to model a customer\u27s evolving beliefs about the firm\u27s quality and how these beliefs combine with marketing to influence purchase behavior. Thereby, this paper allows the manager to assess the marketing response of a customer with any specific experience and behavior history, which in turn can be used to decide which customers to target for marketing. This research develops a novel, tractable way to estimate and introduce flexible heterogeneity distributions into Bayesian learning models. The model is estimated using data from the casino industry, an industry which generates more than $60 billion in U.S. revenues but has surprisingly little academic, econometric research. The counterfactuals offer interesting findings on gambler learning and direct marketing responsiveness and suggest that casino profitability can increase substantially when marketing incorporates gamblers\u27 beliefs and past outcome sequences into the targeting decision

The Impact of Feature Advertising on Customer Store Choice

A heavily used competitive tactic in the grocery business is the weekly advertising of price reductions in newspaper inserts and store fliers. Store managers commonly believe that advertisements of price reductions and loss leaders help to build store traffic by diverting customers from competing stores, thereby increasing store volume and profitability. It is therefore not surprising that grocery retail planners across competing stores expend considerable thought on what items to advertise each week and at what levels of prominence. What is surprising, however, is that we marketing scientists do not know much about the manner and extent to which feature advertising in a competitive environment influences where and how customers shop. The marketing science literature has not even been able to establish that feature advertising has a substantial impact on store choice, let alone the more operational question of which categories are better at drawing consumers away from one store and into a competing store. In this paper we employ a stochastic choice modeling framework to propose and empirically estimate a disaggregate, consumer-level model of the effects of feature advertising on store choice. We use this model to understand which categories are more influential drivers of store traffic and better at diverting consumers from competing stores.

Retailer promotion planning: Improving forecast accuracy and interpretability

This article considers the supermarket manager's problem of forecasting demand for a product as a function of the product's attributes and of market control variables.To forecast sales on the stock keeping unit (SKU) level, a good model should account for product attributes, historical sales levels, and store specifics, and to control for marketing mix. One of the challenges here is that many variables which describe product, store, or promotion conditions are categorical with hundreds or thousands of levels in a single attribute. Identifying the right product attributes and incorporating them correctly into a prediction model is a very difficult statistical problem. This article proposes an analytical engine that combines techniques from statistical market response modeling, datamining, and combinatorial optimization to produce a small, efficient rule set that predicts sales volume levels. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc

Retailer Marketing Communications in the Digital Age:Getting the Right Message to the Right Shopper at the Right Time

The evolving retail landscape in the digital age has resulted in opportunities and novel capabilities for retailers. This paper identifies four key challenges facing retailers based on insights from practitioners and academics using the customer journey framework as a guide. It then considers evidence from both practice and theory on how contemporary retailers might best innovate in the face of these challenges, to get “the right message to the right shopper at the right time.” Historically, retail was largely constrained to focus on individual touchpoints as manufacturers drove the majority of communication decisions. More recently, with the ability of e-commerce to capture the shopper decision journey more comprehensively, retailers are better able to understand what the right message would be as well as where, when, and how to deliver it to reach the most responsive shoppers to achieve the retailer's strategic objectives in each phase of the journey.</p

Parental Preference Assessment for Vesicoureteral Reflux Management in Children

PurposeParents of children with vesicoureteral reflux are presented with a variety of management options, which in many cases offer a similar risk-benefit ratio. To facilitate shared decision making, parental preferences regarding vesicoureteral reflux treatment options need to be acknowledged. We aimed to characterize the clinical experience of parents and elicit core themes affecting decision making in regard to managing vesicoureteral reflux in their child.Materials and methodsA semistructured, qualitative interview script was developed and vetted by 25 pediatric urologists to discuss treatment options for vesicoureteral reflux. Additional patient interviews were conducted until new themes failed to arise. Content analysis was performed to extract all statements that described treatment options. Similar statements were combined until a final list of unique themes emerged.ResultsA total of 26 interviews were performed, yielding 689 statements about overall parent experiences with managing vesicoureteral reflux in the child and 450 statements (65%) pertaining to treatment options. Of the 13 themes that emerged, those most commonly considered were the prevention of future urinary tract infections by 85% of parents, the efficacy rate of treatment options by 85%, the burden of daily maintenance or compliance by 77%, antibiotic resistance by 69%, chronic kidney damage by 62% and invasiveness by 58%.ConclusionsOur study emphasizes that when choosing a treatment option for vesicoureteral reflux in their child, parent preferences regarding risks and benefits are variable. However, their chief concerns include whether a method decreases the risk of urinary tract infections, has an acceptable efficacy rate and aligns itself with the capabilities of the family. These themes help frame discussions between families and clinicians regarding vesicoureteral reflux management, and they can facilitate shared decision making

MP55-05 PARENTAL PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT FOR VESICOURETERAL REFLUX MANAGEMENT IN CHILDREN

PurposeParents of children with vesicoureteral reflux are presented with a variety of management options, which in many cases offer a similar risk-benefit ratio. To facilitate shared decision making, parental preferences regarding vesicoureteral reflux treatment options need to be acknowledged. We aimed to characterize the clinical experience of parents and elicit core themes affecting decision making in regard to managing vesicoureteral reflux in their child.Materials and methodsA semistructured, qualitative interview script was developed and vetted by 25 pediatric urologists to discuss treatment options for vesicoureteral reflux. Additional patient interviews were conducted until new themes failed to arise. Content analysis was performed to extract all statements that described treatment options. Similar statements were combined until a final list of unique themes emerged.ResultsA total of 26 interviews were performed, yielding 689 statements about overall parent experiences with managing vesicoureteral reflux in the child and 450 statements (65%) pertaining to treatment options. Of the 13 themes that emerged, those most commonly considered were the prevention of future urinary tract infections by 85% of parents, the efficacy rate of treatment options by 85%, the burden of daily maintenance or compliance by 77%, antibiotic resistance by 69%, chronic kidney damage by 62% and invasiveness by 58%.ConclusionsOur study emphasizes that when choosing a treatment option for vesicoureteral reflux in their child, parent preferences regarding risks and benefits are variable. However, their chief concerns include whether a method decreases the risk of urinary tract infections, has an acceptable efficacy rate and aligns itself with the capabilities of the family. These themes help frame discussions between families and clinicians regarding vesicoureteral reflux management, and they can facilitate shared decision making

Retailer Marketing Communications in the Digital Age::Getting the Right Message to the Right Shopper at the Right Time

The evolving retail landscape in the digital age has resulted in opportunities and novel capabilities for retailers. This paper identifies four key challenges facing retailers based on insights from practitioners and academics using the customer journey framework as a guide. It then considers evidence from both practice and theory on how contemporary retailers might best innovate in the face of these challenges, to get “the right message to the right shopper at the right time.” Historically, retail was largely constrained to focus on individual touchpoints as manufacturers drove the majority of communication decisions. More recently, with the ability of e-commerce to capture the shopper decision journey more comprehensively, retailers are better able to understand what the right message would be as well as where, when, and how to deliver it to reach the most responsive shoppers to achieve the retailer’s strategic objectives in each phase of the journey. It is within this context that this paper considers the following key challenges: 1) When is the right time to communicate with a given shopper?, 2) What is the right way to communicate with a given shopper?, 3) What is the right way to leverage in-store collateral?, and 4) How do we cultivate the right long-term relationship with a shopper