Implications of Loyalty Program Membership and Service Experiences for Customer Retention and Value

Companies that offer loyalty reward programs believe that their programs have a long-run positive effect on customer evaluations and behavior. However, if loyalty rewards programs increase relationship durations and usage levels, customers will be increasingly exposed to the complete spectrum of service experiences, including experiences that may cause customers to switch to another service provider. Using cross-sectional, time-series data from a worldwide financial services company that offers a loyalty reward program, this article investigates the conditions under which a loyalty rewards program will have a positive effect on customer evaluations, behavior, and repeat purchase intentions. The results show that members in the loyalty reward program overlook or discount negative evaluations of the company vis-à-vis competition. One possible reason could be that members of the loyalty rewards program perceive that they are getting better quality and service for their price or, in other words, “good value”.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Minimum Technical Data Elements for Liquid Biopsy Data Submitted to Public Databases

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154656/1/cpt1747.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154656/2/cpt1747-sup-0001-FigS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154656/3/cpt1747_am.pd

RNA-Seq Mapping and Detection of Gene Fusions with a Suffix Array Algorithm

High-throughput RNA sequencing enables quantification of transcripts (both known and novel), exon/exon junctions and fusions of exons from different genes. Discovery of gene fusions–particularly those expressed with low abundance– is a challenge with short- and medium-length sequencing reads. To address this challenge, we implemented an RNA-Seq mapping pipeline within the LifeScope software. We introduced new features including filter and junction mapping, annotation-aided pairing rescue and accurate mapping quality values. We combined this pipeline with a Suffix Array Spliced Read (SASR) aligner to detect chimeric transcripts. Performing paired-end RNA-Seq of the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 using the SOLiD system, we called 40 gene fusions among over 120,000 splicing junctions. We validated 36 of these 40 fusions with TaqMan assays, of which 25 were expressed in MCF-7 but not the Human Brain Reference. An intra-chromosomal gene fusion involving the estrogen receptor alpha gene ESR1, and another involving the RPS6KB1 (Ribosomal protein S6 kinase beta-1) were recurrently expressed in a number of breast tumor cell lines and a clinical tumor sample

The effect of service experiences over time on a supplier's retention of business customers

This paper examines the link between a supplier's marketing and service operations and its business customers' subsequent repatronage behavior. We develop a dynamic model of service contract renewal for an individual firm, at the contract level, recognizing interdependencies among service contract renewal decisions due to the firm's purchase of multiple contracts from the same supplier. The decision to renew a service contract is modeled as a function of service quality and price, where service quality is measured by the supplier's service operations metrics over time. By incorporating longitudinal data about the supplier's service operations, this study investigates how average service levels, variability in service levels (especially extreme outcomes), and timing of service delivery influence firms' service contract renewal decisions. The study context is support services for high-technology systems in business markets in Germany and the United Kingdom, where service operations metrics over time typically have skewed distributions. Firm behavior is represented by a binary choice model at the contract level, estimated as a binary response model with a complementary log-log link function incorporating random intercepts. The study shows that a firm that has a few extremely favorable experiences for a given service contract is more likely to subsequently renew that service contract, after controlling for average service levels. Firms weigh recent experiences (i.e., within the past year)-rather than earlier experiences-when deciding whether or not to renew, so the timing of service experiences may be critical to the survival of buyer-seller relationships. Overall, the study suggests that models of customer retention should incorporate the extent, variability, and timing of a supplier's service delivery over time at the contract/product level

Racial Differences in Depression Trajectories among Older Women: Socioeconomic, Family, and Health Influences

Abstract available at publisher's website