Identifying the right solution customers: a managerial methodology

The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a methodology for identifying, assessing and segmenting customers for business solutions. Firstly, criteria for evaluating solution customers are identified from the literature. These criteria are then refined and differentiated through interviews with 23 solution project managers. Secondly, a longitudinal case study with three solution suppliers and five of their customers is conducted to transfer the selection criteria into a managerial methodology which is validated by both solution suppliers and customers. The developed methodology comprises 21 criteria which are structured into two dimensions: the quality of the relationship to date and the customer's potential for future solution partnership. By combining these two dimensions into a portfolio analysis, four customer segments are identified to help suppliers determine customer attractiveness. The study's contribution lies in bridging academic knowledge and managerial practice to develop a new methodology for helping solution providers to make better informed decisions and reduce the risk of solution failure

Bridging The Gap For Destination Extreme Sports - A Model of Sports Tourism Customer Experience

This longitudinal study proposes a conceptual model of sports tourism customer experience in the context of a mountain-biking extreme sport camp. Customer experience is conceptualised as a three-dimensional framework consisting of five dimensions: hedonic pleasure, personal progression, social interaction, efficiency and surreal feeling. Using the means-end approach in 89 semi-structured interviews with clients of a mountain-biking camp, conducted over three years, the authors identified hedonic pleasure and personal progression as the two core experiences valued by customers. The core experience generates surreal feelings, incomparable and memorable evaluations of the overall experience. Social interaction facilitates the core experience, while efficiency enables the core experience. Existing marketing management frameworks lack empirical investigation and social science frameworks fail to take a holistic view; our framework bridges the gap between social science and marketing literatures by exploring, testing and incorporating both streams empirically. Implications for practitioners' customer insight processes and future research directions are discussed. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down

EXQ : development and validation of a multiple-item scale for assessing customer experience quality

Positioned in the deliberations related to service marketing, the conceptualisation of service quality, current service quality measurements, and the importance of the evolving construct of customer experience, this thesis develops and validates a measurement for customer experience quality (EXQ) in the context of repeat purchases of mortgage buyers in the United Kingdom. The thesis explores the relationship between the customer experience quality and the important marketing outcomes of customer satisfaction, repeat purchasing behaviour, loyalty and word-of- mouth intentions. The methodology follows Churchill’s (1979) scale development paradigm approach to scale development and is also informed by the more recent publication of Walsh and Beatty (2007). This involves creating the EXQ scale from the following sequence of research activities: (a) employing a review of the literature on service marketing, service quality, service quality measurements, and customer experience research; (b) generating an initial item pool from qualitative research; (c) purifying and validating the EXQ scale through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM). The EXQ scale explains 63 per cent of all variances in customer satisfaction, more than 86 per cent of loyalty, and more than 94 per cent of word-of-mouth intentions. This is evidence of the high explanatory power of the EXQ scale for important marketing outcomes. This thesis represents both the first empirically derived conceptualisation of customer experience and the first validated measure of customer experience quality. It reports the findings collected from three independent samples of repeat mortgage buyers from a United Kingdom bank.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

How should firms develop and or change their marketing competencies when developing relationships with consumers online?

An empirical study is reported which attempts both to improve marketing practice whilst developing key aspects of marketing and resource-based theory. The thesis describes how firms can develop marketing competencies to exploit emerging online marketing technology and business opportunities. In doing so, the thesis provides empirical evidence that opens up what is widely acknowledged in the literature as "the black box of resources". Specifically, it explores the way marketing competencies develop as the result of investment in complementary marketing resources and conscious management activity. A literature review is presented which identifies generic marketing competencies and how they are expressed across a continuum of three forms of marketing: transaction, relationship and network. From this insight, the researcher develops a framework and a set of tools that help managers identify their firms' current marketing competencies and develop future marketing competencies needed to implement their marketing strategies. A co-operative inquiry research design is developed that permits managers to use and develop further these frameworks and tools, improve their day-to-day practice and contribute to academic literature and theory. The experience of two sets of managers trying to develop their firms' online marketing competencies through co-operative inquiry is presented. One inquiry is with a highly successful dot. com and the other the UK division of a leading automotive manufacturer. The findings from each are compared and the researcher develops contributions to both theory and practice. The contributions confirm and illuminate much of the extant, conceptually-grounded dynamic capabilities literature. The major implication for marketing theory and practice is that online consumer relationships can only develop incrementally along a continuum of marketing competencies. Details as to how these marketing competencies develop and change are discussed. Secondary contributions involve economics and the nature of co- operative inquiry within a marketing context. The validity of co-operative inquiry, and therefore of this research, is discussed in detail. Limitations of the research and its future directions are discussed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Identifying the roles of university fundraisers in securing transformational gifts: Lessons from Canada

As university public funding diminishes so the need for private funding increases commensurately. We investigate how a purposive sample of 16 professional university fundraisers in Canada successfully secured large (>$5m CAD) transformation donations from high-net-worth Canadian philanthropists. Using an inductive process, we articulate three key roles (the 3Ns – Networker, Negotiator and Knowledge-broker) professional fundraisers use for securing transformational gifts. Collectively, these roles indicate the relational nature of transformational giving; gifts arise from a co-created dyadic process of fundraiser–philanthropist interaction. The recommendations have major implications for how university development teams are developed, structured, trained and rewarded. We suggest further research investigates how trust develops between fundraisers and transformational gift-givers, and the motivations for transformational giving

Resource sharing in business-to-business contexts: a conceptualisation and guide for future research

The purpose of the study is to conceptualise sharing in the B2B context by reviewing three literature fields, which deal with B2B sharing but have not yet been integrated: B2B sharing economy, horizontal collaboration, and industrial symbiosis. A systematic literature review is used, based on 51 studies from the three fields. Findings are structured into: 1) Four key conceptual constructs – actors (who), resources (what), governance (how), motivations (why) and 2) Implementation barriers of B2B sharing. From an integrated view on constructs and related barriers, three research avenues are identified. This study contributes to the development of B2B sharing, an emerging field which is subsumed under the sharing economy but, compared to C2C sharing, under researched and practiced. No study has yet investigated the origins and scope of this ill-defined concept, linked the current knowledge, and focused on the specific implementation barriers as a requirement for further advancing the field

Too good to be true? Boundary conditions to the use of downward social comparisons in service recovery

Evidence shows that downward social comparisons (DSCs), messages delivered by frontline employees describing how service experiences turned out even worse for others, can reduce customers’ anger following a service failure. This study contributes to the literature on DSCs and service recovery by highlighting pitfalls associated with the use of these messages in service recovery and showing the conditions necessary for their effectiveness. Building on persuasion knowledge theory, we show that customers draw manipulative inferences about DSCs because of the perceived bias associated with the source of the message and the implicit derogation of a competitor that DSCs entail. To reduce inferences of manipulative intentions, frontline employees should accompany DSC messages with intense apologies and use selfderogation to reduce the perception that they are criticizing another firm. Past claims on the generalized effectiveness of DSCs need to be revised. Managers should craft social comparison messages carefully to avoid negative reactions from customers. Our research indicates that once adapted to address these concerns, DSCs can be an effective recovery strategy amongst individuals with a strong need for social comparison information

An Extended Model of Moral Outrage at Corporate Social Irresponsibility

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1007/s10551-014-2487-

Dynamic capabilities: the missing link in CRM investments

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the practical application of dynamic capabilities theory to improve investment decisions in customer relationship management (CRM). Design/methodology/approach – Action research (AR) allows managers to raise the tacit knowledge of their dynamic capabilities to a level where they can be identified and developed. A framework and a process for managing dynamic capabilities in marketing are presented. Findings – The findings relate to the nature of dynamic capabilities in marketing and how they are managed. Practical implications – Marketing managers can improve the return on investments in CRM. Originality/value – The paper presents a method for applying dynamic capabilities drawn from the resource-based view (RBV) to practical marketing