The Use of Heuristics in Service Evaluations

Submitted to the School of Business and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Managing Business-to-Business Customer Relationships Following Key Contact Employee Turnover in a Vendor Firm

This is the published version. Copyright 2002 by the American Marketing Association.Customers form relationships with the employees who serve them as well as with the vendor firms these employees represent. In many cases, a customer’s relationship with an employee who is closest to them, a key contact employee, may be stronger than the customer’s relationship with the vendor firm. If the key contact employee is no longer available to serve that customer, the vendor firm’s relationship with the customer may become vulnerable. In this article, the authors present the results of two studies that examine what business-to-business customers value in their relationships with key contact employees, what customers’ concerns are when a favored key contact employee is no longer available to serve them, and what vendor firms can do to alleviate these concerns and to retain employee knowledge even if they cannot retain the employee in that position. The studies are based on a discovery-oriented approach and integrate input from business-to-business customers, key contact employees, and managers from a broad cross-section of companies to develop testable propositions. The authors discuss managerial and theoretical implications and directions for further research

Psychological Implications of Customer Participation in Co-Production

This is the published version. Copyright 2003 by the American Association of Marketing.Customer participation in the production of goods and services appears to be growing. The marketing literature has largely focused on the economic implications of this trend and has not addressed customers’ potential psychological responses to participation. The authors draw on the social psychological literature on the self-serving bias and conduct two studies to examine the effects of participation on customer satisfaction. Study 1 shows that consistent with the self-serving bias, given an identical outcome, customer satisfaction with a firm differs depending on whether a customer participates in production. Study 2 shows that providing customers a choice in whether to participate mitigates the self-serving bias when the outcome is worse than expected. The authors present theoretical and practical implications and provide directions for further research

Market Segmentation in the 21st Century: Discrete Solutions to Continuous Problems

Market segments exist because of information and cost constraints If manufacturers had accurate individual-level demand information and the ability to produce and deliver unique products at low cost, then individual customization of products would be a viable market strategy But as uncertainty about consumer demand increases and/or the cost of customization increases, firms find it more profitable to reduce the variety of the products they offer This paper reports on a critical examination of trends in the analysis of customer data and in reductions in the cost of customization brought about by innovations such as the Internet and flexible manufacturing systems We conclude that recent trends are not sufficient to support individual customization in most product categories However, despite the inability of these trends to support individual customization, we predict several changes In the dimensions surrounding successful segmentation strategies that will be used by firms in the future

Market Segmentation in the 21st Century Discrete Solutions to Continuous Problems

Market segments exist because of information and cost constraints If manufacturers had accurate individual-level demand information and the abllity to produce and deliver unique products at low cost, then individual customization of products would be a viable market strategy But as uncertainty about consumer demand increases and/or the cost of customization increases, firms find it more profitable to reduce the variety of the products they offer This paper reports on a critical examination of trends in the analysis of customer data and in reductions in the cost of customization brought about by inovations such as the Internet and flexlble manufacturing systems. We conclude that recent trends are not sufficient to support individual customization in most product categories. However, despite the inability of these trends to support individual customization, we predict several changes In the dimensions surrounding successful segmentation strategies that will be used by firms in the future

Enhancing helping behavior: An integrative framework for promotion planning

This is the published version. Copyright 1996 American Marketing Association.Charitable organizations play a vital role in society, as evidenced by their enormous economic and social impact. Yet, for many of them, soliciting adequate resources to carry out their mandates is a continuing struggle. Confronted with a growing need for their services, fierce competition from other charities and shrinking support from government agencies, charities may turn to marketers for help in developing effective promotional strategies. Unfortunately, marketing literature is unable to provide meaningful guidance because scant research attention has hampered a fuller understanding of why people help. A study integrates relevant research in marketing, economics, sociology and social psychology to advance theoretical understanding of helping behavior. In addition, research propositions regarding specific promotional strategies that charitable organizations cam employ to elicit help are presented

Enhancing memory of television commercials through message spacing.

This is the published version. Copyright 1994 American Marketing Association.Examined the effects of message repetition, message spacing lag time, and measurement delay on memory for TV commercials among 413 older and younger adults (aged 62–83 yrs vs 20–35 yrs). Results show that in the long measurement delay condition, the recall of message contents was significantly higher with the long lag time than with the short lag time. However, in the short measurement delay condition, recall was significantly higher with the short lag time than with the long lag time. The effect of lag in forestalling memory decay appeared to be similar for both older and younger Ss. Results are interpreted based on a variation of encoding variability theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved