There's a fly in my soup : the influence of service guarantees and personal requests on customer voice

Anecdotal evidence suggests that service guarantees and personal requests by service workers encourage customers to voice following failure. However, empirical support for these tactics in facilitating complaints to the organisation is limited. To address this deficiency, a 3 (guarantee treatment: none, unconditional or combined) x 2 (personal request to voice: yes or no) x 2 (failure severity: minor or major) full factorial, between subjects experiment was conducted in a restaurant context. Findings suggest that offering a service guarantee, regardless of whether it is unconditional or combined, can encourage voice. Severity of the failure was also found to be associated with voice. Surprisingly, however, a personal request to voice was not related to customers’ voice intentions. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Empirical analysis of customer behaviors in Chinese e-commerce

With the burgeoning e-Business websites, E-Commerce in China has been developing rapidly in recent years. From the analysis of Chinese E-Commerce market, it is possible to discover customer purchasing patterns or behavior characteristics, which are indispensable knowledge for the expansion of Chinese E-Commerce market. This paper presents an empirical analysis on the sale transactions from the 360buy website based on the analysis of time interval distributions in perspectives of customers. Results reveal that in most situations the time intervals approximately obey the power-law distribution over two orders of magnitudes. Additionally, time interval on customer’s successive purchase can reflect how loyal a customer is to a specific product category. Moreover, we also find an interesting phenomenon about human behaviors that could be related to psychology of customers. In general, customers’ requirements in different product categories are similar. The investigation into individual behaviors may help researchers understand how customers’ group behaviors generated.

How bank branches affect customer service quality perceptions.

The Australian banking industry has changed significantly with the introduction of electronic banking technology. This has led to a situation where facilities such as ATM machines and Internet Banking have become increasingly important in the service delivery process. Traditionally, there has been relatively little research into the role facilities play in service satisfaction. There is also little literature about how customers interact with service facilities. This has left banks grappling with facility design and planning issues. This article examines how Australian bank customers interact with local banking facilities by investigating five aspects of the service facility: Access, Atmospherics, Waiting Time, Technology, and Security. Findings suggest that facilities have a significant impact on customer satisfaction levels. Convenient and easy access, security, and a comfortable level of technology were identified by customers as the most important factors influencing their satisfaction levels.

Customer analytics managers' views about market research

Data based on survey responses from online questionaire directed at Customer Analytics managers in the United States. Respondents recruited were mainly in CRM, customer data warehouse or CA roles.

Success was measured on several items asking respondents to compare the success of their organisation with others in their industry on measures such as profitability and new product development. Items about the integration of MR and CA were included. These talked about effectively combining CA and MR for the purpose of identifying new markets and new segments as well as reducing churn.

Survey of market research managers' views about customer analytics

Data based on survey responses from an online questionnaire directed at market research managers in the US.

Using an online questionnaire 435 market research managers in the United States were surveyed about their views on using customer analytics to provide reliable customer information to gain market edge.

Using SPSS AMOS software, the resulting data identifies new trends in the business intelligence industry in transition and particularly the usage by market relations managers of customer analytics information.