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Logistics managers need to collect timely and accurate data on customers′ needs, as well as customer perceptions of the firm′s and competitors′ performance levels. Today, a large number of companies collect this from their salesforce – a good, inexpensive and timely source of customer and competitive information but caution is needed since a majority of salespeople are inaccurate. Reviews the conceptual issues associated with using the salesforce to collect information and reports results of an empirical study which examined the accuracy of salesforce information.

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

This research investigates the effects of consumers' online information searching on their dining satisfaction in upscale restaurants during the pandemic. Customers frequently rely on online sources to gather information about upscale restaurants prior to their visits.

Data from 307 diners across the top ten popular upscale restaurants in Hong Kong were analysed by using SEM to explore the links between customers' needs, information search, restaurant attributes and customer satisfaction.

This study uncovers customers' online search behaviours and identifies restaurant attributes that are associated with customer satisfaction, which were not typically emphasised before the COVID-19 pandemic. Driven by their social and psychological needs, customers devoted more time to reading written comments by other consumers compared to visual images or self-descriptions from restaurants. Only service attribute significantly influenced customer satisfaction, while food and price attributes were not significant.

The findings of this study provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners, shedding light on the altered needs and preferences of consumers following the unprecedented health crisis.

This study contributes to the development of expectancy disconfirmation theory and needs theory through the investigation of consumers' online information searching behaviours and dining satisfaction in upscale restaurants during the pandemic. By identifying the most important attributes influencing customer satisfaction, this research can aid upscale restaurants in developing effective marketing strategies and enhancing customer experiences.

This study aims to understand a customer-purchase mechanism in the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot context based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and technology acceptance model (TAM). The first objective is to examine how to boost chatbot adoption. The second objective is to investigate the role of information characteristics, technology-related characteristics and attitude toward AI in purchase intention.

Data was collected from a sample of 492 users in Vietnam, who are potential customers of chatbots for purchase. Structural equation modeling was applied for data analysis.

Results illustrate that chatbot adoption is significantly influenced by information credibility, technology-related factors (i.e. interactivity, relative advantage and perceived intelligence), attitude toward AI and perceived usefulness. Moreover, information quality and persuasiveness motivate information credibility. Information credibility and attitude toward AI are the essential motivations for perceived usefulness. Finally, chatbot adoption and information credibility determine purchase intention.

The results are insightful for practitioners to envisage the importance of chatbot use for customer purchase in the AI scenario. Additionally, this research offers a framework to practitioners for shaping customer engagement in chatbots.

The value of this work lies in the incorporation of technology-related characteristics into the two well-established theories, the ELM and TAM, to identify the importance of AI and its applications (i.e. chatbots) for purchase and to understand the formation of perceived usefulness and chatbot use through information credibility and attitude toward AI.

This study aims to examine how customers’ perceptions of the quality and credibility of restaurants’ food safety information influence customers’ information adoption and, consequently, their trust in the restaurant and purchase intention. It also explores the moderating effects of customers’ food safety knowledge and health consciousness.

Participants were asked to read a food safety message from a chain restaurant’s website before taking a self-administered online survey. Using a cross-sectional design, a total of 526 valid responses were collected in the USA through Amazon Mechanical Turk. A two-step approach consisting of a measurement model and a structural equation model was applied to test the direct and indirect effects. Additionally, hierarchical regression models were developed to test the moderating effects.

Results show that perceived information quality significantly affects perceived information credibility and has a significant direct and indirect influence on information adoption. Furthermore, information adoption has a direct positive influence on customers’ trust in the restaurant and an indirect effect on purchase intention (full mediation effect of trust). Finally, the moderation effects of health consciousness and food safety knowledge were supported.

Restaurateurs can apply research findings to increase the likelihood that customers adopt their food safety information and to enhance customers’ trust and, consequently, purchase intention in restaurants.

Reflecting on framing theory and information processing theory, this study examines the ways that customers process restaurants’ food safety information by developing an original conceptual framework with strong empirical data support.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects that customer structured and unstructured information sharing (IS) can have on customer operational and strategic coordination and on supply chain performance (SCP). In addition, the study examines how customer IS influences customer coordination under various levels of demand uncertainty (DU).

The conceptual model for this study is designed on the basis of information-processing theory (IPT). Using data collected from 622 manufacturers in mainland China and Taiwan, the theoretical model is tested using the structural equation modeling method.

The authors find that both customer structured IS and unstructured IS are positively associated with customer strategic coordination. Customer structured IS increases customer operational coordination, but customer unstructured IS does not. DU positively moderates the relations between customer unstructured IS and strategic coordination, and between customer structured IS and operational coordination. Also, DU negatively moderates the relationship between customer structured IS and strategic coordination. Customer strategic coordination is positively related to SCP and to operational coordination. Customer operational coordination has no significant impact on SCP.

This study deepens our understanding of customer IS by distinguishing between customer structured and unstructured IS. The study also provides a greater understanding of customer coordination by making a distinction between the customer strategic and the operational coordination. The findings extend the empirical application of IPT. In addition, this study’s findings direct SC managers to apply varied customer IS practices that can enhance specific kinds of customer coordination activities, thereby enabling improved SCP.

Customer satisfaction in a service encounter mainly depends on quality of the service provided. However, technological advancements and higher internet usage rates led to an over dependence of customers to social media. A research to identify the role played by information in the formation of satisfaction in service encounters is warranted. Thus, this study aims to examine the importance given by customers to various types of information in evaluating a service encounter and attempts to conceptualize the hierarchical process of formation, retention and modification of customer satisfaction under perceived information importance.

Perceptions of 385 bank customers were collected on their information-seeking behavior (ISB), importance of information on satisfaction, satisfaction modification intentions (SMI) and loyalty using a structured questionnaire. A variance-based structural equation modeling helped to identify significant linkages among variables such as satisfaction developers, satisfaction retainers, satisfaction modifiers, ISB, SMI and information allied loyalty.

The study could identify three distinct dimensions such as developers, retainers and modifiers for satisfaction construct under perceived importance to information measured using various attributes relevant to a service setting. ISB of customer emerged as an antecedent that cause paradigm changes in satisfaction as well as loyalty feel. The study could also establish that SMI significantly moderates loyalty from satisfaction dimensions even though intensities are different.

Theoretically, this study examined the manner in which information intervenes in the satisfaction–loyalty link, but many predispositions of the customer about service capabilities of the service provider might have critically influenced their modification intentions.

Providing customers with consistent and reliable information is critical to the development of stable satisfaction judgements. Understanding the true impact of information and its role in modifying satisfaction can help marketers to fine tune their strategies for effective relationship management. Now, to remain competitive, firms must constantly analyze the implications of emerging information and the importance customers assign to such information.

This paper helped marketers to identify new areas to focus their attention to ensure lasting customer loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of quality perception on customers’ repurchase behaviour in home internet services. Specifically, it was found that information quality, and privacy affected customers’ commitment and perceived value which were directly related to customer behavioural loyalty.

In order to achieve the research objectives, a model is proposed. The literature review and formulation of hypotheses related to each construct are then discussed. An online survey was conducted. The final usable sample size was 2,059.

Information quality was a stronger determinant of commitment and value when compared with privacy. The positive indirect effects of information quality and privacy on behavioural loyalty were also confirmed.

The research provides practical implications which can be used to design effective marketing strategies to retain customers in the residential internet market. Moreover, current issues of high-customer churn rate can be resolved. In general, the study confirms that putting customers’ privacy in the heart of company operations is critical for an internet service provider’s success and long-term sustainability.

For long‐term survival and growth, libraries and information centres need to build, develop and maintain a relationship with their customers. Highlights the shifting paradigms that have affected the traditional concept of libraries and attempts to focus the emerging issues that influence the service‐provider and customer relationship. The foremost challenge witnessed by library managers is how to provide easy and quick access to information products and services without compromising service quality while maintaining customer focus at the same time. A relationship marketing approach, initially evolved in Scandinavia, is suggested as a way to build relationships with the customers. Some experiences drawn from a pilot study conducted in Finnish libraries have been interpreted in the framework of a relationship marketing approach. The key issues raised are how relationship marketing principles can contribute to developing relationships with customers in the library and information environment. Stresses that building relationships with customers has become more critical to meet their ever changing various needs, wants, and demands. A list of further reading relating to Scandinavia is appended.

This research widens the scope of the use of postponement by addressing how the generic supply chain structure and information sharing/relationship among supply chain actors affects the postponement decision, based on empirical data of Chinese manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta.

Case analysis, cross‐case comparisons, semi‐structured interviews.

A cross‐case analysis including study of the downstream structure, downstream relationship, upstream structure, upstream relationship, production method and inventory position produced a postponement classification into five categories: balanced structure without customer information; customer dominated; manufacturer dominated; balanced structure with loose suppliers, and finally virtual supply chain. Based on this classification, two propositions are postulated: when a supply chain has a balanced structure, it should use speculation or production postponement. When the supply chain has an unbalanced structure, it should use purchasing postponement or product development postponement.

This study is exploratory in nature, and more empirical data is needed to further validate the postulated results. Another limitation of the study is in its measurement of postponement, measured in this instance by the production method and inventory positions used. Other characteristics of postponement may be included in future research.

This research has extended the scope of the use of postponement by addressing how the generic supply chain structure and information sharing/relationship among supply chain actors affects the postponement decision.

Addresses postponement on the level of the supply chain, rather than company‐level. Addresses how the supply chain structure (balanced/unbalanced) and information sharing/relationship among supply chain actors affect the postponement decision.