Search results

Really new products (RNP) run the risk not only of technical problems in the development process, but also of problems with customer acceptance. Because market uncertainty in particular is frequently high, many top management teams defer essential management decisions on these products until sufficient information is available to be able to make a sound decision. In many cases, however, the market is already been divided up by that time. The purpose of this paper is to examine how better information about customers can be acquired by providing them with a better offering of information which has been prepared in a variety of forms (“information acceleration”) and how management decisions can be improved as a result.

The paper is based on modern models for decision making under uncertainty that incorporate group decisions, and shows how the measurement of purchasing behavior can be improved by information acceleration in a test studio. This is needed because customers generally cannot draw on mentally established analogies in the case of RNP, so that they are virtually unable to make meaningful statements that would improve strategic management decisions when completing standard customer surveys. A test studio was set up in the form of a Car Clinic for the example of a future electric vehicle as a RNP. 121 customers were to be offered a wide variety of information (about the future urban environment, the design of the vehicle concept and the driver’s experience), partly in order to acquire information about the customers. In particular, the extent to which customers could better evaluate their purchasing probability and willingness to pay certain prices and the extent to which the variance of customer opinions was reduced after attending the Car Clinic were examined, because these factors make it easier to forecast future sales revenue and management decisions can be made more easily.

The results reveal that information acceleration in a test studio can improve the estimation of sales revenue in an early decision-making phase and can have a positive influence on decision-making behavior under uncertainty.

This study provides an empirical, valuable step toward an investigation of management decisions on RNP under uncertainty.

Emerging technologies are becoming vital in the very process of innovation. Companies need to be updated to the latest technologies to offer their premium services to customers as well as meet their expectations. In the medical sector, it is a challenge to sustain superiority in service due to a high level of competition and the challenges arising from different forces. Liberty Dental Clinic (LDC), a premium clinic in dental services and solutions, based in the UAE, was able to maintain a premium presence in Dentistry due to a series of developmental thoughts and efforts. It was able to invest and utilize new innovative technologies which many organizations lacked such as implementing the most contemporary Artificial Intelligence “4 Robots” in the Clinics. Creating a pathway for a satisfactory customer journey was embedded at all levels of the hierarchy in the Clinic and customer touchpoints. Using a case study methodology, the drivers behind the success and uniqueness of LDC have been discussed including Leadership, Quality Management, Risk Management, Internal & External Marketing Strategy, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Technology and Innovation.

One of the most unexamined assumptions marketing firms have made in recent years is that satisfaction alone will guarantee customer loyalty. Our research questions this assumption. We explored the correspondence between customer satisfaction and loyalty, and found as many as half of the “satisfied” customers to be predisposed to switching service suppliers. This satisfaction‐loyalty gap reflects the fact that different components of service quality drive satisfaction versus loyalty. Satisfaction is driven more by “technical quality” (the quality of the work performed) than by “functional quality” (how the service work was delivered); however, once satisfaction is achieved, loyalty is driven more by functional than by technical quality. This is the pattern of influence for a “low contact” (where customers’ direct contact with service providers is absent or marginal) service. For a “high contact” service, the pattern of influence is exactly the reverse. Of significant importance to service managers, the paper explains the dynamics of loyalty versus satisfaction and derives their managerial implications.

WE WERE watching television recently. It was a Youth programme and an out‐of‐work young man (indeed, it appeared that he had never been employed since leaving school) said bitterly “The Government should find us jobs….”

To point out the limitations of on over‐scientific approach to branding.

Discussion of case studies in a philosophical theoretical framework.

“Getting close to the customer” is a flawed concept. Rather the emphasis should be on people and the nature of relationships.

Brand managers should become unified with the customer rather than thinking they are close to the customer through the abstraction of market research.

Points out that credibility is not derived from statistical analysis alone, but through a genuine and deep understanding of the customer.

Discusses how political parties in Europe, following the trend in the USA, have entered a new era of the permanent election campaign. Describes the more integrated role played by market research and how this process is changing the nature of political parties. Provides an example of such a trend in British politics. States that political parties’ campaign strategies and party leaderships increasingly need market research to construct a more comprehensive picture of an uncertain political environment. Parties are using qualitative research to enhance the information they have traditionally obtained from quantitative polls. Discusses why there is now a greater use of qualitative research and a greater integration of market research information. Attempts to show how such methods can be brought together and how parties can start to build integrated political marketing strategies.

This paper aims to examine the issues faced by cities known for their struggles with over-tourism, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Opportunities to overcome over-tourism in a post-Covid-19 world are discussed.

This paper is a review of the fundamental issues of over-tourism before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has turned the state of tourism in many cities from “over-tourism” to “no tourism”, prompting massive state intervention from governments, regardless of their political ideology. The pandemic has also been more effective than top-down governmental orders and ground-up green initiatives to reduce pollution within a short span of time.

Many have been left behind by the competitive nature of globalisation, and the Covid-19 pandemic could present a case for governments to play a larger role in improving their citizens’ quality of live. These would include a fundamental shift in focus to jobs (instead of gross domestic products) by governments, increased investment in public works and environment-friendly infrastructure and expanding public regulatory and enforcement roles in areas such as crowd control and inspection of home rentals for regulatory compliance.

When normalcy returns and tourists begin to flock to destinations and attractions, there should be a much higher awareness amongst both tourists and locals of the maintenance of personal hygiene and of the need for safe distancing while in dense crowds. A new social norm should emerge.

A heightened sense of material, community, emotional and health and safety well-beings of local residents would ease concerns and perceptions of over-tourism.

Discusses the findings of a study in which 309 service encounters between customers and customer‐contact personnel in service businesses and retail stores were unobtrusively observed, to measure the occurrence of selected service behaviors (i.e. mostly interpersonal behaviors such as smiling, thanking customer, establishing eye contact, etc.), and to investigate possible behavioral biases. On average, only 72 percent of the measured behaviors were observed in each service encounter. Employees’ behaviors were generally less likely to be observed when served customers were male, young, caucasian, or casually dressed. The propensity of frontline workers to systematically discriminate against some types of customers on bases that have little or nothing to do with customers’ service requirements represents a downside of employee discretion dubbed as “empowerment by default”.

Behavioural consistency Biodata, a relatively new system of screening job applications, was recommended at the Standing Conference of Employers of Graduates (SCOEG) held in Cambridge. In a joint paper, Adrian Savage and Stephanie Craig, of PA Personnel Services Group, explained the methods and advantages of the system to an audience of graduate recruiters. It is a form of testing which takes as its central axiom the assumption that the best available indication of how a person will behave in the future is the way he or she has behaved in the past. The system standardises the collection and collation of extensive historical information and personal achievements, and replaces the subjective judgement of the interviewer with a clear scoring and categorisation system. This system is specifically tailored to the requirements of the position to be filled, based on information obtained concerning previous holders and possible future requirements.

This study aims to explore the scope of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in professional service encounters. One of the founding premises of service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) is that consumers co-create the value they derive from service encounters. In practice, however, dysfunctional consumer behaviour can obstruct value co-creation. Extant research has not yet investigated consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in highly relational services, such as professional services, that are heavily reliant on co-creation.

To investigate defective co-creation in professional services, 164 critical incidents were collected from 38 health-care and financial service providers using the critical incident technique within semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Thematic coding was used to identify emergent themes and patterns of consumer behaviour.

Thematic coding resulted in a comprehensive typology of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour that both confirms the prevalence of previously identified dysfunctional behaviours (e.g. verbal abuse and physical aggression) and identifies two new forms of consumer misbehaviour: underparticipation and overparticipation. Further, these behaviours can vary, escalate and co-occur during service encounters.

Both underparticipation and overparticipation are newly identified forms of defective co-creation that need to be examined within the broader framework of service-dominant logic (SDL).