Search results

This paper aims to explore advantages and disadvantages of both traditional market research (TMR) and deep customer insight (DCI) methods to lay the platform for revealing how a relationship between these two domains could be optimised during firm-based innovation.

The paper reports on an empirical research study conducted with 13 Australian-based firms engaged in a design-led approach to innovation. Firms were facilitated through a design-led approach where the process of gathering DCIs was isolated and investigated further in comparison to TMR methods.

Results show that DCI methods are able to provide fresh, non-obvious ways of understanding customer needs, problems and behaviours that can become the foundation of new business opportunities. Findings concluded that DCI methods provide the critical layer to understand why customers do or do not engage with businesses. Revealing why was not accessible in TMR methods.

The theoretical outcome of this study is a complementary methods matrix, providing guidance on appropriate implementation of research methods in accordance with a project’s timeline to optimise the complementation of TMR methods with design-led customer engagement methods.

DCI methods provide fresh, non-obvious ways of understanding customer needs, problems and behaviours that can become the foundation of new business opportunities. It is hoped that those in a position of data collection are encouraged to experiment and use DCI methods to connect with their customers on a meaningful level and translate these insights into value.

This paper provides original value to a new understanding of how design techniques can be applied to complement and strengthen existing market research strategies. This is crucial in an era where business competition hinges on a subtle and often intimate understanding of customer needs and behaviours.

This paper aims to explore the use of a design process of inquiry that incorporates both deep customer insight (DCI) and traditional market research (TMR) in an ill-defined, complex current market opportunity to generate new business opportunities for firm-based innovation.

The paper reports on an empirical research case study conducted within a multi-national insurance agency looking at the shift in mobility in Australia. Data were collected across seven distinct research phases, all of which used TMR and DCI techniques for joint comparison.

The findings revealed that TMR and DCI methodologies developed both contradictory and complementary research outcomes. These outcomes saw rise to newly generated novel business model concepts for market entry opportunity from the case study firm.

The theoretical outcome of this study is the design thinking DCI framework providing guidance on appropriate implementation of research methods to respond to complex market opportunity.

DCI methods used in conjunction with TMR can provide early stage market opportunity assessment for firms seeking to innovate from a customer perspective.

This is the first paper to apply a design approach, combining TMR and DCI methods to a complex market opportunity rather than a tangible problem. In addition, it also contributes to the emerging field of DCI methodologies by providing a practical examination of their use in the field.

Despite the rapid growth of social networking sites (SNSs), research demonstrating the marketing application of these technologies is lacking. Consequently, this paper aims to explore the impact of SNSs on hotel marketing activities.

An exploratory study was used. Adopting a key informant approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 respondents in the hotel industry, who use SNSs as part of their hotel marketing efforts.

Networked interactions facilitated by SNSs can influence the marketing activities of hotels in many ways. This extends to deeper connections and co-creating value with customers to enhance the market offerings and promotional activities of the firm. Not all interviewees capitalised upon the capabilities offered by SNSs.

SNSs act as a key knowledge resource that can be used by practitioners to create and deliver superior customer value. However, the extent to which this is achieved depends on who is responsible for implementing it. Specifically, those with a more proactive attitude and approach towards marketing on SNSs tend to reap greater benefits.

Using the service-dominant logic as a guide, this paper offers greater insight into the theory and practice of social media marketing in the hotel industry, an under-studied and fragmented research area.

The purpose of this study is to develop a service logic oriented framework for business model development. “Service logic” covers the basic principles of the three contemporary customer value focused business logics: service-dominant logic, service logic and customer-dominant logic.

This study is based on an empirical qualitative research and deployed the focus group method. The data are generated in a series of interactive co-creative focus group workshops involving both practitioners and academics.

As the outcome, a new tool was developed, called Service Logic Business Model Canvas. The new canvas is a modified version of the original Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010).

This study adopts service logic in business model thinking and increases knowledge on how to keep the customer needs in the centre of business model development.

The developed canvas makes the theory of service-dominant logic tangible and easily applicable in practice. It enables service innovation truly based on customer value by ensuring that the customer is in the centre of all the elements of a business model. It can function both as a rapid prototype of a new business model and as a communication tool that quickly illustrates the company’s current business model. It can also help in creating a customer-centred business culture. It is designed to be applied to each customer profile separately, thus enabling a deeper understanding of the customer logic of each relevant profile.

Earlier business model frameworks tend to be provider-centric and goods-dominant, and require further development and adaptation to service logic. This study adopts service logic in business model thinking. It embeds the true and deep customer understanding and customer value in each element of the business model, and contributes to both business model and service-dominant logic literature.

Relationship marketing scholars and managers have recognized the potential of customer engagement to enhance business performance and customer value. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects that different types of customer engagement behaviors have on their perceived benefits.

The authors conducted two empirical studies. In the first step, 69 in-depth interviews were held to identify important customer engagement behaviors and targeted benefits. Then, in the second step, a quantitative study with 255 participants was used to match the identified customer engagement behaviors with the targeted benefits.

The results reveal that there are three aggregated types of customer engagement behaviors (“value creation-focused customer engagement”, “online-focused customer engagement” and “customer-to-customer interaction-focused customer engagement”). These types of customer engagement behaviors lead to different targeted benefits (social, relationship, autonomous, economic, altruistic and self-fulfillment benefits).

A consideration of the influencing factors of the different customer-engagement-behavior types, including customers’ motives for their engagement with a company, would potentially enhance the findings. Furthermore, a closer investigation of the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and customer engagement types can also provide deeper insights into the reasons for engaging with a certain firm or brand.

The findings provide managers with information on how to segment customers according to their customer engagement type and associated benefits and thereby enable them to manage customer engagement behaviors more profitably.

The results make a key contribution to the emerging research field of customer engagement by gaining deeper insights into the benefits associated with different customer engagement behaviors. It becomes clear that different customer engagement types aim at receiving various benefits.

By fusing knowledge-based theory, organizational learning theory and dynamics capability theory, this study aims to explore, on the one hand, the linkage between exploration, sensing and tacit knowledge, and on the other hand, exploitation, seizing and explicit knowledge. Thereby, it argues that not only tacit knowledge but also explicit knowledge contributes to competitive advantage for firms. This study also investigates how knowledge transforms into profitability.

The conceptual model is tested with a study sample of 153 industrial organizations using structural equation modelling.

Results confirm the importance of both tacit and explicit knowledge for achieving sustainable competitive advantages. Furthermore, both tacit and explicit knowledge transform into profitability, both directly and through product innovation and customer centricity which play partial mediating roles.

Explicit knowledge strategies can be easier to manage, implement and institutionalize than tacit knowledge strategies, which require human component and intervention to succeed. Managers should hence first implement explicit knowledge strategies to gain expeditious results. Further, with the advent of digital technologies and algorithms that can extract deep customer insights and organizational experiences which are highly tacit in nature and codifying the same into explicit knowledge, the importance of explicit knowledge is further enlarged.

By fusing three adjacent theories to establish a robust model specification, this study is able to demonstrate the contribution of explicit knowledge in the firm’s competitive advantages.

This paper aims to investigate the role that deep emotional feelings play in relation to process/service re-design and process/service improvement. It suggests that attention to these dimensions may be vital for successful and sustainable outcomes. It investigates whether these dimensions are accommodated within popular change methods such as the European business excellence model (EBEM) and the balanced scorecard (BS).

An emotional value (EMVAL) scale is tested and applied using survey methods on a large sample of staff engaged in change and improvement initiatives. For the purposes of comparison, two separate business units are selected; one unit following EBEM/BS methods; one unit following EMVAL.

The findings show that significant improvement in employee perceptions of successful outcomes occurs when applying EMVAL methods. There is also evidence of tangible performance improvement in the form of customer satisfaction, reduced cost, and efficiency gains.

The findings are significant for academics and practitioners concerned with quality improvement programmes, suggesting that emotional scaling methods can improve outcomes. An emotional scaling method is presented along with a methodology for implementation.

Whilst the role of understanding deeper emotions in customer relationships is becoming more prominent within the marketing literature, little research to date has explored quality and internal marketing aspects which this paper seeks to address.

The aim of this paper is to suggest a redefinition of the functional product value calculation in lean product development (LPD). The proposed method integrates emotional customer value into the traditional model, which is based on minimizing operating costs and reducing time‐to‐market.

Perceptions of customer value among employees at a Norwegian boat manufacturer, customers, and competitors are investigated through a case study. Results are compared with principles for promoting value and minimizing waste in LPD.

Findings from the case study suggest that a less‐than‐perfect match between customer needs and product offerings sometimes improves customer satisfaction. Furthermore, how customers perceive product value depends on experience that may be at variance with current needs. It is also suggested that deep understanding of customer‐defined value does not imply an ability to satisfy that value.

Understanding the position of meaning‐driven and technology‐driven innovation in different types of industries represents a challenge for further research, as does the issue of whether these two are the only dimensions driving a sustainable innovation strategy. Actionable knowledge on how emotional value can be maximized is also needed.

Maximizing customer value is a core principle in LPD, but the value definitions used tend to be based on logical reasoning rather than real‐life observations. This article presents empirical insights concerning different stakeholders' perceptions of customer value, and the resulting implications for the present lean framework.

This paper aims to explore how the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) can be adopted in services marketing to provide deeper customer experience insights.

This paper explores how ZMET interviews, which use images selected by the participant to facilitate discussion, can be used by researchers. This paper draws upon a study of 24 student experiences at a UK university.

Adopting this qualitative method for services marketing can counter depth deficit when compared to other qualitative approaches, because it is participant led. However, the method requires competent interview skills and time for the interview and analysis. We find that ZMET has not been widely adopted in academia because of its commercial licenced use. The paper illustrates how to use the ZMET process step-by-step.

Findings are limited to student experiences. Further research is necessary to understand how researchers could use ZMET in other areas of services marketing.

This paper provides guidance to researchers on how to use ZMET as a methodological tool. ZMET facilitates a deeper understanding of service experiences through using participant chosen images and thus enabling researchers to uncover subconscious hidden perceptions that other methods may not find.

ZMET has been used commercially to gain market insights but has had limited application in service research. Existing studies fail to provide details of how ZMET can be used to access the consumer subconscious. This paper makes a methodological contribution by providing step-by-step guidance on how to apply ZMET to services marketing.

This study elicits the critical attributes, consequences and values associated with the purchasing process in the context of cross-border e-commerce (CBEC). The purpose is to provide a better understanding of the fundamental factors that determine consumer values in CBEC.

The study applies the means-end-chain theory and soft-laddering techniques to interview 60 CBEC consumers to construct an implication matrix and a hierarchical value map (HVM) of the consumer purchasing process, consisting of attribute-consequence-value (A-C-V) paths.

By analyzing the significant linkages, elements, ladders and chains in the HVM, four dominant A-C-V paths were identified: economic-driven, efficiency-driven, progress-driven and quality-driven paths.

This study included only Chinese CBEC buyers. This limitation might affect the generalizability of the conclusions as culture, purchase habits and economic development differ between China and other countries.

The results of this study provide CBEC practitioners an understanding of the consumer purchasing process and how consumer values are associated with platform characteristics. Thus, the results aid practitioners in allocating resources and developing CBEC platforms in an appropriate manner and direction.

This study sheds lights on the emerging phenomenon of CBEC. By applying the means-end-chain approach, the study provides a comprehensive HVM for interpreting the consumer online purchasing process in this novel context. By illustrating the dominant paths, this research provides deeper theoretical insights into the specific focuses of CBEC consumer purchasing.