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This paper analyzes the availability of electronic customer relationship management (E‐CRM) features on retail Web sites and their relationship to consumer satisfaction and site traffic. The top 100 specialty store, standard retail store, and Internet retailer Web sites were analyzed for the presence of 41 E‐CRM features. The availability of these features was then assessed for their relationship with consumer traffic to the site and customer satisfaction with the site. Internet retailers were significantly more likely to have E‐CRM attributes on their site. However only the chat feature, spare parts availability, gift certificate purchase, mailing address, search engine, links, and a company profile were associated with customer satisfaction. No E‐CRM feature was associated with customer traffic to a site. Standard retailers appear to be behind in implementing E‐CRM features in current operations. It is not clear that retailers understand what aspects of E‐CRM will be important in customer satisfaction.

Banks and financial institutions depend upon telephone call centers to meet the needs of a changing and ever more demanding consumer for 24×7 access. Call centers serve as a source of service recovery, added value, market intelligence, and strategic advantage. Despite their ubiquity, there are no studies outlining the determinants of caller satisfaction in the banking call center. This study uses data available from the Purdue University Call Center Benchmark database to determine the critical relationships between call center metrics and caller satisfaction. None of the key factors found to be determinant of customer satisfaction in call centers in other industry groups was found to be significant in bank call centers. This raises questions about how call centers are managed and serves to highlight the very low customer satisfaction that customers have with their banking call center experience.

States that reference price has emerged as a central feature in consumer decisions. The goal of this study was to explore the contribution of mode of payment to the formulation of personal reference prices (what one believes to be a fair price for a product) and reservation prices (the highest price one is willing to pay for a product). Reference prices for the products were significantly influenced by mode of payment (check, cash, credit card). Those in the credit card condition formulated significantly higher reference and reservation prices than when other modes of payment were considered. That credit cards can raise reference prices leads to a better understanding of why consumers spend more with credit cards.

Direct marketing should be a more dominant form of retailing in the USA. However, it is not because so much friction occurs for consumers throughout the direct marketing channel that consumers view direct purchase as a last resort rather than the preferred method. Summarizes the three mistakes of direct marketing and outlines its six amazing opportunities. The opportunities and future of direct marketing are sharply etched by the correspondence of emerging consumer and technology trends with strengths of the direct marketing process and paradigm.

Examines the issue of how variations in language used in advertising affect advertising preference with a sample of bilingual, Korean Americans. Uses past literature to hypothesise that the level of acculturation would moderate ethnic consumers’ preference for advertisements in English versus their native language. Extends previous research in the field of ethnic advertising by considering whether findings from studies conducted with Hispanic American consumers are applicable to Asian Americans. Shows that no significant differences were detected in bilingual Korean American preferences for advertisements in which the message was presented in English as compared with those that used Humgul (Korean language) to communicate with the audience. Concludes with suggestions for further research.

There has been, and will be, a spectacular growth in the number of call centers on both sides of the Atlantic. So far, however, empirical evidence is lacking as to the operational determinants of caller satisfaction in call centers, despite the multitude of call performance metrics registered in many call centers. Undertakes an empirical assessment of the relationship between caller satisfaction and a number of critical variables. The results are astonishing. Of all the critical operational determinants only “percentage of calls closed on first contact” and “average abandonment” have a significant, albeit weak, influence on caller satisfaction. Concludes, therefore, with a call for more research into reliable and valid predictors of caller satisfaction.

This study focuses on the management of job burnout among customer service representatives. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether supervisor support, monetary rewards, and career paths moderate the relationship between job burnout and turnover intentions.

The authors conducted a survey of 287 customer service representatives from seven call centers for the analysis. To validate the research model and test the hypotheses, the authors employed structural equation modeling, and for the moderating effects, the authors conducted a multi‐group analysis after dividing the moderating variables into high and low groups by using each of their means as a split point.

As expected, the results indicate that emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment increased turnover intentions. Emotional exhaustion led to a sharp increase in depersonalization. The results for the three moderating variables indicate that not all interventions were always useful for all three components of job burnout. In particular, the application of supervisor support required considerable attention because it exacerbated the adverse effect of depersonalization on turnover intentions. Monetary rewards reduced turnover intentions under depersonalization, whereas they increased turnover intentions under reduced personal accomplishment. Career paths reduced turnover intentions under both depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment.

This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the moderating effects of supervisor support, monetary rewards, and career paths on the relationships between three components of job burnout and turnover intentions for customer service representatives from call centers.

This article proposes that consumer purchase behavior may be viewed from three perspectives — the decision making, the experiential, and the behavioral influence. The decision‐making perspective holds that buying behavior results from consumers' engaging in a problem‐solving task in which they move through a series of stages. The experiential perspective argues that in certain instances consumers make purchases in order to create feelings, experiences, and emotions rather than to solve problems. The behavioral influence approach proposes that in other instances consumers act in response to environmental pressures. Each approach can be linked to the predominant effect of one of the three components of the classic hierarchy of effects. Managerial implications of the three perspectives on consumer buying behavior are discussed.

Evaluation of student performance in bibliographic instruction (B.I.) has been, and continues to be, an area of interest to B.I. practitioners. The last 15 years have seen a number of excellent analyses and reviews of evaluation techniques. Many recent articles focus on evaluation methods used within specific B.I. programs.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of two positive organizational factors: the perceived supervisor support (PSS) and the self-efficacy (SE) on nurses' burnout (BO), which concurrently affect the turnover intention (TI) and the mediating role of BO in this relationship.

A cross-sectional survey-based study of a sample of 552 Lebanese registered nurses from 19 Lebanese hospitals was conducted.

The authors’ findings confirm that PSS and SE both reduce the level of BO and the turnover intention significantly. The higher the perceived supervisors' support and the nurses' SE, the less they experience BO. BO has partially mediated the relationship of the PSS and SE on TI. This study reveals that supervisors' support is well perceived by Lebanese nurses, whose s is relatively high, while their levels of BO are considered moderate. However, BO levels vary proportionally with demographic variables, namely age, work experience, gender, marital status and education.

This study provides new evidence on the relationship between PSS, SE and BO and turnover intention of Lebanese nurses. It is unique in studying the role of nurses' SE with regard to BO and TI and improving the quality of nurses' work life. It shows the significance of the supervisors' role in supporting the psychological state of nurses. The context of the study, Lebanon, is also novel as it differs from advanced economies institutionally, culturally and in legal frameworks that govern the employee–supervisor relationships.