Expectation-based coopetition approach to service experience design

Service experience design is a key issue in the service industry. Satisfactory service experiences provide customers with good memories and increase customer satisfaction, thus increasing customer loyalty and service provider profitability. However, providing customers with quality service experiences requires considering numerous factors, and thus is a complex and difficult issue both in academia and in real service contexts. Customer satisfaction results from the difference between customer perceptions and customer expectations. Hence, customer expectation management is important in delivering quality service experiences. Additionally, a competitive relationship exists among different service providers as well as between service providers and customers. The service experience delivery process can be regarded as a value co-creation process for service providers and customers who can implement either a competitive or cooperative strategy based on their goals and needs. This study accordingly presents an expectation based coopetition approach by using a real exhibition data of AutoTronics 2009 for simulations. The evaluation results show that this expectation-based coopetition approach can help service providers design and deliver quality service experiences and co-create value with customers, yielding a high performance ecosystem.     

FCM-based customer expectation-driven service dispatch system

Maintaining long-term customer loyalty has been an important issue in the service industry. Although customer satisfaction can be enhanced with better service quality, delivering appropriate services to customers poses challenges to service providers, particularly in real-time and resource-limited dynamic service contexts. However, customer expectation management has been regarded as an effective way for helping service providers achieve high customer satisfaction in the real world that is nevertheless less real-time and dynamic. This study designs a FCM-based customer expectation-driven service dispatch system to empower providers with the capability to deal effectively with the problem of delivering right services to right customers in right contexts. Our evaluation results show that service providers can make appropriate decisions on service dispatch for customers by effectively managing customer expectations and arranging their contextual limited resources and time via the proposed service dispatch system. Meanwhile, customers can receive suitable service and obtain high satisfaction when appropriate services are provided. Accordingly, a high-performance ecosystem can be established by both service providers and customers who co-create value in the dynamic service contexts.     

Service interaction design: A Hawk-Dove game based approach to managing customer expectations for oligopoly service providers

In the “experience economy”, effectively delivering memorable and exciting customer experiences has become a key issue for service providers. Service experience delivery involves service encounters through which interactions between service providers and customers can be shaped into interactive artifacts managing customer expectations and dynamically delivering suitable services. Service interaction design aims to optimize customer interactions with services to match customer expectations and yield satisfactory service experiences. On the other hand, service providers typically make profits and cost the priority, despite knowing that high service quality can maximize satisfaction, particularly in markets served by an oligopoly, resulting in customers only accepting existing limited-value services. Hence, the oligopoly market can be regarded as a value-bounded context. Additionally, understanding customer expectations regarding a wide range of interactions is crucial to service providers selecting and designing services that match customer expectations. Therefore, this paper presents a service interaction design mechanism to help oligopoly service providers systematically and effectively manage customer expectations in dynamic interactions, even in value-bounded contexts. The proposed mechanism models this service interaction design problem as a series of Hawk-Dove games that approach an evolutionary stable state. The evaluation results suggest that oligopoly service providers should change their mindsets and design service interactions to manage customer expectations associated with service delivery, not only to ensure high satisfaction and profit but also to engage customers in co-creating value.     

What to do after a data breach? Examining apology and compensation as response strategies for health service providers

Innovative IT-enabled health services promise tremendous benefits for customers and service providers alike. Simultaneously, health services by nature process sensitive customer information, and data breaches have become an everyday phenomenon. The challenge that health service providers face is to find effective recovery strategies after data breaches to retain customer trust and loyalty. We theorize and investigate how two widely applied recovery actions (namely apology and compensation) affect customer reactions after a data breach in the specific context of fitness trackers. Drawing on expectation confirmation theory, we argue that the recovery actions derived from practice, apology, and compensation address the assimilation-contrast model’s tolerance range and, thus, always lead to satisfaction with the recovery strategy, which positively influences customers’ behavior. We employ an experimental investigation and collect data from fitness tracker users during a running event. In the end, we found substantial support for our research model. Health service providers should determine specific customer expectations and align their data breach recovery strategies accordingly.

     

电力体制改革新时代下如何提升客户满意度

过去电网企业是垄断经营,随着电力体制改革和国有企业改革的纵深推进,客户有了更多选择。优质服务关乎电网企业新时代改革发展大局,只有优质服务才能使电网企业在改革发展中进入良性循环。然而,从第三方客户满意度调查报告中反映的情况可以看出,部分单位还存在垄断思维,“以客户为中心”的服务意识在实际工作中还未得到很好的落实,具体表现在停电次数多、电压不稳定、业扩流程长、抄表催费欠规范等客户用电体验较敏感的供电服务上。本文从客户体验管理角度,关注客户的用电体验和感受,把满足人民美好生活的电力需要作为电网企业工作的出发点和落脚点,围绕提升客户服务质量的关键点、电网企业存在的客户服务短板、提升客户满意度的有效措施等方面进行了有益地探讨。     

A growing or depreciating love? Linking time with customer satisfaction through online reviews

Through online customer reviews of hotels, this study examines the link between time and customer satisfaction. We categorize the factors into different types, indicating that customers’ online review behavior and their level of satisfaction can change according to their duration of time with the service providers. Independent hotels and hotels with a higher star level, compared with chain hotels and hotels with a lower star level, amplify the influence of various attributes on satisfaction over time. We provide implications for firms to increase customer satisfaction by enhancing their attribute-level performance in various lengths of time.     

Customer satisfaction and loyalty analysis with classification algorithms and Structural Equation Modeling

Businesses can maintain their effectiveness as long as they have satisfied and loyal customers. Customer relationship management provides significant advantages for companies especially in gaining competitiveness. In order to reach these objectives primarily companies need to identify and analyze their customers. In this respect, effective communication and commitment to customers and changing market conditions is of great importance to increase the level of satisfaction and loyalty. To evaluate this situation, level of customer satisfaction and loyalty should be measured correctly with a comprehensive approach. In this study, customers are investigated in 4 main groups according to their level of satisfaction and loyalty with a criteria and group based analysis with a new method. We use classification algorithms in WEKA programming software and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with LISREL tools together to analyze the effect of each satisfaction and loyalty criteria in a satisfaction–loyalty matrix and extend the customer satisfaction and loyalty post-analysis research bridging the gap in this field of research. To convert developed conceptual thought to experimental study, white goods industry is exemplified. 15 criteria are used for evaluation in 4 customer groups and a satisfaction–loyalty survey developed by experts is applied to 200 customers with face-to-face interviews. As a result of the study, a customer and criteria grouping method is created with high performance classification methods and good fit structural models. In addition, results are evaluated for developing a customer strategy improvement tool considering method outcomes.     

Comprehensive understanding of smart product service system from multi-dimension and multi-perspective: An innovative service model for Customer-product Interaction Life Cycle (CILC)

With the improvement of living standards and the rapid development of the Internet, customers gradually pursue personalized smart products and services. Traditional smart product service system is mainly aimed at the service of customers and products in one or several interactive links. Furthermore, in the mass personalization model, in order to give full play to the customer experience and participation satisfaction, it is necessary to study the smart product service system based on the interaction between customers and products. However, there is a gap in the research on integrating the whole life cycle of customer-product interaction. In order to meet this industrial need, the innovation of this paper is to construct an innovative service model for Customer-product Interaction Life Cycle (CILC) and analyse the service impact factors and countermeasures using fuzzy DEMATEL method. The study can provide enterprises with the top-level framework and decision-making of smart product service system based on CILC, and realize the effective integration, expansion and value-added of service resources. At the same time, the application of this research methods can shorten the distance between customers and products, improve customer satisfaction.     

再多一次接触:顾客反馈机制对服务失败后顾客评价的影响

It is difficult to control service quality for any service firm and service failure is inevitable due to human or non-human factors. As a result, service recovery stirred the interest of researchers and practitioners. However, service failure may not be identified by firms because a majority of dissatisfied customers will not complain to the service provider. Thus, this research proposes a proactive customer feedback mechanism comprised of proactive solicitation of customer feedback, customers providing feedback and follow-up communication and examine their impact of customer evaluations in the context of service failure. This research tries to establish that through adding a continuous series of satisfied service encounters or "moment of truth" to service failure encounters, the customer evaluations (e.g. satisfaction, trust, purchase intent and positive WOM) toward the service will be significantly improved. Our research employed a 2×2×2 between subjects experimental design. Three independent variables were manipulated as presence and absence level, that is, firms either proactively solicitted customer feedback or employed no solicitation of feedback, Customers either provided feedback to the service firm or refused to provide feedback, and service firm either conducted follow-up communication or no follow-up communication. Our research adoptted a scenario in the context of patronizing a three-star hotel on a business trip. In total, 221 business administration graduates from a famous university in Shanghai participated in the experiment. MANOVA was used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that proactive solicitation significantly influenced trust (p<0.01). Besides satisfaction, the other dependent variables such as trust, purchase intent and positive WOM significantly differred between with and without follow-up communication groups (p<0.05). Third, a significant difference was detected regarding satisfaction, trust, purchase intent and positive WOM between customer providing feedback groups and no customer feedback groups (p<0.05). Moreover, significant interactive effects were found of customers provided feedback and follow-up communication on trust and purchase intent. Trust and purchase intent reached highest when a follow-up communication occurred after customers provided feedback. However, no interactive effects were found of proactive solicitation of customer feedback and customer providing feedback. This research suggests that service providers should create new encounters with customers when they are confronted with service failure, and in this study, through proactive customer feedback mechanism. That is, first, the service provider should encourage customers to provide feedback, which can improve customer evaluations after service failure and after customers providing feedback. At the same time, the firm should employ follow-up communication with the customer and inform them about how the firm responded to their complaints, suggestions and comments. It is worth to note that companies just need to have follow-up communication with those customers who have provided feedback. More important, as information technology and internet prevails, it is very likely sending email and short messages after a service failure to maintain customer relationships could significantly enhance customer evaluations of the service provider. Of course, how consumers respond to such measures online is an promising research area and needs further investigation.     

A hybrid approach for personalized service staff recommendation

In this study, we established a novel set of service procedures that epitomize the human-centered spirit of service. By using self-organizing maps and collaborative filtering recommendation, we developed a mechanism that links the two service procedures of selecting service staff members and how customers decide tip amounts based on perceived value. Through the proposed mechanism, the recommender system could effectively predict customer preferences regarding service staff members and assign suitable members for delivering services. In addition, this study integrated the service experiences of previous customers with local tipping cultures for calculating recommended tip amounts for the reference of customers. Under this mechanism, the customer-centered spirit can be completely integrated into service procedures for effectively enhancing customer satisfaction, increasing the job satisfaction of employees, and producing a virtuous cycle of service quality improvement.     

面向在线客服系统的调度算法研究

Different from traditional customer service systems, online customer service systems offer business services for multiple customers simultaneously, which makes the adaptation and scheduling between service providers and customers a big challenge. Based on the characteristics of online customer service, this paper proposes a scheduling model for online customer service systems. The scheduling model is composed of three constituents: a multi-priority customer queue, the states of the scheduling system and the transition relations between them, and the correspondence between scheduling strategies and states of the system. Its scheduling algorithm is designed. Experiments verify the rationality of the scheduling model and the effectiveness of the scheduling algorithm. In comparison to the operating customer service system, the algorithm can not only considerably reduce the average waiting time of customers, but also achieve load balancing among service providers, when guaranteeing high quality of services.     

基于95598大数据的电力客户满意度分析

客户满意度反映了客户期望值与客户体验的匹配程度,是评价客户服务质量的一个重要指标。在电力客户满意度研究中,最重要的是获取真实的客户满意度评价结果。本文利用电力客户服务所积累的真实业务数据,提出了基于分层结构的客户满意度得分判定方法,该方法具有严谨的三层结构设计,与实际数据紧联系,逻辑逐层递进,互为补充,从而实现了从模糊的满意度评价到直观的满意度得分的顺利转化。随后通过实际应用案例研究,将电力客户满意度评价与具体的业务过程相联系,提出研究技术路线,对抽取的业务数据进行满意度得分转化,并利用R语言挖掘客户满意度较低的深层原因。所提方法突出了电力客户服务测评的综合性,能客观地从用户体验的角度反映服务质量,具有现实应用价值。     

“What can I(S) do for you?”: How technology enables service providers to elicit customers’ preferences and deliver personalized service

This research studies the effective use of an IT-enabled Customer Service System (CSS) in the hospitality sector. Drawing on Effective Use Theory, we study how digital representations of customers’ preferences support service providers in the service personalization process. Our model posits customers’ preferences elicitation as the antecedent of CSS’ effective use, which yields superior customer value. This representational perspective matches recent efforts to study customer value as cocreated by customers and service providers. Based on a longitudinal dataset of 118,647 hotel reservations, we explain how digital representations of customers’ preferences enable service providers to personalize service and increase customer value.     

Customer segmentation issues and strategies for an automobile dealership with two clustering techniques

Companies can use customer segmentation to group customers with similar characteristics together and identify the differences between groups to develop marketing strategies. This study investigates the problem of customer segmentation in relation to automotive customer relationship management and presents a real case study of an automobile dealer in Taiwan. Although several past studies have adopted different clustering techniques with which to group customer attributes, few have simultaneously considered customer transaction behaviour and customer satisfaction variables. In addition, most previous work has used only a single clustering method for customer segmentation, which results in unreliable results and leads to inadequate marketing decisions. Therefore, in this study, we consider two clustering techniques, k‐means and expectation maximization, and compare their results for correctness. The experimental results show that four customer groups are identified with both clustering methods: loyal, potential, VIP and churn customer groups. Based on the segmentation results, several customized marketing strategies aimed at each of the four customer groups are suggested to improve the quality of services for effective customer relationship management.     

Understanding Internet service switching behaviour based on the stage model

As customer switching is the major concern in the competitive Internet industry, many studies have sought to identify the determinants that cause customers to switch in order to build effective customer retention strategies. However, they were found to be insufficient for explaining the determinants and processes related to service switching. To fill this gap, this study attempts to provide a theoretical mechanism explaining customer service switching behaviours. More specifically, this study examines three hypotheses that may help ISPs develop appropriate marketing and business strategies. Survey data collected from 151 ISP customers in Australia were analysed to test the hypotheses. The results identify four stages of customers switching behaviours and suggest that motivational variables for switching behaviours differ across stages. This study provides a stepping-stone for analysing the staged model in the service-switching context and will help managers enhance their customer retention capability, and thus improve their organizational performance.     

Satisfaction Benchmarking and Customer Classification: An Application to the Branches of a Banking Organization

Banking services constitute a highly competitive market and indicate a representative example of customer–oriented organizations. For this reason, customer satisfaction is of vital importance, offering a quantitative measure for current and future performance of these organizations. On the other hand, classifying customers according to their satisfaction behavior may indicate different client clusters with distinctive preferences and expectations. This approach serves the development of a truly customer–focussed culture by determining a set of improvement strategies that best fit the different customer segments. In this paper, the multi–criteria method MUSA is implemented in order to measure and analyze customer satisfaction in different branches of a banking organization. These results are also used to benchmark these branches according to the provided services. Moreover, segmentation analysis is performed in order to identify the different groups of customers and estimate the homogeneity of preferences in distinct customer segments. Data are based on a pilot customer–satisfaction survey, while the most important results are focussed on the determination of the critical service dimensions.     

Conjoint analysis for IPTV service

Given the upcoming introduction of IPTV service in Korea, it is necessary to develop business models and marketing strategies to improve customer satisfaction and succeed in market competition. We use conjoint analysis to estimate customer preferences and the relative importance of service factors. Based on results from total customers’ and clustered customers’ service preferences, we propose marketing strategies for service providers.     

电力客户标签体系的研究

针对当前电力体制改革的深入推进,以及电力客户移动化、智慧化和碎片化的能源消费需求,中心利用大数据技术构建了一套先进的电力客户标签体系,制定了按照自然人和组织两个主体的标签层级和划分维度,构建了全方位的电力客户标签体系框架,为精准描绘客户画像,提高对电力客户的全面认知奠定基础。形成了电力客户标签体系的管理机制和流程,确保体系运作高质高效。创建了电力客户标签体系的应用能力框架,并从精准营销、优质服务和风险防控三个方面列举了应用开发项目。电力客户标签体系的研究和实际应用不论在供电企业内部管理还是提高客户满意度上都取得了积极成效,成为供电企业创新发展的关键技术支撑。     

An Integrated Framework for Service Quality, Customer Value, Satisfaction: Evidence from China's Telecommunication Industry

Service quality, customer satisfaction and customer value have become the priority of both manufacturers and service provider in the increasingly intensified competition for customers in today's customer-centered era. However, findings regarding service quality, customer satisfaction and customer value are rather divergent and related studies are fragmented, especially for the complicated interrelationships among them. Thus, less is known about the relative impacts of quality-related factors on customer value and customer satisfaction up to now and the moderating role of customer value in the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction has been neglected. Further, it is very difficult to find related studies, supported by evidence, that focus on service quality, customer satisfaction and customer value, and their influences on customer behavior intentions in the telecommunication industry. In this paper, much attention is paid to the measurement model of service quality in China's mobile communication market based on the well-known SERVQUAL model, but with reasonable modification on the basis of focus group discussions and expert opinions to reflect the specific industry attributes and the special culture of China. By taking a disaggregated approach, the key drivers of service quality, customer value and customer satisfaction are first identified and the impact of customer perceived sacrifice on customer value is emphasized. Then attention is given to the systematic study of the dynamic relationships among them, especially the moderating effect of customer value on the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, which is followed by the examination of their influences on behavior intentions of customers. Results are based on the development of structural equation models using Partial Least Square technique.