This volume explores the interconnection of social, political, technological and economic challenges that impact consumer relationships, new product launches and consumer interests. Featuring contributions presented at the 2019 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) World Marketing Congress (WMC) held in Edinburgh, Scotland, the theme of this proceedings draws from the Scottish Enlightenment movement of the mid-Eighteenth Century, which centered on ideas of liberty, progress and the scientific method. The core values of this movement are being challenged by the rapidly changing, globally shifting and digitally connected world. The contributions presented in this volume reflect and reframe the roles of marketers and marketing in incorporating and advancing the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment within contemporary marketing theory and practice. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses, and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. The series deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy's flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review (AMSR). Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.

The second volume of this research monograph describes a number of applications of Artificial Intelligence in the field of Customer Relationship Management with the focus of solving customer problems. We design a system that tries to understand the customer complaint, his mood, and what can be done to resolve an issue with the product or service. To solve a customer problem efficiently, we maintain a dialogue with the customer so that the problem can be clarified and multiple ways to fix it can be sought. We introduce dialogue management based on discourse analysis: a systematic linguistic way to handle the thought process of the author of the content to be delivered. We analyze user sentiments and personal traits to tailor dialogue management to individual customers. We also design a number of dialogue scenarios for CRM with replies following certain patterns and propose virtual and social dialogues for various modalities of communication with a customer. After we learn to detect fake content, deception and hypocrisy, we examine the domain of customer complaints. We simulate mental states, attitudes and emotions of a complainant and try to predict his behavior. Having suggested graph-based formal representations of complaint scenarios, we machine-learn them to identify the best action the customer support organization can chose to retain the complainant as a customer.

Relationship management (RM) is an essential part of business, but its success as a business model can be hard to measure, with some firms embracing a model that is truly relationship-orientated, while others claim to be relationship-orientated but in fact prefer transactional short-term gain. This open access book aims to develop a mid-range theory of relationship management, examining truly relationship-orientated firms to discover not only what qualities these firms have that make them successful at the RM model, but also what benefits this model has for the firm. It addresses questions like how RM-mature companies achieve and sustain competitive advantage, and what determines the scale and scope of these firms, illustrating with case studies. This book will be of interest to scholars studying leadership and strategy, especially those interested in relationship management, business ethics and corporate social responsibility. It will also be of interest to professionals looking to develop their understanding of relationship management.

Customer-orientation, customer-centricity, and customer relationship management (CRM) are not new concepts or practices. But information technology has unleashed tremendous opportunities in dealing with a customer and in creating value to the customer. And yet the majority of CRM investments and initiatives fail because firms do not have the appropriate orientation to serving the customer. The principal aim of this book is to get the reader to think about th firm and the way it conducts its business in a certain way--with a customer focus.

It is now becoming clearly evident that all firms compete on service. Providing superior service becomes a prerequisite for any differentiation strategy to succeed. To provide superior service for a competitive advantage requires a concrete understanding of what service-orientation means. This orientation, in the form of frame of mind, is essential for the firm to take advantage of opportunities and to address the challenges so as to gain a competitive advantage. For excellent service firms, the challenges and opportunities in providing services are a constant endeavor. For others, these challenges and opportunities are not that obvious. A complementary aim of this book, therefore, is to instill into the reader the principles of managing services.

This proceedings volume highlights the latest research presented at the 8th International Conference on Research on National Brand & Private Label Marketing (NB&PL2021). The topics covered include: retailing, private label portfolio and assortment management, marketing of premium store brands, using national brands to exclude (delist) and include, optimal assortment size, consumer store patronage, etc. Several contributions also focus on private label pricing and promotion, especially on the relative pricing of standard and premium private labels, and with regard to the national brands in the assortment.

This book presents latest research on the evolution of consumer services, as these services continue to become a larger part of the economy in the world. Four core focal points lead the central message of the book: first, theconvergence of back and front offices; second, placing the client as a fundamental input of services production and delivery process, and 'industrializing'thecustomers'roletocombineefficiencyand experience; third, the constitution and role of inputs necessary for the configuration, production and delivery of the service, with the crucial roleof 'operationalizing' thecustomers' experience; and fourth, the adoption of new technologies and the appropriate transfer of manufacturing managerial practices through service industrialization.

This is a special volume of articlesbased on solid research and analysis, including conceptualization of the important issues, as well as recommendations for managers. It presents case histories and managerial practices in some key sectors, such as financial services, health care, tourism/hospitality, entertainment and media, online services and home and personal services

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The best customer for any business is a content customer. The happy customer returns again and again, brings his friends and relatives, and their loyalty becomes a marketing platform of its own. But growing a loyal base is challenging, and what works brilliantly for one company might backfire on another. Over the last ten years, however, researchers and psychologists have begun to measure customer happiness in a meaningful way for the first time, and in this revealing look at the power of positive psychology Columbia business professor Bernd Schmitt explores how marketers and brand managers can harness customer experience through a three-pronged approach:*The Feel Good Method: Learn to make customers happy through the experience of pleasure and positive emotions and how those feel-good moments can transform a once-in-a-blue-moon customer to a committed loyalist.*The Meaningful Method: Engage customers through core values, including family, social responsibility, or the environment to attract passionate customers to your business.* The Learning and Growing Method: Help your customers in their own personal growth by making your product an important and indispensable part of their individual development.Schmitt shows marketers and brand managers how to determine which of these best fits their company and how to turn this insight into an authentic and successful campaign that will reach, grow, and sustain a loyal base of customers.

Learn how to navigate the bullies, manipulators and complainers who drive you mad. With example dialogue and techniques, it will help you navigate tricky situations and keep your cool. By understanding the motives and individual behaviours of difficult people, you can learn to manage aggression, reduce awkwardness and remain the better person. This 5th edition of the bestselling Dealing with Difficult People features practical exercises, useful templates and top tips you need to get the best out of the worst, including how to deal with difficult customers, dealing with difficult people in the digital sphere, advice on beating bullies at their own game and how to deal with a boss who drives you barmy. The Creating Success series of books... Unlock vital skills, power up your performance and get ahead with the bestselling Creating Success series. Written by experts for new and aspiring managers and leaders, this million-selling collection of accessible and empowering guides will get you up to speed in no time. Packed with clever thinking, smart advice and the kind of winning techniques that really get results, you'll make fast progress, quickly reach your goals and create lasting success in your career.

The ever-growing influence of the Internet has caused a paradigm shift in relationships between customers and companies. New types of interaction introduced by Web 1.0 have undergone a dramatic change in quantity and quality with the advent of Web 2.0. Web 3.0, better known as the Semantic Web, will also significantly impact how companies understand Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Customer Relationship Management and the Social and Semantic Web: Enabling Cliens Conexus provides an overview of the field of the Semantic Web, social Web, and CRM by uniting various research studies from different subfields. Providing a forum for the exchange of research ideas and practices, this book is a reference convergence point for professionals, managers, and researchers in the CRM field together with IT professionals. It also aims to explore the opportunities and challenges confronting organizations in the light of customers in Web 2.0 by using new technologies, including semantic technologies (Web 3.0).

Social media has received considerable attention, and many potential benefits, as well as concerns, are now being discussed. This book explores how social media can successfully support business processes in marketing, sales and service in the context of customer relationship management (CRM). It presents the fundamentals of Social CRM and shows how small and large companies alike have implemented it. In turn, the book presents analytic and operational software tools that offer features for enhancing and streamlining interactions with customers. The book concludes with an overview of essential design areas that businesses need to bear in mind when introducing social media into their CRM strategies. In this regard, it also points out key success factors, limitations, and data protection aspects.

Learning to express yourself in a positive and professional way can be an art-form. THE TRADE TECHNICIAN'S SOFT SKILLS MANUAL, teaches these important soft skills with line drawings, photographs, and anecdotes from real case studies. This approach makes the subject area approachable while engaging the reader. The anecdotes are followed by explanations of proven service behaviors, along with proven standards, practice tips, forms, documents and checklists complete the text to teach technicians the fine art of customer service. Based on more than 30 years of studies and field research, this text teaches the skills needed for a trade technician to advance in their careers and differentiate themselves from others in their field. THE TRADE TECHNICIAN'S SOFT SKILLS MANUAL is written by Steve Coscia, a motivational speaker who managed a technical support team for more than 20 years and has used these techniques and practices to advance his own career as an industry expert.

This book provides stimulating insights into the ways in which the adoption of experience logic can revitalize marketing perspectives and stimulate novel approaches to the creation and delivery of value. The first part of the book, which has a theoretical focus, reviews the international literature and offers conceptual observations on the experiential perspective. Suggestions are made on how experience logic can act as a new driver for the management of marketing processes in firms within the context of the experience economy. In the second part of the book, attention turns to the applications of experience logic in different sectors, including tourism, commerce, culture, and trade shows. Company-specific examples of benefits of the experiential approach are also explored in case studies on gift box providers, marketing of traditional local products, and the cosmetics industry. The book will be of particular interest for marketing specialists, but will additionally be of value for managers in private companies and public bodies who wish to enhance their marketing methods.

Engaging customers has become an effective strategy of marketers for improving customer-brand relationships as customer engagement is a perfect predictor of organic growth. Aggressive sales promotions, advertising campaigns, rewards, discounts, and more may attract a customer, but customer engagement creates an emotional connection with the brands/firms/services, which drives customer loyalty and long-term profitability. This has become much more applicable and effective with the use of social media platforms and the increased access of internet. Moreover, the implementation of customer analytics to measure engagement activities has provided marketers with more insights for improving services. Insights, Innovation, and Analytics for Optimal Customer Engagement is an advanced reference book that covers the latest emerging research in customer engagement and includes underlying theories, innovative methods, a review of existing literature, engagement analytics, and insights for marketers with reference to customer engagement. The book covers various product categories, industries, and sectors that are working to engage customers in inventive and creative ways. This book is a comprehensive reference tool for marketers, brand managers, social media specialists, advertisers, managers, executives, academicians, researchers, practitioners, and students interested in gaining comprehensive knowledge about customer engagement and the latest advancements in the field.

Digital Sales Transformation is about selling in a digitally transformed world. It changes how you sell and engage with your customer. Defining a Digital Sales Transformation blueprint to guide sales organizations to respond to this disruption as they struggle to catch up to their more digitally advanced customers is this book's core theme. Digital Sales Transformation in a Customer First World will be your constant companion as your execute your Digital Sales Transformation strategy. At over 500 pages, it is packed with actionable knowledge as a blueprint for your journey. It guides you to define your Ideal Customer Profile, to Understand the Customer's Business, to Build, Elevate and Expand Relationships, and how to Create and Communicate Value. It includes a framework to build an effective Executive Sponsor Program, to execute Account Based Marketing, and describes the role of Artificial Intelligence in enterprise B2B sales. It sets out Strategy, Sales Execution, and Sales Management methods for Sales Process, Opportunity Management, Account Management and overall Sales Team Performance Management, and it describes the technology to use in each case.

Bringing together theoretical and empirical studies from the Journal of Information Technology, this book provides a definitive guide to research discovered on the growing global sourcing phenomenon. Paying particular attention to Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), theoretical chapters explore insightful ways of thinking about the different facets of outsourcing, and provide useful information to practitioners and researchers. Empirical chapters report the findings of 405 major research studies into the risks and successes of relationships between customer and vendor, the development of trust in these relationships, the factors affecting locations for offshoring, and specialized offshoring organizations such as captive centres. In this comprehensive study, the editors present an expert review of the historical development of this field, and offer analysis of emerging findings and practices for the future.

Great or Poor is a powerful and proven system to deliver excellent customer experiences in any organisation. Based around four key principles, the book shows readers how to (1) establish a genuine customer-focused mission which is embraced throughout the organisation (2) identify and understand customers' REAL needs (3) get their teams always to go "the extra inch" and (4) establish a true measure of the results. The system has already been tried and tested in a number of organisations with great results. In the words of Guy Insull, founder and MD of The Champions Club, it is is "an amazingly simple yet powerful system"; Neil Robertson, CEO of The British Institute of Innkeeping, describes it as "a real breakthrough"; and author Richard Denny says it is "the best material on customer care that I have ever come across".

Positive consumerism is the backbone to a strong economy. Examining the relationship between culture and marketing can provide companies with the data they need to expand their reach and increase their profits. Global Observations of the Influence of Culture on Consumer Buying Behavior is an in-depth, scholarly resource that discusses how marketing practices can be influenced by cultural preferences. Featuring an array of relevant topics including societal environments, cultural stereotyping, brand loyalty, and marketing semiotics, this publication is ideal for CEOs, business managers, professionals, and researchers that are interested in studying alternative factors that impact the marketing field.

'CRM Systems in Industrial Companies' contributes new knowledge on customer relationship management (CRM) in the field of industrial marketing. Based on an in-depth case study, this book highlights the complexity and challenges in the development, implementation and use of CRM. The volume proposes an alternative conceptualization of CRM: relying on the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) perspective, CRM becomes a socio-technical 'resource' which needs to be connected to the other resources before it can create effects on customer relationships.

The quality of customer experience has become more important in recent times as businesses struggle to differentiate themselves. But what are the emerging trends that businesses should focus on today? The authors explore the growing trends that progressive businesses need to understand to give themselves a competitive advantage.

This book presents the Recommender System for Improving Customer Loyalty. New and innovative products have begun appearing from a wide variety of countries, which has increased the need to improve the customer experience. When a customer spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on a piece of equipment, keeping it running efficiently is critical to achieving the desired return on investment. Moreover, managers have discovered that delivering a better customer experience pays off in a number of ways. A study of publicly traded companies conducted by Watermark Consulting found that from 2007 to 2013, companies with a better customer service generated a total return to shareholders that was 26 points higher than the S&P 500. This is only one of many studies that illustrate the measurable value of providing a better service experience. The Recommender System presented here addresses several important issues. (1) It provides a decision framework to help managers determine which actions are likely to have the greatest impact on the Net Promoter Score. (2) The results are based on multiple clients. The data mining techniques employed in the Recommender System allow users to "learn" from the experiences of others, without sharing proprietary information. This dramatically enhances the power of the system. (3) It supplements traditional text mining options. Text mining can be used to identify the frequency with which topics are mentioned, and the sentiment associated with a given topic. The Recommender System allows users to view specific, anonymous comments associated with actual customers. Studying these comments can provide highly accurate insights into the steps that can be taken to improve the customer experience. (4) Lastly, the system provides a sensitivity analysis feature. In some cases, certain actions can be more easily implemented than others. The Recommender System allows managers to "weigh" these actions and determine which ones would have a greater impact.