This book focuses on the implications of digitalisation in the mobility service industry. Based on an analysis of more than 450 survey responses, it explores and assesses mobility in the age of digitalisation. The content covers both changes in the relationship between the company and its customers and a potential paradigm shift among leading companies. The findings suggest that a shift from traditional mobility management to a more customer-centred management perspective is both widely accepted and increasingly necessary. Nevertheless, the inclusion of services that are not primarily concerned with overcoming spatial distances is considered to be less attractive. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to researchers and professionals who are involved in digitalisation in the mobility service industry.

This book explains how startups and brands in general can achieve a high level of customer experience (CX) in today's dynamic and competitive times. A well-structured and easy to apply customer experience framework defines customer experience as the start and end point of all business activities. The framework steps and tools (such as NPS, Empathy Map, Customer Journey, Golden Circle, Design Thinking, A/B-Testing) are designed to have a maximum impact on successful company building and the customer experience, which is key to generate first and repeat buyers that become fans of the company. The tools originate from different disciplines, such as management, design, digitisation or psychology - as only an interdisciplinary approach enables superior insights for initiating the right customer activities in today's highly competitive times. With this book, it is possible to look at customer experience systematically and derive your own strategy towards success. The following are the main contributions of this book: * Provides a clear step-by-step guide to create a customer experience-centric company * Introduces most impactful tools that managers can use to successfully complete every step of our framework * Guides managers through the process of creating a start-up, which is less about magically coming up with innovative business ideas, but rather about applying proven principles in a new context

This book presents case studies of South Asian companies that have strategic business implications, highlighting the complex interplay of business and social dynamics in South Asia. This region is a wide agglomeration of very different countries that share somewhat common cultures and issues and yet it is torn apart by religion and politics. There is an abundance of local entrepreneurship but a widespread institutional void. The book investigates how local companies survive and thrive in this environment and discusses those companies that have withstood the competitive pressure of MNCs, depicting their management and business practices. In today's world, where multinationals are so omnipresent that their management and business practices are considered as the de facto recipe for success, there is a need to have an alternative view that challenges the ubiquitousness of multinational management practices. The case studies in this book focus on the business and management practices of local organizations in South Asia and thus provide that alternative viewpoint of how to achieve success in South Asia. Exposing readers to a local perspective on doing business in South Asia, it is a valuable resource for students and practitioners of management.

This book highlights the importance of understanding how trust and indigenous African cultural institutions enhance the development of entrepreneurial networks and relationships in Africa. Drawing on institutional theories, the author re-examines the way that entrepreneurial behaviour can be shaped, with a focus on trust, networks and the development of relationships. Analysing a combination of existing literature and empirical data from 50 internationally trading SMEs in Africa, this book reflects the growing interests of entrepreneurs, investors and corporate executives to develop trust and relationships with customers in order to invest and grow. By addressing the need for a greater understanding of how social and cultural institutions in Africa affect the continent's economy, this book not only offers theoretical frameworks, but also future implications for practice and policy, and will provide essential reading for those studying emerging markets and globalisation, African business, and entrepreneurship more generally.

Advances in Hospitality and Leisure (AHL), a peer-reviewed research journal, has been published annually since 2004. AHL is indexed in Scopus and included in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) journal quality list. Its editors, editorial board members, ad-hoc reviewers entail scholars from North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. AHL with international in focus attempts to divulge the innovative methods of inquiry to inspire new research topics that are vital and have been largely neglected in the context of hospitality, tourism, and leisure. It strives to address the needs of the populace willing to disseminate seminal ideas, concepts, and theories derived from scholarly inquiries. AHL covers full papers and research notes in the matter of conceptual models and empirical investigations using inductive and deductive methods. The authors of this publication come from America, Europe, Asia, Pacific, and Africa. Potential readers may retrieve useful articles to outline new research agendas, suggest viable topics for a dissertation work, and augment the knowledge of the new subjects of learning.

This research monograph brings AI to the field of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to make a customer experience with a product or service smart and enjoyable. AI is here to help customers to get a refund for a canceled flight, unfreeze a banking account or get a health test result. Today, CRM has evolved from storing and analyzing customers' data to predicting and understanding their behavior by putting a CRM system in a customers' shoes. Hence advanced reasoning with learning from small data, about customers' attitudes, introspection, reading between the lines of customer communication and explainability need to come into play. Artificial Intelligence for Customer Relationship Management leverages a number of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), simulation and reasoning techniques to enable CRM with intelligence. An effective and robust CRM needs to be able to chat with customers, providing desired information, completing their transactions and resolving their problems. It introduces a systematic means of ascertaining a customers' frame of mind, their intents and attitudes to determine when to provide a thorough answer, a recommendation, an explanation, a proper argument, timely advice and promotion or compensation. The author employs a spectrum of ML methods, from deterministic to statistical to deep, to predict customer behavior and anticipate possible complaints, assuring customer retention efficiently. Providing a forum for the exchange of ideas in AI, this book provides a concise yet comprehensive coverage of methodologies, tools, issues, applications, and future trends for professionals, managers, and researchers in the CRM field together with AI and IT professionals.

This proceedings volume explores marketing opportunities and challenges that exist in the current, fast-changing landscape of the global marketplace. Current global issues such as the rising middle class in emerging markets, disruptive technological breakthroughs, big data analytics, changing consumer habits and concerns over national trade policies have renewed ethical concerns around consumer privacy and the tools companies use to operate, market to, connect and build a relationship with their customers. Featuring the full proceedings from the 2019 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in Vancouver, Canada, this book explores and assess the rate of change that drives companies to evaluate and adapt their marketing strategies to remain competitive. 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. Volumes 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 role of UX manager is of vital importance -- it means leading a productive team, influencing businesses to adopt user-centered design, and delivering valuable products customers. Few UX professionals who find themselves in management positions have formal training in management. More often than not they are promoted to a management position after having proven themselves as an effective and successful practitioner.Yet as important as the position of manager is to the advancement of the field there are no books that specifically address the needs of user experience managers. Though information is available on the Web, nothing ties that advice together in the way a manager would need to integrate it in their work.

"User Experience Management"speaks directly to the UX manager and to the unique challengesone mayface. It outlines the robust framework for how to be an effective UX manager, from creating a team, to orchestrating product development, to ensuring UX is not compromised, to achieving company buy-in on results. This acts as a checklist readers can use to make sure they have covered the bases as they think about how to build their own user experience programs. Written by an experienced UX manager, and containing testamonials from many leading managers in the field, managers both current and aspiring will find this an invaluable reference loaded with ideas and techniques for managing user experience.

*Gives a UX leadership boot-camp from putting together a winning team, to giving them a driving focus, to acting as their spokesman, to handling difficult situations

*Full of practical advice and experiences for managers and leaders in virtually any area of the user experience field

*Contains best practices, real-world stories, and insights from UX leaders at IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and many more "

"We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better." Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com This proceedings volume explores the ways in which marketers can learn about customers through big data and other sources to create an enhanced customer experience. Consumers today do not simply demand engaging online or offline experiences anymore; they increasingly focus on one seamless experience throughout their journey across virtual and real spaces. While shopping in a physical store, consumers are checking their smart phones for customer reviews and competitive information, and catching a Pokemon or two at the same time. Online experience is no longer only about price shopping and convenience, and offline is no longer only about SKUs. Individual channels matter less and less; it is the omni-channel experience that is becoming main-stream. Marketers need to keep pace and continually adapt and contribute to the changing consumer landscape. Through countless touchpoints across different channels and media, marketers today can learn more about their customers and are better equipped than ever to provide them with a desired augmented experience: easy, fun, engaging, and efficient. Featuring the full proceedings from the 2018 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana, this volume provides ground-breaking research from scholars and practitioner from around the world that will help marketers continue to engage their customers in this new landscape. 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. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy's flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.

Basil O’Hagan’s latest book is a treasure trove of 175 tips on how to deliver the best customer service, whatever your industry. Deliver sensational service! Build loyalty! Grow Profits!

Basil shares his decades of experience in this critical discipline in one easy-to-read volume. Learn to plan and implementworld-class customer service, how to build a service culture, the importance of atmosphere and how to deliver customer service on social media.

Real, practical advice from the best in the game.

Our two organizations, Northern Telecom Europe Limited and Oracle Corporation UK Limited, share a number of things in common. Both are striving to become world class in markets where technology is moving fast and market change is moving even faster. Both are responding urgently to the challenge of meeting the current requirements - and anticipating the future needs - of customers at the international, national and local level. We both recognize that customer and employee satisfaction now rank with market share as measures for business success. We accept that there are clear links between delighted customers and profitability, customer loyalty and long-term survival. We are committed to achieving excellence, both as business partners and as employers. There is already strong co-operation between the growing number of professionals in this field as they work together and exchange experiences for benchmarking and best practice studies. In this spirit of collaboration, we have encouraged Peter Donovan and Timothy Samler to share some of our early experiences with our customer-driven programmes and to stimulate further debate. Their book provides a wealth of guidance for any organization that has set its sights on delighting its customers and becoming customer-driven. The ten step approach to delighting customers breaks new ground and offers a blueprint for others to follow. It exemplifies the practical approach that is taken throughout the book.

This new book focusses upon customer care in relation to Human Resource Management issues and strategic planning. It addresses the objective of customer loyalty and retention in relation to business success and shows how this can integrate a company's strategy with regard to Marketing, Human Resource Management, Quality and Management of Change. This is an innovative book in a topical area that draws upon case study material.

This book analyzes the evolution of marketing and the ways in which marketing actions can be rendered more effective, before setting out a new approach to marketing, termed The Extra Step (TES) in recognition of the importance that it attributes to the final extra step in enhancing the effectiveness of marketing efforts. Readers will find clear description of the pathway from purchase to loyalty and the various means of developing customer loyalty. It is explained how the TES approach goes one step further by considering the consumer as a partner whose involvement during the production and fine tuning phase of products and services can help to increase the efficiency of customer loyalty actions implemented by companies. The theoretical analysis is supported by observations and empirical evidence relating to the concepts and benefits of the TES approach. These examples concern firms in Italy, Europe, and the United States, including insurance agencies, pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies, and food distribution companies. The TES approach is of wide relevance and especially valid for the service sector.

This book provides a synthesis of research perspectives on customer engagement through a collection of chapters from thought leaders. It identifies cutting-edge metrics for capturing and measuring customer engagement and highlights best practices in implementing customer engagement marketing strategies. Responding to the rapidly changing business landscape where consumers are more connected, accessible, and informed than ever before, many firms are investing in customer engagement marketing. The book will appeal to academics, practitioners, consultants, and managers looking to improve customer engagement.

"Lived Experiences of Public Consumption "brings together original research of anthropologists and sociologists whose work begins with the premise that culture and markets/commerce are inseparable. Chapters cover a range of topical areas such as authenticity in a Thai handicraft market, higgerling among women in Jamaica and global shopping in Australia. Cultures and practices from almost every continent are represented in studies addressing the ways in which the shifting landscapes of global commerce find expression in the political dynamics of marketplaces.

1. Provides an overview of customer service principles, theories, and practices, and covers a range of classic and contemporary business theories 2. Includes case studies of business enterprises in various hospitality and service sectors including hotels, restaurants, theme parks, event management, airlines, cruises, (e-)retailers, finance 3. Suggests important considerations and design concepts for businesses to introduce technological innovations in service settings 4. Learning Objectives and Discussion Questions included in every content chapter as learning aids

"Service Systems Implementation" provides the latest applications and practices aimed at improving the key performance indicators of service systems, especially those related to service quality, service productivity, regulatory compliance, and sustainable service innovation. The book presents action-oriented, application-oriented, design science-oriented (artifacts building: constructs, models, methods and instantiations) and case study-oriented research with actionable results by illustrating techniques that can be employed in large scale, real world examples. The case studies will help visualize service systems along the four key dimensions of people, information, technology and value propositions which can help enable better integration between them towards higher value propositions.

The chapters, written by leading experts in the field, examine a wide range of substantive issues and implementations related to service science in various industries. These contributions also showcase the application of an array of research methods, including surveys, experiments, design science, case studies and frameworks, providing the reader with insights and guidelines to assist in building their own service systems, and thus, moving toward a more favorable service customer and provider experience.

"Service Systems Implementation," along with its companion text, "The Science of Service Systems," is designed to present multidisciplinary and multisectoral perspectives on the nature of service systems, on research and practice in service, and on the future directions to advance service science. These two volumes compose a collection of articles from those involved in the emerging area known as service science.

* Uniquely focuses on achieving customer satisfaction with the hotel and event industries, giving step-by-step practical guidance. * Integration of case studies, author voice boxes, and example forms and documents for the standardization of procedures key to achieving customer satisfaction, informed by extensive professional experience of both authors put into the context of existing theoretical frameworks. * Inclusion of underexplored areas such as employee empowerment, customer delight, over-promising, cultural implications and contractual issues in customer satisfaction.

The book addresses the concept of diversity and inclusiveness (D&I) and brings stories from the corporate, practitioners, think tanks and NGOs. It advocates the need and implementation of the D&I concept to build society of the future. It strives to bring out a focused approach in connecting "Theory to Practice". Every chapter delves into a different area and presents real-time practices as well as the challenges and the way forward. The book explains the various levels at which discrimination can occur such as demographic profiles, regional differences, religious alliances, college pedigree, marital status, sexual preferences, physical disability and health differentiation, pregnancy or returning mothers and technology competence. The book cites examples of inclusion from progressive organizations such as ABB India, Marico, TCS, PNB Metlife and Alsthom. Presenting the business case of D&I, the book emphasizes on creating a robust D&I strategy with a road map and alignment through internal and external frameworks as well as periodic audits. The Responsible, Accountable, Consultant and Informed (RACI) matrix is discussed while setting up the D&I analytics framework within the organization. The book also presents the growing role of artificial intelligence tools that can empower employees to participate in the D&I journey of an organization. It shares how tools such as Balloonr, Glint, Organization View, Planbox, Pluto and Waggl have been specially designed to allow employees to anonymously provide ideas and respond to ideas provided by others. Going forward, the D&I practices will have to be more customized than generalized, and this book brings up real evidences to make its point