Costas Assimakopoulos

Successful implementation of CRM in luxury hotels: determinants and measurements

Purpose – Valid measurement scales for predicting the adoption of hoteliers’ customer‐centric orientation are in short supply. The present research develops and validates a new scale for a specific variable, i.e. Management Attitudes Towards Customer‐Centric Orientation (MATCCO). Furthermore, this research attempts to identify some broad determinants for a successful CRM system implementation and propose a research model depicting possible relationships among MATCCO, broad determinants and profit.Design/methodology/approach – A structured questionnaire has been developed in order to accomplish the research objectives. Data were collected from 86 Greek luxury hotels. Accepted methodology was used to construct the measure, factor analysis to determine the CRM key success factors (KSFs) and Pearson correlation, ANOVA and discriminant analysis to test the proposed model. Additionally, qualitative research was conducted in two Greek luxury hotels.Findings – A reliable and valid measure of MATCCO was constructe...

Performance Evaluation of LDPC Codes on PLC Channel Compared to Other Coding Schemes

In this paper we study how power line communications are affected by different coding techniques. We investigate the case of LDPC coding scheme and its application to the PLC channel. The modulation method applied is BPSK while the transmission technique used is OFDM. We study regular LDPC codes, which is the worst case scenario concerning the performance of LDPC codes. The OFDM symbol size is initially defined at 4096 carriers, since certain characteristics of LDPC codes, like their sparse parity check matrix, imply that a larger block size improves their performance. In this paper, the coding and decoding technique have firstly been applied to a realistic power line channel. The attenuation caused by the PLC channel is derived from actual measurements. We test the performance of LDPC codes of frac12 code rate, by means of BER, compared to Reed-Solomon codes of similar code rate and convolutional codes, when they are all applied to the PLC channel and under the same conditions. Additionally, impulsive noise is generated and the systems performance is tested under the coding schemes mentioned above. Afterwards, we examine how different code rates affect the BER. All the above results are obtained via computer simulations.

Investigating customer satisfaction dimensions with service quality of online auctions: an empirical investigation of e-Bay

Over the recent years, C2C (consumer-to-consumer) electronic market has increased rapidly, and has become the most active segment of e-markets today. Despite the growth and popularity of online auctions and especially of e-Bay, which has been considered to be one of the most profitable e-commerce companies, the online auction environment is risky and transactions are complex due to the fact that buyer and seller do not know each other and they are not familiar. Although many studies have examined the impact of e-service quality on customer satisfaction in B2C (business-to-consumer) or B2B (business-to-business) commerce, the literature is insufficient in the case of C2C commerce. However, a number of authors have conducted research in C2C and particularly in e-Bay but in all of the cases, data source from e-Bay’s feedback system was employed in order to investigate service quality issues. Nevertheless, in this study a field research was conducted in order to collect the necessary data and thus reducing possible bias. The purpose of this paper is to examine some determinants of satisfaction with service quality dimensions in the online auction environment. More specifically, this paper is examining the case of e-Bay, in order to have a better understanding of buyers’ satisfaction in this risky environment. The paper’s aim is accomplished through an empirical investigation of a sample of 2,099 buyers of e-Bay, examining buyers’ expectation and perception levels towards service quality of e-Bay. Gap analysis was first employed in order to identify users’ disconfirmation dimensions in the online auction market place. Some research hypotheses are formulated to find out whether these dimensions have a positive disconfirmation. In most of the cases a positive disconfirmation is tracked down. Secondly, factor analysis was utilized to identify broad determinants of e-Bay service quality. The pool of the initial items deduced to four factors. These factors are, to a degree, differentiated in the Greek environment from factors found in other studies. A second round of research hypotheses are formulated again to find out whether those factors are related to the users’ disconfirmation dimensions. Finally, a new theoretical model is proposed based on the above mentioned hypotheses.

Unified models for adaptive OFDM systems when QAM or PSK modulation is applied

In this paper, the solutions of the major bit-loading problems that are found in the literature, are unified into simple equations (models). These equations give an insight of the affection of the channel over a multicarrier system. Moreover, the models allow the transition from the solution of one loading problem to the solution of the others. The models are dependent on the modulation type that is used. We examine the quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) modulated orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), and the phase shift keying (PSK)-modulated OFDM systems. For each modulation type, the continuous throughput model is extracted. The continuous throughput model refers to a system that its subcarriers can be loaded with non-integer number of bits. The non-integer bit distribution can then be rounded to integers, using a rounding method. The models except from the calculation of the optimised quantities (total data rate, total power and symbol error rate) without the need of running a loading algorithm to its extent, provide a means to manipulate a whole multicarrier system in a way similar to single-carrier system. Copyright

Online reviews as a feedback mechanism for hotel CRM systems

This study aims to improve hotel customer relationship management (CRM) by connecting it with a reputation mechanism which will provide integrated customer reviews. We propose a framework that identifies some key modules a hotels CRM should employ. An important contribution of this research is to show how a CRM system can be effectively operated by facilitating the reputation system and hotel customer feedback. The empirical part of our research examines the influence of hotel quality perceptions using data obtained from web-based hotel reviews. These results can be exploited by the proposed integrated hotel CRM system and could be used to extract reviews including predictions on how value for money is going to be formulated when a specific number of complaints is received and how each of the hotel parameters affect the value for money parameter.

Effective social media marketing strategy: Facebook as an opportunity for universities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usage of university Facebook (FB) groups and sites by undergraduate students seeking information about their departments and the ways these pages could be used to acquire students. The factors that can intensify the FB group activities of a university are examined as well as how FB can be used as a marketing tool to improve marketing campaigns. Design/methodology/approach The study investigates and compares two universities: the University of Novi Sad of the Republic of Serbia and the Technological Educational Institute of Western Macedonia, Greece. A structured questionnaire was used with samples of 343 and 300 students gathered in this survey. Findings An enhanced technology acceptance model oriented toward FB is presented and it is the conceptual background of the paper. Student demographics and behavioral characteristics of the FB group they enrolled on were determined. Common behavioral patterns of the usage tension of the FB group are also identified. Additionally, five factors were determined that can be used by university marketers to intensify engagement with the FB group. Research limitations/implications Larger samples should be used for future research. Originality/value The paper proposes a marketing strategy a higher education institution should follow to more effectively use social networking sites as a marketing tool.

New bit loading algorithms for DMT systems based on the greedy approach

The performance of a DMT system, which transmits information over channels with varying characteristics through the frequency zones, is improved when the subchannels of the system are loaded with variable data rate. In this study, we meet the bit loading problem of the subcarriers of a DMT system. We propose two new optimum-loading algorithms with low computational complexity. These algorithms assign integer number of bits successively until a target bit rate is fulfilled. We compare them with several existing algorithms in terms of transmitting energy versus data rate and complexity versus systems characteristics i.e. number of subcarriers and target data rate. Simulations prove that without sacrificing optimality both our proposals present a lower complexity level. Copyright

Multiuser power and bit allocation over power line channels

In this paper the power lines are studied as a multi-user environment for data transmission. The aim of the multi-user optimization problem is the minimization of the aggregate transmitting power when several constraints are fulfilled. The optimum but computationally not efficient system is simulated and analyzed. A FDMA system, which is a typical multiuser system, is also applied over the same power line channels. Then several suboptimal schemes but with reduced complexity are simulated and analyzed in detail. A new suboptimal multiuser system is proposed and compared to the others in terms of normalized transmission power per bit for several data loads and constant BER. The proposed system outperforms the suboptimal competitors, increasing slightly the systems complexity. The main gist of the new algorithm is that the weak users are delayed whereas the strong users are accelerated. That means that the weak users have to store their data for short periods of time in buffers and transmit them later when the strong users have achieved to transmit their own bits and thus liberate their own subchannels.

Performance evaluation of a recursive LA/IR protocol for MC-CDMA power line communications

The performance evaluation of a recursive link adaptation/incremental redundancy (LA/IR) protocol is made on a power line channel for communication purposes. The recursive LA/IR protocol has been tested for a wireless channel and proved to have an improved performance compared to other pure IR protocols or hybrid non-recursive LA/IR. The communication medium is the power line in buildings grid where users are plugged on/off randomly. The transmission scheme is a MC-CDMA where information bits are coded using rate compatible punctured convolutional codes (RCPC) codes. The performance measures are: (a) the number of users versus delay due to retransmissions, and (b) the effective code rate that gives an indication of the system throughput.

Maximization of users experience in websites: estimating the optimum size of the multimedia content

In this paper, an extended experimental research is performed in order to calculate the mean opinions score (MOS) of several users considering quality of experience variables such as “information perception” and “multimedia type of preference”. The experimental campaign resulted in a great archive of measurements of the MOS of users over several multimedia files. It was found that multimedia type affects information perception whereas users prefer information to be presented by certain multimedia types. A quality factor