Geoffrey L. Gordon

Service Quality and Customer Loyalty in the Commercial Airline Industry

The study examines issues related to service quality and customer loyalty in the commercial airline industry. The results of an empirical study, using data collected on two air carriers, indicate that current levels of perceived service quality are below potential and that customer loyalty to airlines is low. A significant relationship was found to exist between service quality (carrier image) and retained preference, a measure of customer loyalty.

Multi‐channel shopping: understanding what drives channel choice

Observes that traditional retail, catalog, and online‐only businesses face a critical decision – to accept a new, yet unrefined business model that includes multiple channels or to retain their single channel model and risk becoming obsolete and left behind by new, multi‐channel competitors. The decision process and implementation of a multi‐channel strategy could be simplified if businesses understood what drives consumers to a single channel, multiple channels, and which channels are preferred. Outlines the key issues facing multi‐channel marketers, and encourages multi‐channel businesses to take a customer‐centric view rather than a channel focused view to work through the challenges unique to the multi‐channel marketer. A model of multi‐channel buyer behavior is proposed to help the multi‐channel marketer develop a customer‐centric view. Presents a series of propositions which serve to encourage and direct future research in this area.

Brand Equity in the Business‐to‐Business Sector: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Posits a stagewise learning process involved in the building of brand equity: brand birth; the creation of brand awareness and associations; the building of quality and value perceptions; the emergence of brand loyalty; and the launching of brand extensions. Also reports on an empirical study which explored the evolution, existence and extensibility of brand equity in a particular business‐to‐business market. Concludes with practical implications for managers in business‐to‐business product or service firms.

Building a University Brand from Within: University Administrators' Perspectives of Internal Branding

The branding process has evolved into a role that suggests a promise to meet consumer expectations. This promise has typically been developed based on external promotional strategies such as advertising and sales promotion. More recently, the brand messages conveyed to employees of an organization have been recognized as an important aspect of an organizations positioning. The objective of this study is to investigate the internal promotion of the brand within an industry that only recently began to embrace integrated marketing efforts: higher education. Administrators in higher education who regularly have an opportunity to convey the university brand promise to outside constituencies are surveyed. Respondents from private institutions reported greater brand clarity than respondents at public institutions.

Building brand loyalty through individual stock ownership

Building brand loyalty has become more important, yet more difficult to achieve in todays marketplace. This research investigates a possible avenue for building brand loyalty that is not directly related to the marketing of the product – attracting individual investors in the brands corporate parent. A survey of over 500 individual investors revealed that individual investors do tend to buy brands from companies in which they hold stock, and investors may buy stock in a company because they have experience with the brand. In contrast with brand loyalty, where consumers will not buy competitive offerings, individual investors indicated they would buy competitive offerings, suggesting that stock ownership is more likely to lead to repeat purchase behavior, but not brand loyalty.

Reengineering and the marketing function: integration of theory and practice

One of the most popular topics in American business today is reengineering. Rarely has such a misunderstood term been embraced so widely in theory and in practice. Numerous definitions and lists of key components to successful reengineering have confused managers as to what reengineering is in theory and in practice. Brings together the diverse literature and identifies clearly the activities, questions and process changes theorized to be necessary in reengineering efforts. In addition, reports the results of a survey designed to assess which of these purported activities, questions and process changes are, in practice, part of reengineering efforts as perceived by marketing professionals. Over 200 marketing professionals revealed their perception of firms’ involvement in reengineering, and evaluated involvement in key activities, process changes and asking of fundamental questions. The results reveal interesting discrepancies between theoretical reengineering and reengineering in practice. Implies that reengineering may not be a black‐and‐white issue, but rather exist on a gray continuum.

Understanding consumer database marketing

As consumer marketers have become increasingly disenchanted with traditional “shotgun” mass‐media approaches to reaching customers, database marketing has emerged as the answer to marketers’ woes. Despite its widespread use by direct marketers, database marketing is relatively new to consumer marketers and, as such, leaves some consumer marketers confused as to why it works and how to implement a database program. Presents a managerially relevant introduction to database marketing. Defines database marketing, outlines its advantages and disadvantages and describes application examples. Provides managers with a practical approach to developing a database marketing program. Reviews some trends in database marketing to prepare the consumer marketer for changes in the database marketing program.

The new product development process: let the voice of the salesperson be heard

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to provide an empirical examination of the role of the salesperson in the new product/service development process.Design/methodology/approach – A survey was mailed to 2,650 sales managers representing US firms across the nation, and the resulting sample size consisted of 246 respondents with a response rate of 9.3 percent. The survey sample included firms with a business‐to‐business emphasis, and those with a minimum of 50 employees.Findings – The majority of the respondents reported that salespeople are indirectly or directly involved in the new product/service development process. In spite of this contribution, many firms do not directly reward salespeople for their involvement. Offering appropriate incentives could greatly increase their efforts to collect information for new product/service idea generation.Research limitations/implications – Suggested future research includes the perspectives of salespeople, new product development directors, etc. In addition,...

New product development practices in consumer versus business products organizations

Most recent work in the area of new product development has been of a theoretically prescriptive basis, ignoring, to a large degree, the current state of affairs in US corporations. The study examines, on a comparative basis, consumer and business products organizations, practices being utilized to guide the development process and key factors influencing the success/failure of the process. Results from an empirical study reveal that: (1) there is no one best means to structure the process; (2) top management commitment to and support of the process is a critical factor; (3) knowledge of markets and customers remains elusive; and (4) more similarities than differences exist between the practices undertaken by and the factors influencing success/failure in consumer versus business products organizations.

New product development: using the salesforce to identify opportunities

The development process for new products is critically dependent on customer‐generated new product ideas. Although several conduits exist for identifying and communicating these ideas, by far the most productive one is the organization’s salesforce. While the integral role of salespeople as the linkage between buyers and sellers is generally acknowledged by many researchers, little empirical evidence exists which explores this role. This paper explores the role of the salesforce as an information source in the opportunity identification phase of the new product development process. It presents results of an empirical study of 223 sales managers concerning actual use and effectiveness of the salesforce as a source of new product ideas and proposes specific recommendations concerning improved utilization of the salesforce as a source of new product ideas generated from customers.