Iguácel Melero

Recasting the customer experience in today's omnichannel environment

Omni-channel marketing refers to the synergetic management of the available channels and customer touchpoints to enhance the customer experience and improve performance. It has become a cornerstone of marketing strategy but putting it into practice is still one of the major challenges that firms face today. In this study, we aim to understand how firms can manage all touchpoints across all channels in an integrated manner to provide a superior customer experience and gain competitive edge. To do so, we identify a number of key issues that firms must consider before they can embrace the changes that their organizations need to recast the customer experience and obtain superior performance. These include adopting a customer-centric approach, unifying all touchpoints across all channels, delivering personalized customer experiences, integrating the available channels, delight customers across channels, redefining the role of the physical store and embracing mobile marketing.

Online customer-initiated contacts and the development of profitable relationships

Abstract Recent advances in technology have profoundly impacted the way firms interact and transact with current and prospective customers. The emergence of online channels has been of particular relevance, as it promotes consumers’ active participation in the value-creation process. In this study, we draw from the Stimulus-Organism-Response model to provide a theoretical understanding of the role played by two critical factors driving online customer-initiated contacts (OnCICs): social effects and perceived risk. Additionally, we establish a direct link between these interactions and customer profitability. We merge longitudinal objective data with subjective data for a sample of 1990 customers in financial services and apply partial least squares, revealing that social effects influence perceived risk. Perceived risk consequently promotes the development of OnCICs, while social effects reduce the need for such interactions. Finally, OnCICs help to promote high-quality relationships and leads to higher performance. Implications for theory and management are discussed.

Aprender jugando: la utilización de simuladores empresariales en el aula universitaria

espanolLos avances tecnologicos han permitido que la educacion tambien evolucione introduciendo herramientas pedagogicas innovadoras que mejoran la experiencia de aprendizaje para los individuos. Una de estas herramientas para el aprendizaje activo y experiencial es el uso de juegos de simulacion empresarial. Estas nuevas herramientas pedagogicas permiten mejorar la motivacion, autonomia y control del estudiante en su proceso de aprendizaje. Este estudio pretende analizar el exito en la implantacion de una asignatura basada en un juego de simulacion empresarial mediante el estudio de la experiencia de aprendizaje del estudiante a traves de dicho juego. Para ello, el trabajo persigue identificar aquellos factores que pueden contribuir a que dicha experiencia de aprendizaje sea satisfactoria para los alumnos. En concreto, se analiza el papel que pueden jugar las emociones, la personalidad del individuo, las condiciones facilitadoras, la actitud y la intencion futura de uso del juego de simulacion empresarial. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que el apoyo recibido por parte del profesorado, la diversion del estudiante y un alto nivel de entusiasmo experimentado con el juego de simulacion contribuiran de forma especialmente positiva a la opinion de los estudiantes sobre esta herramienta pedagogica innovadora. EnglishIn recent years, technological advances have paved the way for advances in education through the deployment of innovative teaching tools designed to improve the learning experience. Such active, experiential teaching/learning tools include business simulation games which aim to boost motivation, autonomous learning and learner-centered control of the learning process. The present study provides an analysis of the implantation of a college-level course designed around a business simulation game—with a special focus on the learning process as experienced by the learners themselves. To this end, the paper seeks to identify those factors which have a positive impact on the learning experience and contribute to learner satisfaction. More specifically, learner personality traits and attitude, the role emotions may play, facilitative learning conditions and learners’ intention to use business simulation games again in the future are analyzed. Our findings demonstrate that support from teachers, a high degree of learner motivation and perceived fun will have a particularly positive impact on the opinion learners hold of this innovative teaching/learning tool.