Jacquelyn S. Thomas

Balancing Acquisition and Retention Resources to Maximize Customer Profitability

In this research, the authors present a modeling framework for balancing resources between customer acquisition efforts and customer retention efforts. The key question that the framework addresses is, “What is the customer profitability maximizing balance?” In addition, they answer questions about how much marketing spending to allocate to customer acquisition and retention and how to distribute those allocations across communication channels.

Challenges and Opportunities in Multichannel Customer Management

Multichannel customer management is the design, deployment, coordination, and evaluation of channels through which firms and customers interact, with the goal of enhancing customer value through effective customer acquisition, retention, and development. The authors identify five major challenges practitioners must address to manage the multichannel environment more effectively: (a) data integration, (b) understanding consumer behavior, (c) channel evaluation, (d) allocation of resources across channels, and (e) coordination of channel strategies. The authors also propose a framework that shows the linkages among these challenges and provides a means to conceptualize the field of multichannel customer management. A review of academic research reveals that this field has experienced significant research growth, but the growth has not been distributed evenly across the five major challenges. The authors discuss what has been learned to date and identify emerging generalizations as appropriate. They conclude with a summary of where the research-generated knowledge base stands on several issues pertaining to the five challenges.

A Methodology for Linking Customer Acquisition to Customer Retention

Customer acquisition and retention are not independent processes. However, because of data limitations, customer management decisions are frequently based only on an analysis of acquired customers. This analysis shows that these decisions can be biased and misleading. The author presents a modeling approach that estimates the length of a customers lifetime and adjusts for this bias. Using the model, the author shows the financial impact of not accounting for the effect of acquisition on customer retention.

Managing Marketing Communications with Multichannel Customers

This article presents a marketing communications process that uses customer relationship management ideas for multichannel retailers. The authors describe and then demonstrate the process with enterprise-level data from a major U.S. retailer with multiple channels. On the basis of the results, the authors develop an initial marketing communications strategy for the retailer.

Linking Customer Assets to Financial Performance

As more firms adopt a customer asset management approach to their business, it has become increasingly important to understand how customer management efforts relate to the financial performance of the firm. Of specific interest to shareholders is the relationship between traditional financial measures and customer-centric measures. The customer-centric measure that has received the most attention is customer lifetime value (CLV). In this article, the authors argue that the basic CLV model represents a useful foundation from which to begin to fill the gap between marketing actions and shareholder value. However, much work remains to be done before appropriate models can be developed that reflect the true value of a customer to the firm. Specifically, this article elaborates on how factors such as risk associated with customer behavior dynamics, social and competitive effects, and the effect of the product life cycle can be incorporated into the basic CLV model.

When Does International Marketing Standardization Matter to Firm Performance

The topic of standardization of international marketing programs represents an important issue faced by managers of global firms and has attracted significant research attention. Although previous research has established that standardization enhances performance outcomes, more recent theorizing suggests that this may not always be the case. However, empirical investigators have paid little systematic attention to moderating conditions. The major purpose of this article is to investigate the organizational factors that moderate the standardization–performance relationship and, thus, to explore the types of firm for which standardization is particularly beneficial. The authors examine survey data from 489 firms, and their results indicate that the standardization–performance link is significantly stronger for large firms with a homogeneous product offering, high levels of global market penetration, a cost leadership strategy, and strong coordination capabilities. The authors conclude that managers evaluating the adequacy of a standardization strategy should consider the list of contingencies advanced in this research.

Investigating the Relationship Between the Content of Online Word of Mouth, Advertising, and Brand Performance

We study the relative importance of online word of mouth and advertising on firm performance over time since product introduction. The current research separates the volume of consumer-generated online word of mouth OWOM from its valence, which has three dimensions---attribute, emotion, and recommendation oriented. Firm-initiated advertising content is also classified as attribute or emotion advertising. We also shed light on the role played by advertising content on generating the different types of OWOM conversations. We use a dynamic hierarchical linear model DHLM for our analysis. The proposed model is compared with a dynamic linear model, vector autoregressive/system of equations model, and a generalized Bass model. Our estimation accounts for potential endogeneity in the key measures. Among the different OWOM measures, only the valence of recommendation OWOM is found to have a direct impact on sales; i.e., not all OWOM is the same. This impact increases over time. In contrast, the impact of attribute advertising and emotion advertising decreases over time. Also, consistent with prior research, we observe that rational messages i.e., attribute-oriented advertising wears out a bit faster than emotion-oriented advertising. Moreover, the volume of OWOM does not have a significant impact on sales. This suggests that, in our data, “what people say” is more important than “how much people say.” Next, we find that recommendation OWOM valence is driven primarily by the valence of attribute OWOM when the product is new and driven by the valence of emotion OWOM when the product is more mature. Our brand-level results help us classify brands as consumer driven or firm driven, depending on the relative importance of the OWOM and advertising measures, respectively.

A Hierarchical Bayesian Approach to Predicting Retail Customers' Share-of-Wallet Loyalty

As supermarkets have developed the capability to gather customer data, their focus on customer loyalty has increased; however, retailers cannot actually measure loyalty. In this paper, we propose and test a hierarchical Bayesian approach to predicting customers share-of-wallet loyalty that offers a high degree of predictive accuracy and discriminates well between loyal and non-loyal customers. Among the types of information that retailers may gather, we find that geographic information (travel time to the store and retail concentration around that store) makes the greatest predictive contribution. Finally, we show how retailers can use the posterior distribution of customer share-of-wallet to more profitably select customers to receive targeted marketing offers.

Econometric Analysis of Customer Retention in an Aviation Trade Organization

The proliferation of customer data bases is a direct consequence of firms’ drive toward efficient customer-firm interactions. With regard to customer-firm interactions, firms have focused on customer retention rates. Using a customer data base, firms try to identify the most valuable customers within that data base. After identifying these customers, firms attempt to develop strategies and tactics that increase the retention of the most valued customers and maximize the profitability of the entire base of customers. With this goal in mind, common firm practices that have arisen are the offering of rewards, free additional services, and add-on selling. The impact of rewards, additional services, and add-on selling on the customer equity of a trade association in the aviation industry is examined. In particular a model that examines the impact that these factors have on customer retention and firm profitability is developed. This model is tested on a membership data base from a service organization that offers membership rewards, additional free services, and fee-based products to aircraft owners and pilots. The findings from this research have implications for how trade associations should develop marketing programs and strategically manage and target their most valuable customers.

Fighting Commoditization: Dimensions, Performance Impact, and Moderators of Marketing Strategy in Commodity Environments

It has become increasingly difficult for today’s companies to stand out against competitors. This phenomenon has been labeled commoditization. While few industries remain merely specialty industries, an increasing number of firms find themselves in commodity environments. The controversial question is, however, whether marketing strategy is an effective means to avoid commoditization. A study among 268 marketing executives found specific marketing strategies to create value in commodity environments. Following a PLS approach, eight dimensions of marketing strategy in commodity environments, marketing strategy’s link to performance, and the impact of a commodity environment level were investigated.