Kathleen Seiders

Understanding Service Convenience

The subject of service convenience is important in service economies, yet little is known about this topic. The consumer convenience literature—strong in certain respects, underdeveloped in other respects—gives insufficient attention to service convenience. The prevailing pattern is either to treat service convenience generally or to lump services and goods together into an overall convenience construct. The authors seek to stimulate a higher level of research activity and dialogue by proposing a more comprehensive and multidimensional conceptualization of service convenience and a model delineating its antecedents and consequences. The authors build their case by systematically examining the convenience literature, explicating the dimensions and types of service convenience, developing the overall model and related research propositions, and presenting directions for further research.

Do Satisfied Customers Buy More? Examining Moderating Influences in a Retailing Context

In this research, the authors propose that the relationship between satisfaction and repurchase behavior is moderated by customer, relational, and marketplace characteristics. They further hypothesize that the moderating effects emerge if repurchase is measured as objective behavior but not if it is measured as repurchase intentions. To test for systematic differences in effects, the authors estimate identical models using both longitudinal repurchase measures and survey measures as the dependent variable. The results suggest that the relationship between customer satisfaction and repurchase behavior is contingent on the moderating effects of convenience, competitive intensity, customer involvement, and household income. As the authors predicted, the results are significantly different for self-reported repurchase intentions and objective repurchase behavior. The conceptual framework and empirical findings reinforce the importance of moderating influences and offer new insights that enhance the understanding of what drives repurchase behavior.

Obesity and the Role of Food Marketing: A Policy Analysis of Issues and Remedies

The Centers for Disease Control has declared obesity a public health epidemic: More than 30% of U.S. adults are obese, and obesity now equals smoking as the leading preventable cause of disease and death. The authors explore policy issues associated with the accelerated growth of obesity in the U.S. population, particularly policy related to the debated influence of food marketing practices on obesity. The authors discuss possible market failures that influence consumer food choices and address the role of existing informational and regulatory policies in moderating the alleged threat of food marketing practices to public health. They consider various types of policy remedies that have been proposed as ways to reduce societal obesity costs, and they offer an agenda for further research to address knowledge gaps that represent barriers to effective public policy decisions.

How Complementarity and Substitution Alter the Customer Satisfaction-Repurchase Link

Customer satisfaction is universally acknowledged as a key driver of customer repurchase behavior, but recent evidence suggests that satisfaction has no effect on repurchase under certain circumstances. In this study, the authors develop a framework for understanding the complex relationships among satisfaction, moderating variables, and repurchase. They propose that the satisfaction–repurchase link is subject to complementary and substitute effects and present satiation and inertia as key theoretical mechanisms that explain and predict those effects. In weak-satiation purchase categories, complementary effects are more likely, which suggests that managers should invest in customer satisfaction and complementary initiatives simultaneously. In strong-satiation purchase categories, substitute effects are more likely, which suggests that managers should invest in either customer satisfaction or substitute initiatives. An empirical test combining survey and longitudinal purchase data from two categories—fashion apparel and automobile service—provides a remarkable degree of support for the propositions. The findings offer new theoretical insights and substantive guidance for managers to effectively allocate resources to initiatives that complement or substitute for customer satisfaction.

Enough Is Enough! The Fine Line in Executing Multichannel Relational Communication

In an effort to build long-term, profitable relationships, many companies systematically engage in multichannel relational communication—personalized messages sent to existing customers through various channels as part of a broader relationship marketing strategy. In this research, the authors examine three key drivers of relational communication effectiveness: volume of communication, mix of communication channels, and alignment of those channels with customers’ preferences. They hypothesize that customer response to relational communication follows a continuum in which reciprocity explains response to lower levels of communication, the classic ideal point describes a transition phase, and reactance explains response to higher levels of communication. They empirically test the theoretical framework by examining the impact of multichannel communication on repurchase over a three-year period. The results indicate that after the ideal level of communication is exceeded, customers react negatively. This negative response can be exacerbated by the use of multiple channels but attenuated by aligning channels with customer preferences. The findings suggest that the complex effects of multichannel communication can actually drive customers away from rather than closer to a company.

The impact of supercenters on traditional food retailers in four markets

Focuses on the impact of supercenters on traditional food retailers in four markets, including two small cities (Victoria, Texas; Gainesville, Georgia) and two large cities (Columbus, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska). Consumer surveys were conducted in order to assess the effects of the entry of Meijer, Wal‐Mart, Kmart, and Target supercenters. The results show supercenters can gain from 15 to 20 percent of primary shoppers and an even greater proportion of secondary shoppers. Furthermore, the supercenter primary shoppers, and especially those of Wal‐Mart and Meijer, identified low price and assortment more often as the reason for store choice. In comparison, traditional supermarket primary shoppers were less willing to trade off locational convenience or, in some cases, quality and assortment. Wal‐Mart is predicted to continue to rapidly gain share at the expense of competitors who do not differentiate themselves in some significant way.

Taming the Obesity Beast: Children, Marketing, and Public Policy Considerations

This essay explores the policy implications of the findings in this special section for potential remedies and opportunities for further research in the critical area of obesity. Children are an important focus here both because of the dramatic increase in childhood obesity in recent decades and because they lack the cognitive development and social experience to process marketing communications with the sophistication of adults. In addition, childrens food purchase decisions are substantially influenced by their parents. Although packaged food marketers are setting their own voluntary restrictions on products to be marketed during entertainment content targeted at children, the impact of such restrictions is limited because children are substantial viewers of general entertainment content. This essay suggests that more prominent nutrition disclosure oriented toward obesity concerns for both packaged foods and fast-food restaurants should be more fully considered. It further suggests that increased marketing research is needed to better understand children as consumers, the role of parents as gatekeepers, and the differences between ethnic population segments. Marketing research also can contribute to the assessment of the effectiveness of different regulatory approaches adopted by various countries and the viability of mass educational approaches versus individual encouragement by parents, doctors, and others. The authors note that because obesity is a long-term health problem, a longitudinal tracking study would be useful in studying both health effects over time and the effectiveness of various policy interventions.

Exploring the effect of retail sector and firm characteristics on retail price promotion strategy

Abstract This study examines why retail price promotion strategies vary across retail sectors and across firms within sectors. Using hierarchical linear modeling and a sample of 38 firms from 11 retail sectors, the authors investigate how two sector-level characteristics, related to product assortment perishability and heterogeneity, and three firm-level characteristics, related to retailer differentiation, number of stores, and average store size, influence price promotion decisions. The results indicate that assortment heterogeneity moderates the positive influence of perishability on price promotion activity; scale and scope also have significant effects. These results offer fresh insight into the ongoing debate surrounding stable versus promotional pricing, suggesting that the benefits of a particular strategy are driven largely by a complex interaction between sector-level characteristics as well as firm-level cost advantages.

Motivating Customers to Adhere to Expert Advice in Professional Services A Medical Service Context

This study focuses on the mechanisms by which professional service providers effectively influence customers to adhere to their expert guidance and advice. Eliciting customer adherence is a critical concern for professional service firms since customers of these need-based (rather than want-based) services are often reluctant to adhere, and nonadherence can result in serious negative consequences to customer well-being and firm resource utilization. The study examines this scenario by developing a conceptual framework that integrates the following three theoretical areas: professional services theory, advice utilization theory, and social cognitive theory. The framework proposes associations between professional service provider actions and customer reactions, including adherence to expert advice, adherence intentions, and organizational resources needed to serve the customer (time cost and monetary cost). The study empirically tests the hypothesized relationships based on professional service provider-customer (physician-patient) interactions in a large health care organization setting using both primary survey data and objective, longitudinal customer data encompassing a 48-month period. Results indicate that advice giving frequency and focus on negative consequences impact customer outcomes and the effects are moderated by perceived customer efficacy and service provider efficacy. The findings shed light on the underlying dynamics of customer adherence to advice in professional service settings and provide guidance as to how that adherence can be effectively elicited.

Impact of market entry and competitive structure on store switching/store loyalty

Managerial interest in building store loyalty has increased. Research addressing consumer store switching behaviour is limited, however, and the need for new knowledge is considerable. This exploratory field study uses data collected in four markets under varying competitive conditions to investigate consumer response to market entry of new retail chains. Results suggest that the size of the switcher segment is a function of the degree of differentiation, number of new competitors and variety of strategies brought to the market on critical store choice dimensions. When examined in the aggregate, switchers do not differ dramatically from non-switchers in terms of store choice criteria. However, segmentation of switchers by specific store shopped most often shows that these individuals responded to new strategies executed by attacking chains. Empirical results are used to formulate research propositions related to the impact of competitive differentiation on store switching behaviour.