R D Sharma

Exploring customer switching intentions through relationship marketing paradigm

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of customer switching and the reasons that underlie customer‐switching intentions. The paper aims to focus on the various factors on account of which a customer may or may not switch a particular bank.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 800 bank customers were selected randomly from a total population of 71,600 and were contacted personally to gather the requisite data.Findings – The paper finds that the model reveals significant effect of quality, satisfaction and trust on predicting switching barriers. Of these relationships, satisfaction emerged as the strongest factor which influences switching barriers.Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to Indian banks; a larger empirical study would be useful to replicate the results in the banking as well as other services.Practical implications – In order to ensure loyalty among bank customers, increased value addition in the banking services and wide‐ranging relationships ...

Internal market orientation in Indian banking: an empirical analysis

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the level of internal market orientation (IMO) in Indian banking as seen from the perspective of internal customers and suppliers, particularly with regard to the three components of market orientation: intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on primary research conducted with data gathered from 611 internal customers and 37 internal suppliers of an Indian private sector bank.Findings – The results indicate that all the three components of market orientation mentioned above determine the IMO level. Furthermore, the continuous emphasis on IMO by internal suppliers results in organizational commitment and job satisfaction among internal customers.Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to the three main dimensions of IMO: intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness.Practical implications – In order to ensure increased satisfaction of internal cust...

Managing Health Care Service Quality in a Primary Health Care Centre

This work is the extension of the earlier research work (Sharma and Chahal, 2003 and Sharma and Chahal, 1999) done on consumer satisfaction in public health system. There is a need to identify and implement effective and exploratory strategies that can overcome the attributes responsible for the tarnished image of rural primary health care centres. The purpose of the study is two-fold. First, the paper measures the level of service quality of a rural primary health centre through a tested, selfdeveloped, five-point Likert scale from patients judgment and has highlighted the problem faced by the patients. The responses have been integrated into important factors on the basis of responses by applying factor analysis after verifying the validity and reliability of the instrument. Second, suitable strategies for enhancing patients satisfaction and service quality for the policy makers and health care units have been formulated using the exploratory empirical data. The strategic implications, limitations and future research focus needed are also discussed.

Operations strategies of banks — using new technologies for competitive advantage

Abstract This paper discusses how new technologies are being employed by various banks to streamline their operations and creating sustainable competitive advantage. We use a conceptual operations strategy framework consisting of four elements: mission, distinctive competence, objective and policies to discuss the managerial implications of new technologies employed by various banks. It is concluded that operations must be recognized as a strategic function in banking institutions and investment in new technologies should be strategically directed to strengthen various operations decisions such as quality, process, capacity and facility.

Patient Satisfaction in Public Outpatient Health Care Services

This paper is part of earlier research work conducted in the health care services sector. The customer relationship management concept has encouraged the adoption of a marketing culture not only in the private sector, but in public health care sector as well. In this paper the authors have analysed the factors affecting patient satisfaction in public health care outpatient services. Patient satisfaction is measured with respect to technical and non- technical characteristics of health care service encounters, categorised into four basic components: attitude towards doctors, attitude towards medical assistants, quality of administration and quality ofatmospherics. The authors hypothesise that all four factors are closely related to consumer satisfaction. The paper measures the degree of consumer satisfaction experienced by patients through the tested self-developed five-point Likert scale and has highlighted the problem faced by them. The impact of age, education level and gender ofthe decision maker on satisfactionldissatisfaction is analysed using relevant statistical tools. The responses have been integrated into important factors on the basis of factor analysis after verifying the validity and reliability of the schedule. The paper concludes with the strategic actions necessary for meeting the needs of patients of the government health care sector in developing countries.

A Study of Patient Satisfaction in Outdoor Services of Private Health Care Facilities

The concept of patient satisfaction has encouraged the adoption of marketing culture in service sector including health care services. This article reports the findings of a survey aimed at understanding the extent of patient satisfaction with diagnostic services. It has constructed a special instrument for measuring patient satisfaction. The instrument captures the behaviour of doctors and medical assistants, quality of administration, and atmospherics. The role of demographic characteristics like gender, occupation, education, and income is also considered. Based on the findings, the article suggests strategic actions for meeting the needs of the patients of private health care sector more effectively.

Voyage of marketing thought from a barter system to a customer centric one

Purpose – Marketing thought originating from the era of the barter system, gradually evolved into production and sales orientations, with greater emphasis on the process, quality, and selling of products. Thereafter, customer satisfaction as an essential component of the strategic decision process occupies a significant position among various marketing activities. This paper aims to address the inadequate research inputs on determining the time‐specific evolutionary relevance of marketing thought divulging into the essential components of each marketing concept, especially those with customer satisfaction as a dimension in the measurement construct.Design/methodology/approach – A detailed, conceptually integrated analysis of various marketing philosophies is offered to facilitate business executives in examining the philosophy followed by their companies and how to move vertically in pursuance of improved business performance.Findings – In comparison to the Indian market, which is fast becoming an attract...

Improving the weakest link: A TOC-based framework for small businesses

Small businesses constantly face challenges as they respond to changing environmental factors such as the emergence of worldwide markets, marketing clouts, depth and range of better quality products and demand for faster delivery times. In order to survive and prosper, small businesses have to redesign themselves for successful and sustained innovations. The implementation of evolving management philosophies such as theory of constraints, can provide an effective opportunity for them to compete and lead. The purpose of this paper is to accentuate the distinctive features of theory of constraints framework consisting of 3Ms (mindset, measurements and methodology) in a simple way that will assist the small-business owners/managers in the implementation. The proposed framework suggests that the managers should have: (i) a mindset of ‘making’ money instead of ‘saving’ money; (ii) focus on ‘increasing throughput’ instead of ‘reducing expenses’, through recognition and attention; and (iii) implicit ‘focused’ continuous improvement method to manage business constraints instead of improving processes ‘at random’. Using a simple case study primarily and citing real-life small-business examples (where possible), we demonstrate how the theory of constraints based framework helps small business managers improve profitability by making significantly better decisions in strategic areas like product mix, pricing, new product introduction, outsourcing/purchasing, and investment decisions. We conclude our paper by acknowledging a few shortcomings of our paper and discussing some future research directions.

Segmentation of Bank Customers by Loyalty and Switching Intentions

In a highly competitive world, it is imperative to understand why customers switch, as switching has a significant impact on a firms performance. Just as satisfied customers are not necessarily loyal, dissatisfied customers do not always exit (Yanamandram & White, 2006). Even then much attention has been diverted towards growing relationships as compared to ending of the same (Akerlund, 2005; Halinen & Tahtinen, 2002). This study aimed at predicting customer switching through various relational and switching factors, viz., quality, value, satisfaction, trust, commitment, loyalty, switching costs and barriers, particularly in the context of Indian private banking. Further, the study investigated those traits of the customers, which would facilitate bank managers in formulating different retention strategies. The main findings of the study are: Majority of respondents have no intentions to switch their prime bank, but at the same time these respondents cannot be classified as true loyals. There exist two groups of respondents, i.e., ‘loyal stayers’ and ‘spurious stayers’. A direct relationship exists between ‘customer switching intentions’ on the one hand and ‘quick and effective responses to service failures’, ‘core services up to expectations’, ‘reasonable prices’, ‘switching costs’ and ‘switching barriers‘ on the other. Thus, banks need to undertake the following initiatives, which would be useful for increasing customer retention among bank customers: Promote commitment by implementing and demanding higher standards of conduct from the bank employees. Develop schemes/services that provide value to their customers in a sustained way and maintain them overtime in order to generate competitive advantage. Satisfy its customers, which can be implemented only when customers needs are known. Hence, every bank should have a separate R&D department, which can pursue market surveys on continual basis. Concentrate on the core service delivery and recovery, so as to seek competitive advantage. Focus on CRM strategies and develop wide-ranging relationships with their customers so as to make it difficult for them to switch their bank. In order to build profitable relationships, firms should not attempt to attract all customers in the market indiscriminately, but focus on those who are more valuable to the company.

A Balanced Approach towards Market Orientation

There has been a lot of research on implementation of the concept and examination of the link between market orientation and business performance. In these offerings, scales such as MARKOR, introduced by Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar (1993), and MKTOR, introduced by Narver and Slater (1990) have been frequently employed without further investigation. Analogous to this academic endeavour, few marketing researchers have raised doubts regarding the reliability and validity of the extant scales and have also shown concern towards the definition of the concept. Apropos, the present study has been planned to examine the degree of market orientation from management perspective and also to develop a scale for measuring market orientation in the selected public and private sector banks, viz., State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), and The Jammu and Kashmir Bank Pvt. Ltd. (JKB). The study finds: Significant difference between the responses of management with respect to Internal Market Orientation (IMO) and External Market Orientation (EMO). The management of all the three major banks, viz., PNB, SBI, and JKB is more optimistic with regard to the three dimensions of EMO than that of IMO. Significant impact of internal market orientation on the overall market orientation as compared to external market orientation. Positive and significant relationship between internal customers and external customers satisfaction; internal customers satisfaction and business performance, and external customers satisfaction and business performance. For improving market orientation in the banking sector, managers are suggested to take the following initiatives: Initiate crucial steps towards developing a healthy work environment — delineating employee expectations; discussing goal achievement, tracking performance and feedback; and devising an appropriate mechanism for follow-up and employee appraisal. Employees should be made the root cause identifiers and solvers whereas managers must be problem eradicators. Ensure parallel inter- and intra-departmental communication. An open door policy can be encouraged to communicate through various formal and informal channels so that inter-departmental work teams can perform efficiently. Conduct internal market research once a year to generate information pertaining to the job requirements of internal customers. Retain its employees through the successful implementation of internal marketing strategies which in turn demands proper understanding of employees work-related needs, feelings, emotions and intellect, proper treatment as an individual, open and free communication with the management, and establishing and managing effective long-term employee-management relationships.