Saradhi Motamarri, Shahriar Akter and Venkat Yanamandram
Big data analytics (BDA) helps service providers with customer insights and competitive information. It also empowers customers with insights about the relative merits of…
Abstract
Purpose
Big data analytics (BDA) helps service providers with customer insights and competitive information. It also empowers customers with insights about the relative merits of competing services. The purpose of this paper is to address the research question, “How does big data analytics enable frontline employees (FLEs) in effective service delivery?”
Design/methodology/approach
The research develops schemas to visualise service contexts that potentially benefit from BDA, based on the literature drawn from BDA and FLEs streams.
Findings
The business drivers for BDA and its level of maturity vary across firms. The primary thrust for BDA is to gain customer insights, resource optimisation and efficient operations. Innovative FLEs operating in knowledge intensive and customisable settings may realise greater value co-creation.
Practical implications
There exists a considerable knowledge gap in enabling the FLEs with BDA tools. Managers need to train, orient and empower FLEs to collaborate and create value with customer interactions. Service-dominant logic posits that skill asymmetry is the reason for service. So, providers need to enhance skill levels of FLEs continually. Providers also need to focus on market sensing and customer linking abilities of FLEs.
Social implications
Both firms and customers need to be aware of privacy and ethical concerns associated with BDA.
Originality/value
Knitting the BDA and FLEs research streams, the paper analyses the impact of BDA on service. The research by developing service typology portrays its interplay with the typologies of FLEs and BDA. The framework portrays the service contexts in which BD has major impact. Looking further into the future, the discussion raises prominent questions for the discipline.
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Lesley White and Venkat Yanamandram
This research investigated inertia in a financial‐services context, with particular focus on the reasons for consumers’ dissatisfaction and inert behaviour, and studied customers’…
Abstract
This research investigated inertia in a financial‐services context, with particular focus on the reasons for consumers’ dissatisfaction and inert behaviour, and studied customers’ complaining behaviours and past and future inertia. The study utilised a two‐part methodology, including both qualitative and quantitative research. A total of 20 in‐depth interviews provided the preliminary data required for developing a questionnaire that was subsequently completed by 410 respondents. Determinants of dissatisfaction included the number and size of account fees, whilst determinants of inertia were the perception of similarity between financial institutions and the complexity, costs and time inherent in switching. Factors differentiating future inertia and future active customers included the type of account, length of time the account had been held, membership of a number of financial institutions, income and level of consideration given to changing financial institution.
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Venkata Yanamandram and Lesley White
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which inertia is distinct from calculative commitment and to extend the knowledge on these constructs in the corporate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which inertia is distinct from calculative commitment and to extend the knowledge on these constructs in the corporate financial services context in Australia. The study proposes and empirically analyses a research model that considers switching costs as an antecedent to inertia and calculative commitment.
Design/methodology/approach
An e‐mail URL‐embedded web questionnaire was used to collect data online from responding organisations. The psychometric properties of the measures were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis, and the hypothesised relationships among the latent constructs were estimated using structural equation modelling.
Findings
The variance‐extracted test established discriminant validity between inertia and calculative commitment. Switching costs affected both inertia and calculative commitment differently.
Research limitations/implications
The measurement scales should be subjected to further assessment before drawing conclusions on their construct validity. The findings support the contention that inertia occurs from high search and learning costs associated with transaction account products, and that calculative commitment is caused by the existence of sunk costs.
Practical implications
Managers should be cautious in employing barriers as mechanisms for customer retention, because calculatively committed customers might be behaviourally loyal only for as long as it is instrumentally rewarding to be so. However, dissatisfied customers often can become involved in inert buying patterns.
Originality/value
This paper is an important initial step in highlighting the extent to which inertia is distinct from calculative commitment, in addition to providing a measure of inertia.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate specific marketing mix activities and influencing factors in hotels coping with falling room demand derived from drug cartel-related…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate specific marketing mix activities and influencing factors in hotels coping with falling room demand derived from drug cartel-related risk and insecurity.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study research was carried out using semistructured interviews with key informants (hotel managers) in two neighboring destinations at the US–Mexico border, an area where criminal organizations' drug trafficking-related violence has impacted the hospitality industry.
Findings
The research identifies factors that are internal (market segment diversification, type of ownership, magnitude of investments) and external (tourism promotion organizations, media coverage, tourist flow volume) to the firms as they affect their marketing mix implementation.
Research limitations/implications
The research developed a framework to better understand the use of marketing mix practices and influencing factors in criminal insecurity contexts, which could be further studied in other risk and conflict scenarios.
Practical implications
The pricing and communication tactics are employed more intensively, while product-service and distribution channel actions are used to a lesser extent. Greater emphasis should be placed on product-service, distribution and market segment diversification.
Social implications
Considering the positive impacts that tourism and hospitality businesses have on local communities, it is recommended that the hotel sector works together with government and industry associations to improve the safety and security at tourism destinations.
Originality/value
The research extends the extant knowledge in hospitality crisis management by investigating the full marketing mix tactics in hotels at destinations stricken by cartel-related organized crime, an understudied context in the literature.