Marketing Models
Detailed Course Outline and Reading List

Week 11:  Managing Relationships with Customers and Organizations - March 16

Readings

Background

  1. Bolton, Ruth N. and Crina Tarasi (2006), "Managing Customer Relationships," in Naresh K. Malhotra (ed.) Review of Marketing Research, 3, New York:   M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 3-38.

Note:  the following two articles provide an overview of "customer value" from the customer's perspective (Zeithaml 1988) and from the firm's perspective (Ambler and Roberts 2006).
  1. Zeithaml, Valarie (1988), "Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality and Value:  A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence," Journal of Marketing, 52 (3), 2-22.  1998 Harold H. Maynard Award
  2. Ambler, Tim and John Roberts (2006), "Beware the Silver Metric:   Marketing Performance Measurement Must Be Multi-Dimensional," Marketing Science Institute Report, 06-013.  [There is also a response, and a counter-response, published as 06-014 and 06-015.]  A revised version of this article appears in the Journal of Marketing Management in 2008.

Note:  The following three articles may be helpful.

  • Bolton, Ruth N., Katherine N. Lemon, and Peter C. Verhoef (2004), "The Theoretical Underpinnings of Customer Asset Management: A Framework and Propositions for Future Research," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 32 (summer 2004), 271-292.
  • Boulding, William, Richard Staelin, Michael Ehret, and Wesley J. Johnston (2005), "A CRM Roadmap: What We Know, Potential Pitfalls, and Were to Go," Journal of Marketing, 69 (4), 155-66. 
  • Srivastava, Shervani, and Fahey (1998), "Market-Based Assets and Shareholder Value: A Framework for Analysis," Journal of Marketing, 62 (1), 2-18.  Sheth Foundation / Journal of Marketing Award
  • Seiders, Kathleen, Glenn B. Voss, Dhruv Grewal and Andrea L. Godfrey (2005), "Do Satisfied Customers Buy More? Examining moderating influences in a retailing context," The Journal of Marketing, 69 (4), 26-43

Process Models (Customer's Perceived Value)

  1. Boulding, William, Ajay Kalra, Richard Staelin, and Valarie A. Zeithaml (1993), "A Dynamic Process Model of Service Quality: From Expectations to Behavioral Intentions," Journal of Marketing Research, 30 (1), 7-27.  Co-Winner of the 1998 William F. O'Dell Award
  2. Oliver, Richard L. (1999), "Whence Consumer Loyalty?" Journal of Marketing, Volume 63, p. 33-44. [Sheth Award 2008.]
  3. Palmatier, Robert, Rajiv P. Dant, Dhruv Grewal, Kenneth R. Evans (2006b), "Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Relationship Marketing:  A Meta Analysis," Journal of Marketing, 70 (4), 136-153.
  4. Cannon, Joseph P. and William D. Perreault, Jr. (1999), "Buyer-Seller Relationships in Business Markets," Journal of Marketing 36 (4), 439-61. 2006 Louis W. Stern Award Winner.

Customer Base Analysis (Customer’s Value to the Firm)

  1. Schmittlein, David C. and Robert A. Peterson (1994), "Customer Base Analysis: An Industrial Purchase Process Application," Marketing Science, 13, (1), 41-67.  1994 John D. C. Little Award.  [You may wish to read the article that preceded it, namely:

    1. Schmittlein, Morrison and Columbo (1987), "Counting Your Customers:  Who Are They and What Will They Do Next?" Management Science, 33 (1), 1-24. 
    2. A subsequent article takes a Hierarchical Bayes approach: Allenby, Leone and Jen (1999), "A Dynamic Model of Purchase Timing with Application to Direct Marketing," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 94(446), 365-74.

    3. More recently, Peter S. Fader, Bruce G. S. Hardie and Ka Lok Lee (2005) have address this topic in JMR:  "RFM and CLV: Using Iso-Value Curves for Customer Base Analysis"

  2. Ansari, Asim and Carl F. Mela (2003), "E-Customization," Journal of Marketing Research, 40 (2), 131-145.  Co-Winner of the 2004 Paul E. Green Award.

Customer Relationship Management

  1. Palmatier, Robert, Srinath Gopalakrishna, Mark B. Houston (2006), "Returns on Business-to-Business Relationship Marketing Investments:  Strategies for Leveraging Profits," Marketing Science, 25 (5), 477-93.
  2. Scott A. Neslin, Dhruv Grewal, Robert Leghorn, Venkatesh Shankar, Marije L. Teerling, Jacquelyn S. Thomas, and Peter C. Verhoef (2006), "Challenges and Opportunities in Multichannel Customer Management," Journal of Service Research, 11 (9), 95 - 112.  The entire issue is devoted to CAM/CRM.  JSR also published a special issue on this topic in 2002.
Discussion Questions
  1. Boulding et al (2005), Bolton and Tarasi (2006) and the JSR Special Issue suggest a number of avenues for future research.  Select a research question and briefly describe a research design that might address it.
  2. A new textbook has been written for MBA students:
Gupta, Sunil and Donald R. Lehmann (2005), Managing Customers as Investments. The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing.

It provides some fundamentals on how to manage customers to increase shareholder value.  Suppose you were to write a textbook on this topic.  List ten "key take-aways" that managers could use to apply CRM principles.

  1. The CRM literature has little to say about the role of competition.  What are some key questions?  How would you develop a research program to address one or more of them?
  2. What are some of the challenges of CRM in organizations that sell through multiple channels?
Assignment

  1. Do one of the following:

  1. Write a critical review of two of the assigned articles OR
  2. Write a critical review of:  Reinartz and Kumar (2000), "On the Profitability of Long-Life Customers in a Noncontractual Setting: An Empirical Investigation and Implications for Marketing," Journal of Marketing, 64 (4), 17-35. 2003 MSI / H. Paul Root Award
  1. Write a two or three page (double-spaced) answer to one of the discussion questions.