Customer Willingness Research Articles

Factors Triggering Customer Willingness to Travel on Environmentally Responsible Electric Airplanes

Utilizing a quantitative methodological approach, the present study presented and investigated an integrated model embracing environmental corporate social responsibility, image, emotional attachment, attitude, and moral norms in order to explicate airline patrons’ intention formation for adopting eco-friendly electric airplanes. Our findings revealed that the proposed associations among research constructs were all significant, and that image, emotional attachment, attitude, and moral norms significantly mediated the effect of environmental corporate social responsibility on intention. In addition, the salient role of image of electric airplanes in building intention was uncovered. Despite the importance of greening airline products in the aviation industry, electric airplanes are a topic that has barely been explored. The results of this study can help airline practitioners and researchers to understand consumer readiness and willingness to adopt such eco-friendly alternatives to conventional air-flights. Implications are discussed.

Uncovering the roles of retail brand experience and brand love in the apparel industry: Non-linear structural equation modelling approach

providing a pleasant shopping experience for consumers is vital in the apparel retail industry. A comprehensive multi-dimensional scale to measure “retail brand experience” (RBE) was recently introduced; however, this scale lacks application. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine a conceptual model that shows the associations between RBE and customer behavioural outcomes (willingness to pay more, word of mouth communication, and continuous purchase intention) in the retail apparel industry using the multi-dimensional scale operationalisation of RBE. The present study also attempts to uncover the moderating role of brand love in the proposed model. Using the survey method, 416 usable responses were collected. The findings indicate that all the direct effects are statistically supported. The study also shows non-linear relationships between word of mouth communication and willingness to pay more, and word of mouth communication and continuous purchase intention. With respect to the moderating role of brand love, it enhances the influence of both RBE and word of mouth communication on willingness to pay more. Overall, the present study contributes to the retailing literature, particularly in the apparel-retailing context, branding literature, and customer behaviour literature. Practically, this study provides several recommendations to enhance customer willingness to pay more, their continuous purchase intentions, and word of mouth communication by providing better retail brand experience.

Quality of service predicts willingness to pay for household electricity connections in rural India

While rural electrification has been a high priority for many governments in the developing world, the factors that make individual households more likely to pay for a connection have received insufficient attention. In particular, many studies have dealt with the role of affordability of grid connections, but they have generally avoided studying the effects of service quality. Estimating the effect of quality on willingness of potential customers to pay is a difficult task because of self-selection – if quality is important, those in higher quality service areas are more likely to have a connection. Using household data from rural India, we estimate a Heckman selection model to deal with this issue and find a substantial impact of quality on willingness to pay for a connection in India. The results suggest that improving the quality of connections is critical to improving access.

Using willingness to pay to forecast the adoption of solar photovoltaics: A “parameterization + calibration” approach

Distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV), are likely to comprise a substantial fraction of new generation capacity in the United States. However, forecasting technology adoption based on people's willingness to pay (WTP) faces two major challenges: the stated-intention and omitted-variable biases. Previous solar adoption literature has neglected to address these two biases altogether. Here, we adopt a “parameterization + calibration” approach to address both biases and estimate customers’ WTP for PV. After collecting survey data on respondents’ WTP for adopting PV, we characterize its empirical cumulative density function using a gamma distribution. We further calibrate the gamma distribution parameters using a national distributed PV adoption simulation model, finding the parameters that produce the best fit between simulated and historic solar adoption. We then show that the calibrated gamma distribution improves the raw WTP data after correcting for the two biases. Finally, we use our optimally-calibrated WTP to forecast market demand for residential PV at the county-level of the United States in 2020. Improving estimates of customer willingness to pay has significant implications for policy directly, e.g. estimating the effect of a proposed policy on technology adoption, and other regulatory processes that use forecasting, e.g. integrated resource planning.

Moderating role of gender amongst various constructs of CRM

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationships among the extracted constructs of customer satisfaction (CS), knowledge about customer relationship management (CRM) program, customer attitude and their effect on relationship share (RS). The study also attempts to find if moderating role of gender exists among these constructs.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual framework is developed based on previous studies. In order to address a lack of comprehensive evaluation of B2C relationships in Indian hotels, this study extracted the dimensions of CRM in hotels and used them in the structural model. The conceptual model is tested using structural equation modeling approach through maximum likelihood estimation technique. A sample of 305 domestic travelers was used to test the hypothesized relationships among the constructs.FindingsThe findings indicate that CS and willingness to engage (CWER) in the relationship are major predictors of RS. Besides, CS indirectly affects RS through customer’s attitude toward the hotel. The results of the study also show that customer willingness to engage in the relationship is dependent on attitude of customer toward firm which is further dependent on knowledge about CRM program. One more notable finding of the study states that gender plays a moderating role between CS and customer willingness to engage in the relationship.Practical implicationsIn addition to contributing toward academic knowledge, the findings of the present study will help the practitioners to better design CRM program and reap its maximum benefits.Originality/valueThe current study has considered new dimensions of CRM like customer’s knowledge of CRM and this is the first study to capture responses of Indian travelers in relation with various constructs. This is the first study to test the moderating effect of gender between various constructs.

Leveraging Customer Flexibility for Car-Sharing Fleet Optimization

Car-sharing is a precursor to the emerging class of “mobility services” leveraging modern technology to enable access to car-based mobility without the consumer owning the physical asset. Consequently, it plays an increasingly important role for urban mobility. Two-way station-based systems, where the customer picks up and returns a car at a single designated station, are the most common type of car-sharing solution. While these systems are most common in practice, they have attracted limited research activity from the optimization community. This paper addresses this gap by exploring the potentials of spatial and temporal customer flexibility to achieve better supply-demand alignment. To this end, we assess both the value and the cost of customer flexibility. Using a real-world data set with over 50,000 car-sharing reservations from a midsized German city, we assess the potential benefits of customer flexibility under offline and online optimization. The offline results indicate that temporal flexibility has only very limited potentials for fleet size reductions (4% reduction at four hours’ flexibility). At the same time, spatial flexibility is highly valuable—customer flexibility of 1 kilometer facilitates a fleet reduction of 12%. Furthermore, we find that spatial and temporal flexibility are highly complementary, with 750 meters and 3 hours yielding reduction potentials of almost 20%. The viability of the potentials is confirmed in the online setting with this reduced fleet. To assess customer willingness to provide flexibility, we conducted a basic discrete choice experiment with 1,529 car-sharing customers. We find that several customers are likely to offer flexibility in time or space for relatively little compensation. These estimates are then used as an input to an expanded fleet optimization problem. These results provide novel insights into the benefits and costs of leveraging consumer flexibility in car-sharing schemes. They are of particular relevance for car-sharing service providers and communities that aim to efficiently bridge the gap between individual and public transportation, and to inform urban transportation policy. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2017.0813 .

Quality of Service Predicts Willingness to Pay for Household Electricity Connections in Rural India

While rural electrification has been a high priority for many governments in the developing world, the factors that make individual households more likely to pay for a connection have received insufficient attention. In particular, many studies have dealt with the role of affordability of grid connections, but they have generally avoided studying the effects of service quality. Estimating the effect of quality on willingness of potential customers to pay is a difficult task because of self-selection -- if quality is important, those in higher quality service areas are more likely to have a connection. Using household data from rural India, we estimate a Heckman selection model to deal with this issue and find a substantial impact of quality on willingness to pay for a connection in India. The results suggest that improving the quality of connections is critical to improving access.

Salesperson time perspectives and customer willingness to pay more: roles of intraorganizational employee navigation, customer satisfaction, and firm innovation climate

This research aims to fill a critical gap in the sales literature by proposing a relationship-based model of customer willingness to pay more, involving salesperson time perspectives (i.e., long-term perspective and short-term perspective), intraorganizational employee navigation, and customer satisfaction with the salesperson. We also examine the moderating role of firm innovation climate. Multisource survey data were collected from 204 salespeople in a business-to-business sales context along with external ratings from customers of these salespeople three months later. The findings indicate that both long- and short-term perspectives have positive effects on intraorganizational employee navigation and customer satisfaction, which, in turn, positively affect customer willingness to pay more. In addition, short-term perspective has a stronger impact than long-term perspective on intraorganizational employee navigation. Further, the effect of long-term perspective on customer satisfaction is strengthened by the innovation climate of the firm, whereas the effect of short-term perspective on customer satisfaction is weakened by it.

DIMENSIONS OF SERVICE OFFER, AS AN ASSUMPTION OF BUILDING LONG TERM RELATIONS WITH THE CUSTOMERS OF TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES / DIMENZIJE USLUŽNE PONUDE KAO PRETPOSTAVKA GRAĐENJA DUGOROČNIH ODNOSA SA KUPCIMA TELEKOMUNIKACIJSKIH USLUGA

he purpose of this paper is expressed in the need to research the significance of individual dimensions of service offers for customers and their influence to readiness to build long-term relations with the company BH Telecom Sarajevo. The subject of the research are dimensions of service offers and their influence to the possibility of building long-term relations and cooperation between service provider and customers, namely inclinations of customers to “get attached” to their telecom provider. The goal of the research is defined in the need to ascertain which sub-dimensions of service offer is the most significant assumption of building long-term relations with customers, starting with the belief that mutual cooperation will be created and that it will ensure values for participants in the service process. The research deepens the comprehension of the influence of dimensions of service offer to the willingness of buyers for building of relations, which is considered to be a key assumption for customer loyalty to the company. Based on the results of research it is possible to conclude that three sub-dimensions of service offer have a direct and positive influence to the dimension of willingness of customers for building relations with the company BH Telecom, which include materialization of offer, followed by the brand and company image, whereas it least depends on the service quality and process of service providing, which refers to the conclusion that the customer perceives in advance satisfactory level of quality and level of provided service.

Demand response for indirect load control in smart grid using novel price modification algorithm

This study presents a novel algorithm for reshaping the load demand profile of smart grid via modifying the price signal based on demand response principle. This modification in price is performed in a way that encourages customers to change their consumption pattern in order to achieve maximum saving. The proposed algorithm takes into consideration the customer willingness to participate in demand response, demand elasticity, price change limit, and comfort level of customers by determining a price signal, which maximises their saving when shifting their flexible load for certain limited hours and satisfying the daily energy consumption. The proposed method is formulated in a way, which avoids the problem of load synchronisation in which the maximum demand point is shifted to the point of lowest price. The proposed algorithm is applied to a typical benchmark of smart grid with residential, commercial, and industrial loads. The simulation results prove the success of the proposed algorithm for maximising customer saving and achieving the objective of energy management via a new consumption pattern.

Finding Optimal Skyline Product Combinations under Price Promotion

Nowadays, with the development of e-commerce, a growing number of customers choose to go shopping online. To find attractive products from online shopping marketplaces, the skyline query is a useful tool which offers more interesting and preferable choices for customers. The skyline query and its variants have been extensively investigated. However, to the best of our knowledge, they have not taken into account the requirements of customers in certain practical application scenarios. Recently, online shopping marketplaces usually hold some price promotion campaigns to attract customers and increase their purchase intention. Considering the requirements of customers in this practical application scenario, we are concerned about product selection under price promotion. We formulate a constrained optimal product combination (COPC) problem. It aims to find out the skyline product combinations which both meet a customer's willingness to pay and bring the maximum discount rate. The COPC problem is significant to offer powerful decision support for customers under price promotion, which is certified by a customer study. To process the COPC problem effectively, we first propose a two list exact (TLE) algorithm. The COPC problem is proven to be NP-hard, and the TLE algorithm is not scalable because it needs to process an exponential number of product combinations. Additionally, we design a lower bound approximate (LBA) algorithm that has a guarantee about the accuracy of the results and an incremental greedy (IG) algorithm that has good performance. The experiment results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed algorithms.

Customer willingness to participate in value co-creation: The moderating effect of social ties (empirical study of automobile customers in Ghana)

Value co-creation as a social process involves the interactions and dialogues between stakeholders. As such, the social ties that stakeholders develop have the propensity to influence their level of interaction in a co-creation activity. In this study, we examine the effect of social ties on consumer’s level of interaction and looked at how it moderates on consumers’ willingness to engage in interaction leading to co-creation. Data was collected from 535 automobile owners in Ghana through a self-administered questionnaire. The data was analyzed using structural equation model in AMOS and statistical tool package. The test results on consumers’ willingness and level of interaction, willingness and co-creation, social ties and level of interaction, social ties and co-creation, interaction and co-creation are significant. On the moderating effect of social ties on willingness, the result shows that social ties strengthen the positive relationship between willingness and interaction. We propose that organizations should manage social ties they develop with their customers effectively so as not to impact negatively on their willingness to engage in co-creation interactions.

A systematic method to design product-service systems using personalisation services based on experience evaluations

Servitisation with product-service systems receives great attention as a strategy for business innovation in the era of digital transformation. Customer expectations are being redefined into experiences and customer willingness to get involved is important. Understanding, designing and managing customer experiences are critical in the competitive advantages of businesses. While key characteristics of customer experiences and consumer behaviours have been identified recently, structured design methods for product-service systems with customisation services for individual consumers in supporting such key experience characteristics have not been devised yet. In this paper an experience design method using customisation services is proposed. The method is based on context-based activity modelling and context-specific experience sampling method so that personalised customisation service is provided based on accumulated customer subjective experience evaluations combined with context information in digital forms. Two product-service systems design cases are presented to illustrate how experiences are designed using the method.

No guarantees – setting Australian Energy Policy for 2040

The energy industry is transforming around three fundamental tipping points; in 2021 distributed energy systems will reach cost parity with grid connected energy; in 2025 electric vehicles will reach cost parity with combustion engines; and in 2045 it will be cheaper to produce electricity using decentralised systems than it will be to transport energy around the grid, excluding the costs of production. This new 'System 2.0' will have a number of defining characteristics: it will be heavily reliant on renewables, which will account for between 40% and 50% of generation; it will be characterised by a large build out of regulated architecture to support the new mix of generation, and heavy competition for unregulated connection assets; distribution systems will shift to the paradigm of the DSO, where load is moved around largely peakless networks using decentralised energy technologies; and retailing will have changed dramatically, away from high churn margin based operations to new digital relationships characterised by large scale operations across new technological platforms. With its high proportion of solar installations, system topography and customer willingness to embrace new technologies, Australia is in a position to lead the world in the transformational times ahead. It has never been more important than now for Governments, both State and Federal, to move beyond the politics and to set energy policy with this objective in mind, ensuring that initiatives across generation, transmission, distribution and retailing reflect long term objectives in market design, investment signalling and regulatory compacts. To view the video, click the link on the right.

Analysis and Building of Trading Platform of Construction 3D Printing Technology and Products

Construction 3D printing technology has been rapidly developed, but in the usual life, there are still many people who have not heard of or used construction 3D printing products, and many people want to buy Construction 3D printing products, but there is no channel. Therefore, through the questionnaire survey of potential customers, from the willingness of potential customers, the influencing factors of construction 3D printing technology product trading platform are analyzed, and the PLD‐SEM model is established. The potential customers are analyzed in the 3D printing technology product trading platform, with more attention to factors, including product categories, prices, trading platform customization features, and excellent network capabilities. Finally, the 3D printing technology product trading platform was designed, and the customer management module, construction 3D printing technology product information management module, construction 3D printing technology product retrieval module, and transaction information management were proposed. Building a fully functional 3D printing technology product trading platform that can attract more potential customers provides customers with a channel to understand and purchase 3D printing products and helps solve the current 3D printing technology products difficult to promote and trade problem.

Sponsored search advertising and dynamic pricing for perishable products under inventory-linked customer willingness to pay

Several online retailers provide inventory availability information on their websites in addition to leveraging sponsored search advertising to drive customer traffic to their retail websites. The increased ability of users to interact over the internet encourages retailers to shift to sponsored search advertising. In this paper, we design a decision support model to provide strategic bid and pricing decisions to a retailer selling a perishable product over a short horizon using sponsored search advertising to attract customers to his website. The retailer complements sponsored search bidding with dynamic pricing in a multi-period stochastic dynamic programming framework. Our analyses show that it is optimal for the retailer to invest heavily in bidding at low inventory levels, whereas at high levels of inventory he should use price promotions to enhance profits. We also find that the optimal bid and price increase with the increase in mean and variability of the customer's reservation price.

Exploring customer perceptions toward different service volumes: An integration of means–end chain and balance theories

Based on means-end chain (MEC) and balance theories, this study aims to construct consumers’ cognitive structure toward services provided by classy restaurants. It also demonstrates how MEC and balance theories can be used to reveal the psychological state of consumers when different volumes of services (i.e., excessive, adequate, and insufficient) are provided. In addition, the findings offer restaurant managers valuable insights for improving their service. In this study, means-end qualitative investigation was employed to collect data. A total of 64 one-on-one in-depth interview transcripts were content analyzed to construct a balanced and imbalanced hierarchical value map (HVM). The HVM shows that “great service attitude,” “elegant design,” “flavor,” and “convenient transportation” are important features that influence the willingness of customers to pay a premium for dining in classy restaurants. Notably, “great service attitude,” “reacting quickly,” “professional image,” “concern for customers,” “delicacy,” and “specialty” are attributes that make customers change their attitude if they are provided with too much or overemphasized services by restaurants. Therefore, managers of classy restaurants should pay attention to these services because, if provided excessively, these services can change the psychological state of customers from balanced to imbalanced. This study is the first to integrate MEC and balance theories to understand consumers’ cognitive structure of dining in classy restaurants, especially when their psychological state changes from balanced to imbalanced and vice versa.

THE IMPACT OF SELECTED ELEMENTS OF E-COMMERCE TO E-SHOP RECOMMENDATION

The objective of the study is to evaluate the importance of linking the purchasing process variables (delivery, e-shop, communication) in terms of e-commerce and the willingness of customers to recommend the purchase in the given e-shop. Within the research, a total of 3796 e-commerce subjects were analysed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We primarily analysed the impact of variable ratings eg satisfaction with the delivery time, total delivery, delivery days, communication and clarity of the willingness to recommend e-shops. The certification of the e-shop's credibility was also taken into account. The research showed that variables (satisfaction with delivery time, communication evaluation and clarity assessment) have a significant impact on the willingness to recommend. For the analysis, we used a descriptive analysis. To infer the effect size certification to the other variables, ?2 was used, where we found medium and high effect. Certification also emerged when analysing the homogeneity of the recommendation, where the differences between Kruskal-Wallis tests were found in the different categories of certification. The difference in all cases was also revealed by the Dunn test in pairwise comparison using the Benjamini-Hochberg method. Finally, the panel effect regression analysis was used. The greatest impact was found in the communication, followed by the delivery and the clarity of e-shops. E-shop management should focus on certification (trustworthiness), because customers take this into account. They also take the shipping time into account. Website awareness should be as obvious as communication. Seller communication

The role of customer readiness and participation in non-technology-based service delivery

PurposeThis study aims to answer the following question: How can customer readiness be instrumental in non-technology-based service delivery?Design/methodology/approachUsing a field study, this research examines the role of customer readiness in customer participation in non-technology-based service delivery and its indirect effects on such customer outcomes as perceived service quality, customer satisfaction and customer willingness to recommend.FindingsThe results show that customer readiness is a second-order construct. It has a significant impact on customer participation in service delivery, which in turn impacts three key service outcomes: customer perceived service quality, customer satisfaction and customer willingness to recommend. Four factors influencing customer readiness (consumer previous experience, consumer desire for control, consumer perceived risk and customer organizational socialization) are also empirically evaluated.Research limitations/implicationsSome limitations of the study are related to sample size and use of a type of services. The research tested 13 hypotheses with a limited sample size in one context. A better representation of the population and a more generalizable outcome require more representative samples and studies in various contexts such as banking, hotel services or health care services. This study demonstrated the importance of customer readiness for effective participation in non-technology-based service delivery; it does not address the impact of customer readiness on participation in the context of technology-based services. Future research may also shed light on when and why customers choose technology-based services versus non-technology-based services.Practical implicationsEffective customer participation in service delivery can, and should, benefit from boosting customer readiness.Originality/valueThis research shows the impact of customer readiness on non-technology-based service delivery, more specifically, the impact of customer readiness on customer participation in this type of service delivery. Customer readiness has been found to be beneficial in the provision of technology-based services; yet, its role in the provision of non-technology-based services has not been thoroughly evaluated.

Components of Financial Stability of Credit Institutions: A New Perspective and New Horizons

The article discloses a financial model characterizing the stability of credit institutions. In addition to the traditional quantitative indicators of the bank's activities, such as capital, assets, profit of the credit institution and others, relative indicators are of particular importance for assessing the effectiveness of banking activities. It is necessary to evaluate both quantitative and qualitative indicators of the activity of credit institutions, the synergy of which will enable them to identify the components of financial soundness and their assessment. An assessment of the financial stability of an individual credit institution is possible only based on the results of a comparison with the industry average components of financial stability. Particular attention is paid to such a component of assessing the financial stability of banks, as the effectiveness of the settlement of troubled debts. The authors of the article developed an alternative system for choosing a strategy for resolving the problem debt of credit institutions based on the qualimetric model. The idea and motivation (idea, purpose, motivation) The idea of the analysis is to study the validity and completeness of the hypotheses in accordance with which a study was made of financial stability of credit institutions and its impact on the willingness of customers and investors of banks to place their funds with them, as well as their possible outflow or counteraction to it depending on compliance their market discipline, the level and quality of risk management, as well as the availability of transparent and reliable information about the financial situation.