Business Commons^™

How Does Customer Service Offshoring Impact Customer Satisfaction?, Jonathan W. Whitaker, M. S. Krishnan, Claes Fornell, Forrest Morgeson

Management Faculty Publications

Information technology (IT) plays a vital role in customer relationship management (CRM), because CRM processes include the collection and analysis of customer information, firms use technology tools to interact with customers, and IT created the conditions under which firms can offshore CRM processes. Customers have negative perceptions toward offshoring, which suggests that firms might be reluctant to offshore IT-enabled CRM processes. However, firms have significantly increased offshoring for CRM processes, presenting a conundrum. Why would firms increase offshoring for CRM processes if there could be a risk to customer satisfaction?

This paper helps to resolve the conundrum by studying the …

Enhancing Consumer Engagement In An Online Brand Community Via User Reputation Signals: A Multi-Method Analysis, Sara Hanson, Lan Jiang, Darren Dahl

Marketing Faculty Publications

Generating and maintaining consumers’ engagement in online brand communities is critical for marketing managers to enhance relationships and gain customer loyalty. In this research, we investigate how the type of signal used to indicate user reputation can enhance (or diminish) consumers’ community engagement. Specifically, we explore differences in perceptions of points (i.e., point accrual systems), labels (i.e., descriptive, hierarchical identification systems), and badges (i.e., descriptive, horizontally-ordered identification systems). We argue that reputation signals vary in the degree to which they can provide role clarity—the presence of user roles that deliver information about expected behaviors within a group. Across several studies, …