Essays on multichannel customer management

PhD ceremony: Mr. U. Konuş, 16.15 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Thesis: Essays on multichannel customer management

Promotor(s): prof. P.C. Verhoef

Faculty: Economics and Business

 

The dissertation by Umut Konuş aims at gaining a greater understanding of multichannel customer behavior and how firms can manage their multichannel marketing activities. It consists of three essays pertaining to multichannel customer behavior but involving different aspects of multichannel customer management.

The first study reveals that three customer segments can be identified based on their orientation towards using multiple channels for search and purchase: Multichannel Enthusiasts, Store-Focused Customers and Uninvolved Shoppers. Moreover our results show that psychographic covariates such as: shopping enjoyment, inherent brand loyalty and innovativeness are important predictors of multi-channel segment membership. The second study on forced channel migration reveals that forcing customers into another channel leads to customer reactance, which negatively affects customer satisfaction. This study shows that an incentive-based, reinforced channel migration strategy can alleviate the negative consequences of forced migration. Finally, our third study presents results pertaining to the effect of channel elimination on customer behavior. The results reveal that the elimination of a print catalog decreases thepurchase probability in both the telephone and the online purchase channels. As a management strategy e-mail marketing communications could help offset the negative effects of eliminating the print catalog on purchase probability.