Why is that question in the past tense? Because individuals can no longer feel confident that the details of their lives - from identifying numbers to cultural preferences - will be treated with discretion rather than exploited. Even as Facebook users happily share the names of their favorite books, movies, songs, and brands, they often regard marketers' use of that information as an invasion o…
If you run a big company, you might think it's nearly impossible to grow profits organically. Think again, say MacMillan, of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Selden, of Columbia Business School. Locked inside your firm's customer records is a wealth of information about what your customers need and how to make more of them profitable to you. Tapped strategically, this inform…
In this case study, an organization learns that the security of its customer data has been compromised and must decide how to respond. The reader will consider issues such as how to communicate about a security breach to various stakeholders, how to measure the potential damage from such a breach, and how to determine the scope of a data-theft problem. Flayton Electronics is showing up as a com…
Advances in data collection and storage technologies have given rise to the customer data intermediary (CDI), a firm that collects customer data to offer customer-specific marketing services to marketers. With widespread adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) and one-to-one (1:1) marketing, the demand for such services continues to grow. Extant empirical research using customer data…
Adverse selection is an important problem for marketers, especially those selling risk products (e.g., loans, insurance, and other financial services). Prospects who are likely to respond to an offer are usually less desirable. To reduce the likelihood of acquiring an unprofitable customer, companies often engage in costly screening processes. Customer relationship management (CRM) presents a s…
Despite theoretical and empirical research linking a firms business performance to the satisfaction of its customers, knowledge of how firms collect and use customer satisfaction information is limited. The authors investigate firms customer satisfaction information usage (CSIU) by drawing on in-depth interviews, a focus group of managers, and the existing literature. They identify key characte…