Are US utility standby rates inhibiting diffusion of customer-owned generating systems?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jackson, Jerry

2007-01-01

New, small-scale electric generation technologies permit utility customers to generate some of their own electric power and to utilize waste heat for space heating and other applications at the building site. This combined heat and power (CHP) characteristic can provide significant energy-cost savings. However, most current US utility regulations leave CHP standby rate specification largely to utility discretion resulting in claims by CHP advocates that excessive standby rates are significantly reducing CHP-related savings and inhibiting CHP diffusion. The impacts of standby rates on the adoption of CHP are difficult to determine; however, because of the characteristically slow nature of new technology diffusion. This study develops an agent-based microsimulation model of CHP technology choice using cellular automata to represent new technology information dispersion and knowledge acquisition. Applying the model as an n-factorial experiment quantifies the impacts of standby rates on CHP technologies under alternative diffusion paths. Analysis of a sample utility indicates that, regardless of the likely diffusion process, reducing standby rates to reflect the cost of serving a large number of small, spatially clustered CHP systems significantly increases the adoption of these technologies

System reliability worth assessment at a midwest utility-survey results for residential customers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chowdhury, A.A.; Mielnik, T.C. [Electric System Planning, MidAmerican Energy Company, Davenport, Iowa (United States); Lawton, L.E.; Sullivan, M.J.; Katz, A. [Population Research Systems, San Francisco, CA (United States)

2005-12-01

This paper presents the overall results of a residential customer survey conducted in service areas of MidAmerican Energy Company, a Midwest utility. A similar survey was conducted concurrently in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors and the survey results are presented in a companion paper. The results of this study are compared with the results of other studies performed in the high cost areas of the US east and west coasts. This is the first ever study of this nature performed for the residential customers in the US Midwest region. Methodological differences in the study design compared to coastal surveys are discussed. Customer survey costing techniques can be categorized into three main groups: contingent valuation techniques, direct costing techniques and indirect costing techniques. Most customer surveys conducted by different organizations in the last two decades used a combination of all three techniques. The selection of a technique is mainly dependent on the type of customer being surveyed. In this MidAmerican study, contingent valuation techniques and an indirect costing technique have been used, as most consequences of power outages to residential users are related to inconvenience or disruption of housekeeping and leisure activities that are intangible in nature. The major contribution of this paper is that particulars of Midwest residential customers compared to residential customers of coastal utilities are noted and customer responses on power quality issues that are important to customers are summarized. (author)

Clinical utility of a 377 gene custom next-generation sequencing ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

JEN BEVILACQUA

2017-07-26

Jul 26, 2017 ... Clinical utility of a 377 gene custom next-generation sequencing epilepsy panel ... number of genes, making it a very attractive option for a condition as .... clinical value of various test offerings to guide decision making.

CERTS customer adoption model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rubio, F. Javier; Siddiqui, Afzal S.; Marnay, Chris; Hamachi,Kristina S.

2000-03-01

This effort represents a contribution to the wider distributed energy resources (DER) research of the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS, http://certs.lbl.gov) that is intended to attack and, hopefully, resolve the technical barriers to DER adoption, particularly those that are unlikely to be of high priority to individual equipment vendors. The longer term goal of the Berkeley Lab effort is to guide the wider technical research towards the key technical problems by forecasting some likely patterns of DER adoption. In sharp contrast to traditional electricity utility planning, this work takes a customer-centric approach and focuses on DER adoption decision making at, what we currently think of as, the customer level. This study reports on Berkeley Lab's second year effort (completed in Federal fiscal year 2000, FY00) of a project aimed to anticipate patterns of customer adoption of distributed energy resources (DER). Marnay, et al., 2000 describes the earlier FY99 Berkeley Lab work. The results presented herein are not intended to represent definitive economic analyses of possible DER projects by any means. The paucity of data available and the importance of excluded factors, such as environmental implications, are simply too important to make such an analysis possible at this time. Rather, the work presented represents a demonstration of the current model and an indicator of the potential to conduct more relevant studies in the future.

Modeling Customer's Satisfaction Behavior through Uninorms

OpenAIRE

Depaire, Benoit; Vanhoof, Koen; Wets, Geert

2006-01-01

During the last three decades, the focus of customer satisfaction research has shifted from what it was about the product or service that customers found satisfying to how and why customers became satisfied. This resulted into several models that try to explain the customer's satisfaction behaviour, among which the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm is one of the most prominent models. This model identifies three elements which have an influence on the customer's satisfaction level: i.e perf...

Energy bill of the municipal utilities at Heerlen: part of the customers' information system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Poell, W A.G.

1980-11-01

A new invoice form now being sent to customers of the combined municipal utilities in Heerlen, Netherlands, provides customers with information that will encourage them to conserve energy. Changes in the invoice involve the utilities' internal operating procedure as well as the annual energy bill and the monthly installment invoice. To make the customer energy-conscious and aware of the effect of conservation measures, the bill states for purposes of comparison the annual consumption of the preceding period. The gas-consumption-related figures appearing on the bill have been modified to account for the calorific value and the ambient temperature in the corresponding period.

Decision 13-2009 in the matter of a review by the NWT Public Utilities Board regarding customer complaints of high consumption on power bills from Northland Utilities Limited

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Acorn, J.

2009-01-01

In February 2009, in response to customer complaints, the Northwest Territories Public Utilities Board requested that Northland Utilities conduct a review of at least the last 3 billing cycles to detect and explain unusually high power bills. Northland responded that the complaints were based primarily on price, not usage, and that the findings can be attributed to rate adjustments as well as colder weather. However, the Board decided to examine certain aspects of Northland's response in detail and initiated an inquiry under section 52 of the Public Utilities Act. The Board determined that Northland Utilities' process for investigating customer complaints was too informal and without any clear structure, resulting in confusion for some customers. The Board directed the utility to develop a document for dealing with customer concerns that clearly outlines the rights and responsibilities of both the utility and the customers. The Board also directed Northland Utilities to reduce the $500 threshold for a company-initiated review of an account to $400. This document addressed issues regarding estimated versus actual meter readings; the number of days in a billing cycle; the prominence of consumption and overall cost on a bill; bill calculators; customer consumption monitoring; pre-paid meters; and meter accuracy. Specific customer complaints were included along with a summary of Board directives.

A Framework for Organizing Current and Future Electric Utility Regulatory and Business Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Satchwell, Andrew [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Cappers, Peter [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Schwartz, Lisa C. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Fadrhonc, Emily Martin [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2015-06-01

Many regulators, utilities, customer groups, and other stakeholders are reevaluating existing regulatory models and the roles and financial implications for electric utilities in the context of today’s environment of increasing distributed energy resource (DER) penetrations, forecasts of significant T&D investment, and relatively flat or negative utility sales growth. When this is coupled with predictions about fewer grid-connected customers (i.e., customer defection), there is growing concern about the potential for serious negative impacts on the regulated utility business model. Among states engaged in these issues, the range of topics under consideration is broad. Most of these states are considering whether approaches that have been applied historically to mitigate the impacts of previous “disruptions” to the regulated utility business model (e.g., energy efficiency) as well as to align utility financial interests with increased adoption of such “disruptive technologies” (e.g., shareholder incentive mechanisms, lost revenue mechanisms) are appropriate and effective in the present context. A handful of states are presently considering more fundamental changes to regulatory models and the role of regulated utilities in the ownership, management, and operation of electric delivery systems (e.g., New York “Reforming the Energy Vision” proceeding).

Targeting utility customers to improve energy savings from conservation and efficiency programs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Taylor, Nicholas W.; Jones, Pierce H.; Kipp, M. Jennison

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Improving DSM program impacts by targeting high energy users. • DSM energy savings potential hinges on pre-participation performance. • Targeting can benefit different utilities and energy efficiency programs. • Overall performance can be improved by up to 250% via targeting strategies. - Abstract: Electric utilities, government agencies, and private interests in the US have committed and continue to invest substantial resources – including billions of dollars of financial capital – in the pursuit of energy efficiency and conservation through demand-side management (DSM) programs. While most of these programs are deemed to be cost effective, and therefore in the public interest, opportunities exist to improve cost effectiveness by targeting programs to those customers with the greatest potential for energy savings. This article details an analysis of three DSM programs offered by three Florida municipal electric utilities to explore such opportunities. First, we estimate programs’ energy savings impacts; second, we measure and compare energy savings across subgroups of program participants as determined by their pre-intervention energy performance, and third, we explore potential changes in program impacts that might be realized by targeting specific customers for participation in the DSM programs. All three programs resulted in statistically significant average (per-participant) energy savings, yet average savings varied widely, with the customers who performed best (i.e., most efficient) before the intervention saving the least energy and those who performed worst (i.e., least efficient) before the intervention saving the most. Assessment of alternative program participation scenarios with varying levels of customer targeting suggests that program impacts could be increased by as much as 80% for a professional energy audit program, just over 100% for a high-efficiency heat pump upgrade program, and nearly 250% for an attic insulation

Technology acceptance model and the paths to online customer loyalty in an emerging market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The technology acceptance model (TAM has been well-known for decades. However, the global adoption of the Internet creates new interests in utilizing TAM in e-commerce and the post-consumption intention, especially in emerging markets. Data was collected from 758 online customers via a web-based survey in Vietnam. Particular contribution of the results is that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, fairness, trust and the quality of the customer interface have direct or indirect impacts on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Moreover, in emerging markets, trust was outlined as the strongest factor contributing to customer satisfaction and leading to customer loyalty.

A Framework for Organizing Current and Future Electric Utility Regulatory and Business Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Satchwell, Andrew [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Cappers, Peter [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Schwartz, Lisa [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Fadrhonc, Emily Martin [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2015-06-01

In this report, we will present a descriptive and organizational framework for incremental and fundamental changes to regulatory and utility business models in the context of clean energy public policy goals. We will also discuss the regulated utility's role in providing value-added services that relate to distributed energy resources, identify the "openness" of customer information and utility networks necessary to facilitate change, and discuss the relative risks, and the shifting of risks, for utilities and customers.

Approaches to Electric Utility Energy Efficiency for Low Income Customers in a Changing Regulatory Environment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brockway, N.

2001-05-21

As the electric industry goes through a transformation to a more market-driven model, traditional grounds for utility energy efficiency have come under fire, undermining the existing mechanisms to fund and deliver such services. The challenge, then, is to understand why the electric industry should sustain investments in helping low-income Americans use electricity efficiently, how such investments should be made, and how these policies can become part of the new electric industry structure. This report analyzes the opportunities and barriers to leveraging electric utility energy efficiency assistance to low-income customers during the transition of the electric industry to greater competition.

Custom v. Standardized Risk Models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zura Kakushadze

2015-05-01

Full Text Available We discuss when and why custom multi-factor risk models are warranted and give source code for computing some risk factors. Pension/mutual funds do not require customization but standardization. However, using standardized risk models in quant trading with much shorter holding horizons is suboptimal: (1 longer horizon risk factors (value, growth, etc. increase noise trades and trading costs; (2 arbitrary risk factors can neutralize alpha; (3 “standardized” industries are artificial and insufficiently granular; (4 normalization of style risk factors is lost for the trading universe; (5 diversifying risk models lowers P&L correlations, reduces turnover and market impact, and increases capacity. We discuss various aspects of custom risk model building.

Restoration of an atrophic eye socket with custom made eye prosthesis, utilizing digital photography

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gaurav P Jayaswal

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Ocular defects may cause several ocular and orbital disorders, which require surgical intervention. These defects are psychologically disturbing for the patients, and therefore, they require immediate management and rehabilitation by a team of specialist. Ocular prosthesis may be either readymade (stock or custom made. Fabrication of a custom ocular prosthesis allows for a range of variations during construction. The iris can also be custom made by ocular painting or by digital photography. The optimum cosmetic and functional results of a custom-made prosthesis enhance the patient′s rehabilitation to a normal life style. This paper elaborates the technique for fabrication of a custom-made ocular prosthesis for an atrophic eye socket utilizing digital photography.

Modeling of customer adoption of distributed energy resources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marnay, Chris; Chard, Joseph S.; Hamachi, Kristina S.; Lipman, Timothy; Moezzi, Mithra M.; Ouaglal, Boubekeur; Siddiqui, Afzal S.

2001-08-01

This report describes work completed for the California Energy Commission (CEC) on the continued development and application of the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM). This work was performed at Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) between July 2000 and June 2001 under the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS) Distributed Energy Resources Integration (DERI) project. Our research on distributed energy resources (DER) builds on the concept of the microgrid ({mu}Grid), a semiautonomous grouping of electricity-generating sources and end-use sinks that are placed and operated for the benefit of its members. Although a {mu}Grid can operate independent of the macrogrid (the utility power network), the {mu}Grid is usually interconnected, purchasing energy and ancillary services from the macrogrid. Groups of customers can be aggregated into {mu}Grids by pooling their electrical and other loads, and the most cost-effective combination of generation resources for a particular {mu}Grid can be found. In this study, DER-CAM, an economic model of customer DER adoption implemented in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) optimization software is used, to find the cost-minimizing combination of on-site generation customers (individual businesses and a {mu}Grid) in a specified test year. DER-CAM's objective is to minimize the cost of supplying electricity to a specific customer by optimizing the installation of distributed generation and the self-generation of part or all of its electricity. Currently, the model only considers electrical loads, but combined heat and power (CHP) analysis capability is being developed under the second year of CEC funding. The key accomplishments of this year's work were the acquisition of increasingly accurate data on DER technologies, including the development of methods for forecasting cost reductions for these technologies, and the creation of a

Interactions between Energy Efficiency Programs funded under the Recovery Act and Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Goldman, Charles A.; Stuart, Elizabeth; Hoffman, Ian; Fuller, Merrian C.; Billingsley, Megan A.

2011-02-25

-funded energy efficiency programs administered by state energy offices: the State Energy Program (SEP) formula grants, the portion of Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) formula funds administered directly by states, and the State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP). Since these ARRA programs devote significant monies to energy efficiency and serve similar markets as utility customer-funded programs, there are frequent interactions between programs. We exclude the DOE low-income weatherization program and EECBG funding awarded directly to the over 2,200 cities, counties and tribes from our study to keep its scope manageable. We summarize the energy efficiency program design and funding choices made by the 50 state energy offices, 5 territories and the District of Columbia. We then focus on the specific choices made in 12 case study states. These states were selected based on the level of utility customer program funding, diversity of program administrator models, and geographic diversity. Based on interviews with more than 80 energy efficiency actors in those 12 states, we draw observations about states strategies for use of Recovery Act funds. We examine interactions between ARRA programs and utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs in terms of program planning, program design and implementation, policy issues, and potential long-term impacts. We consider how the existing regulatory policy framework and energy efficiency programs in these 12 states may have impacted development of these selected ARRA programs. Finally, we summarize key trends and highlight issues that evaluators of these ARRA programs may want to examine in more depth in their process and impact evaluations.

Customer Order Decoupling Point Selection Model in Mass Customization Based on MAS

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

XU Xuanguo; LI Xiangyang

2006-01-01

Mass customization relates to the ability of providing individually designed products or services to customer with high process flexibility or integration. Literatures on mass customization have been focused on mechanism of MC, but little on customer order decoupling point selection. The aim of this paper is to present a model for customer order decoupling point selection of domain knowledge interactions between enterprises and customers in mass customization. Based on the analysis of other researchers' achievements combining the demand problems of customer and enterprise, a model of group decision for customer order decoupling point selection is constructed based on quality function deployment and multi-agent system. Considering relatively the decision makers of independent functional departments as independent decision agents, a decision agent set is added as the third dimensionality to house of quality, the cubic quality function deployment is formed. The decision-making can be consisted of two procedures: the first one is to build each plane house of quality in various functional departments to express each opinions; the other is to evaluate and gather the foregoing sub-decisions by a new plane quality function deployment. Thus, department decision-making can well use its domain knowledge by ontology, and total decision-making can keep simple by avoiding too many customer requirements.

Internet sites of public utilities. Customers wish for interactive access; Die Internetauftritte der Versorger. Kunden wuenschen interaktive Anbindung

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Knechtel, Karsten [Process Management Consulting GmbH, Muenchen (Germany)

2010-11-15

Electric and gas utilities all have internet sites for private customers. Many of them provide interactive access to all relevant services for both regular and interested new customers. To the end users, innovative aspects of energy supply in the deregulated market are currently of increasing interest. A recent industry barometer shows the extent to which utilities have installed interactive integration of both their current and prospective private customers in their business processes. Especially multimedia criteria are gaining increasing importance. (orig.)

Cost-benefit assessment of energy storage for utility and customers: A case study in Malaysia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chua, Kein Huat; Lim, Yun Seng; Morris, Stella

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Energy storage can replace the peaking plants. • The cost of electricity for the plants with energy storage is as competitive as fossil fuel power plants. • Energy storage can reduce CO_2 emissions and defer the reinforcement of transmissions and distributions infrastructure. • Energy storage can reduce peak demand charge for customers. - Abstract: Under the existing commercial framework of electricity in Malaysia, commercial and industrial customers are required to pay for the peak power demand charge every month. Usually, the peak demand charge can contribute up to 30% to their electricity bills due to the use of open-cycle gas power plants that deliver expensive electricity to the customers. Therefore, alternative means are sought after in order to reduce the peak demand for the customers. Distributed small-scaled energy storage can offer a good option to reduce the peak. This paper aims to identify the financial benefits of the energy storage system for utility companies and customers. An energy dispatch model is developed in HOMER to determine the cost of electricity. The model considers the heat rates of power plants in calculating the costs of electricity under different regulatory frameworks of natural gas with various prices of battery components. Apart from that, the cost-benefit for the customers under various electric tariff structures is evaluated. Four battery storage technologies, namely lead acid, vanadium redox flow, zinc-bromine, and lithium-ion are considered. The simulation results show that the storage system with lead acid batteries is more cost-effective than other battery technologies. The customers can reduce their electricity bills with the payback period of 2.8 years. The generation cost for the power system with energy storage is lower than that without energy storage. Besides, the system with energy storage has lower greenhouse gas emissions than that without energy storage. The deferral of the reinforcement of

Customer-Provider Strategic Alignment: A Maturity Model

Science.gov (United States)

Luftman, Jerry; Brown, Carol V.; Balaji, S.

This chapter presents a new model for assessing the maturity of a ­customer-provider relationship from a collaborative service delivery perspective: the Customer-Provider Strategic Alignment Maturity (CPSAM) Model. This model builds on recent research for effectively managing the customer-provider relationship in IT service outsourcing contexts and a validated model for assessing alignment across internal IT service units and their business customers within the same organization. After reviewing relevant literature by service science and information systems researchers, the six overarching components of the maturity model are presented: value measurements, governance, partnership, communications, human resources and skills, and scope and architecture. A key assumption of the model is that all of the components need be addressed to assess and improve customer-provider alignment. Examples of specific metrics for measuring the maturity level of each component over the five levels of maturity are also presented.

Classification of customer lifetime value models using Markov chain

Science.gov (United States)

Permana, Dony; Pasaribu, Udjianna S.; Indratno, Sapto W.; Suprayogi

2017-10-01

A firm’s potential reward in future time from a customer can be determined by customer lifetime value (CLV). There are some mathematic methods to calculate it. One method is using Markov chain stochastic model. Here, a customer is assumed through some states. Transition inter the states follow Markovian properties. If we are given some states for a customer and the relationships inter states, then we can make some Markov models to describe the properties of the customer. As Markov models, CLV is defined as a vector contains CLV for a customer in the first state. In this paper we make a classification of Markov Models to calculate CLV. Start from two states of customer model, we make develop in many states models. The development a model is based on weaknesses in previous model. Some last models can be expected to describe how real characters of customers in a firm.

A Brand Loyalty Model Utilizing Team Identification and Customer Satisfaction in the Licensed Sports Product Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Soonhwan; Shin, Hongbum; Park, Jung-Jun; Kwon, Oh-Ryun

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among the attitudinal brand loyalty variables (i.e., cognitive, affective, and conative components), team identification, and customer satisfaction by developing a structural equation model, based on Oliver's (1997) attitudinal brand loyalty model. The results of this study confirmed…

Profit-Based Model Selection for Customer Retention Using Individual Customer Lifetime Values.

Science.gov (United States)

Óskarsdóttir, María; Baesens, Bart; Vanthienen, Jan

2018-03-01

The goal of customer retention campaigns, by design, is to add value and enhance the operational efficiency of businesses. For organizations that strive to retain their customers in saturated, and sometimes fast moving, markets such as the telecommunication and banking industries, implementing customer churn prediction models that perform well and in accordance with the business goals is vital. The expected maximum profit (EMP) measure is tailored toward this problem by taking into account the costs and benefits of a retention campaign and estimating its worth for the organization. Unfortunately, the measure assumes fixed and equal customer lifetime value (CLV) for all customers, which has been shown to not correspond well with reality. In this article, we extend the EMP measure to take into account the variability in the lifetime values of customers, thereby basing it on individual characteristics. We demonstrate how to incorporate the heterogeneity of CLVs when CLVs are known, when their prior distribution is known, and when neither is known. By taking into account individual CLVs, our proposed approach of measuring model performance gives novel insights when deciding on a customer retention campaign. The method is dependent on the characteristics of the customer base as is compliant with modern business analytics and accommodates the data-driven culture that has manifested itself within organizations.

Non-utility generation and demand management reliability of customer delivery systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hamoud, G.A.; Wang, L.

1995-01-01

A probabilistic methodology for evaluating the impact of non-utility generation (NUG) and demand management programs (DMP) on supply reliability of customer delivery systems was presented. The proposed method was based on the criteria that the supply reliability to the customers on the delivery system should not be affected by the integration of either NUG or DMPs. The method considered station load profile, load forecast, and uncertainty in size and availability of the nuio. Impacts on system reliability were expressed in terms of possible delays of the in-service date for new facilities or in terms of an increase in the system load carrying capability. Examples to illustrate the proposed methodology were provided. 10 refs., 8 tabs., 2 figs

The utility target market model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leng, G.J.; Martin, J.

1994-01-01

A new model (the Utility Target Market Model) is used to evaluate the economic benefits of photovoltaic (PV) power systems located at the electrical utility customer site. These distributed PV demand-side generation systems can be evaluated in a similar manner to other demand-side management technologies. The energy and capacity values of an actual PV system located in the service area of the New England Electrical System (NEES) are the two utility benefits evaluated. The annual stream of energy and capacity benefits calculated for the utility are converted to the installed cost per watt that the utility should be willing to invest to receive this benefit stream. Different discount rates are used to show the sensitivity of the allowable installed cost of the PV systems to a utility's average cost of capital. Capturing both the energy and capacity benefits of these relatively environmentally friendly distributed generators, NEES should be willing to invest in this technology when the installed cost per watt declines to ca $2.40 using NEES' rated cost of capital (8.78%). If a social discount rate of 3% is used, installation should be considered when installed cost approaches $4.70/W. Since recent installations in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District have cost between $7-8/W, cost-effective utility applications of PV are close. 22 refs., 1 fig., 2 tabs

Modeling of customer adoption of distributed energy resources; TOPICAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marnay, Chris; Chard, Joseph S.; Hamachi, Kristina S.; Lipman, Timothy; Moezzi, Mithra M.; Ouaglal, Boubekeur; Siddiqui, Afzal S.

2001-01-01

This report describes work completed for the California Energy Commission (CEC) on the continued development and application of the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM). This work was performed at Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) between July 2000 and June 2001 under the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS) Distributed Energy Resources Integration (DERI) project. Our research on distributed energy resources (DER) builds on the concept of the microgrid ((mu)Grid), a semiautonomous grouping of electricity-generating sources and end-use sinks that are placed and operated for the benefit of its members. Although a(mu)Grid can operate independent of the macrogrid (the utility power network), the(mu)Grid is usually interconnected, purchasing energy and ancillary services from the macrogrid. Groups of customers can be aggregated into(mu)Grids by pooling their electrical and other loads, and the most cost-effective combination of generation resources for a particular(mu)Grid can be found. In this study, DER-CAM, an economic model of customer DER adoption implemented in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) optimization software is used, to find the cost-minimizing combination of on-site generation customers (individual businesses and a(mu)Grid) in a specified test year. DER-CAM's objective is to minimize the cost of supplying electricity to a specific customer by optimizing the installation of distributed generation and the self-generation of part or all of its electricity. Currently, the model only considers electrical loads, but combined heat and power (CHP) analysis capability is being developed under the second year of CEC funding. The key accomplishments of this year's work were the acquisition of increasingly accurate data on DER technologies, including the development of methods for forecasting cost reductions for these technologies, and the creation of a credible example

Enabling model customization and integration

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Minho; Fishwick, Paul A.

2003-09-01

Until fairly recently, the idea of dynamic model content and presentation were treated synonymously. For example, if one was to take a data flow network, which captures the dynamics of a target system in terms of the flow of data through nodal operators, then one would often standardize on rectangles and arrows for the model display. The increasing web emphasis on XML, however, suggests that the network model can have its content specified in an XML language, and then the model can be represented in a number of ways depending on the chosen style. We have developed a formal method, based on styles, that permits a model to be specified in XML and presented in 1D (text), 2D, and 3D. This method allows for customization and personalization to exert their benefits beyond e-commerce, to the area of model structures used in computer simulation. This customization leads naturally to solving the bigger problem of model integration - the act of taking models of a scene and integrating them with that scene so that there is only one unified modeling interface. This work focuses mostly on customization, but we address the integration issue in the future work section.

Customization: Ideal Varieties, Product Uniqueness and Price Competition

OpenAIRE

Oksana Loginova; X. Henry Wang

2009-01-01

We study customization in the Hotelling model with two firms. In addition to providing ideal varieties, the perceived uniqueness of a customized product contributes independently to consumer utility. We show that only when consumer preferences for uniqueness are high customization occurs in equilibrium.

Using fuzzy models to migrate from customer relationship management (CRM) to customer experience management (CEM)

OpenAIRE

Dr. Anna Maria Gil-Lafuente; Carolina Luis-Bassa

2011-01-01

Relationship Marketing has made rapid progress during the last ten years. Since the development of the customer-centric model, reinforced by the emergence of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategies, companies have focused on finding models and tools that allow them to get to know better their clients. The management of customer relationship with the company has evolved from seeking the customer satisfaction to seek customer loyalty, and later on to create a brand advocate consumer f...

Models Used for Measuring Customer Engagement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihai TICHINDELEAN

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the paper is to define and measure the customer engagement as a forming element of the relationship marketing theory. In the first part of the paper, the authors review the marketing literature regarding the concept of customer engagement and summarize the main models for measuring it. One probability model (Pareto/NBD model and one parametric model (RFM model specific for the customer acquisition phase are theoretically detailed. The second part of the paper is an application of the RFM model; the authors demonstrate that there is no statistical significant variation within the clusters formed on two different data sets (training and test set if the cluster centroids of the training set are used as initial cluster centroids for the second test set.

Propensity Customer the Proposition of Lawsuits: Development and test of Predictive Model for the Electricity Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Manoel Cunha de Almeida

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The study aimed to propose and test a model to predict the propensity of lawsuits of Power sector utility customers. The effects of customer profile, motives of complaints, and the history of administrative actions, on the propensity to lawsuits, were investigated. The paradigm of disconfirmation of expectations was used as a theoretical framework for this study. We adopted a substantive approach to the development and testing of the predictive model. The technique of Classification Tree was chosen to operationalize the model. The method specified in this study for the creation of the decision tree was the CHAID (Chi Square Interaction Detector. Data analysis shows that the propensity to the proposition of a lawsuit does not solely depend on the nature of the problem faced by the client, but the profile and trajectory relationship with the utility provider. The results of this study offer empirical support to the theoretical paradigm of disconfirmation of expectations, more specifically, with regard to the Satisfaction Theory, Attribution Theory and the Theory of Justice and Equity. The main managerial contribution of the study lies in propose a predictive model that allows utility providers to assign each customer a probability to propose a lawsuit, which enables the proactive adoption of practices by the managers, aiming to better serve the public.

Customer care policy for utilities - demonstrated with the example of a call center; Customer Care fuer EVU - Wirkungszusammenhaenge am Beispiel des Telefon-Service

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weisse, D. [Consulting und Services, pdv Unternehmensberatung GmbH, Roesrath (Germany)

2000-01-10

Customer care policy, for preventing change to another provider and consolidating customer loyalty, is becoming a strategic (powerful) instrument for a utility in the competitive market. But what does this really imply for the day-to-day process of dealing with client-specific operations and workflows? The article describes the interactions between strategic marketing for ensuring client satisfaction and the resulting requirements to be met by a utility's call center, and also describes the key 'parameters' and requirements for successful day-to-day management of call centers. (orig./CB) [German] Customer Care zur Reduzierung der Wechselbereitschaft bzw. zur Erhoehung der Kundenbindung wird fuer EVU zu einem strategischen Instrument im Kampf um die Kunden. Aber was bedeutet dies fuer die operative Abwicklung der kundenbezogenen Geschaeftsprozesse? Der Verfasser erlaeutert die Zusammenhaenge zwischen dem strategischen Ziel der Kundenzufriedenheit und der operativen Umsetzung des Telefon-Service und beschreibt die 'Stellschrauben', die fuer diesen Zweck bei der Planung aber auch im taeglichen Management eines Call Centers zur Verfuegung stehen. (orig.)

Service quality in Islamic banks: The role of PAKSERV model, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feras M.I. Alnaser

2018-04-01

Full Text Available In service oriented industry, it is very difficult to set a standard rule to satisfy customers. As customer awareness increases on the service offered by banks, expectation from services quality increases too. Quality of a service in banking industry plays an essential role in measuring the performance of banks. Thus, the present study examines the PAKSERV model to measure customer satisfaction and customer loyalty of Islamic Banks in Palestine. A survey method was adopted where data was collected from 482 respondents through structured questionnaire. Structural equation model (SEM was applied to check the hypothesis relationship between proposed constructs. Statistical finding revealed that PAKSERV model had significant impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Islamic banks of Palestine. Results also revealed that in cultural context PAKSERV model was the most appropriate scale and had predictive power of service quality in banking industry of Palestine. The findings of this study will be helpful for managers and policy makers to improve the service quality in Islamic banks of Palestine.

Business model innovation for sustainable energy: German utilities and renewable energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Richter, Mario

2013-01-01

The electric power sector stands at the beginning of a fundamental transformation process towards a more sustainable production based on renewable energies. Consequently, electric utilities as incumbent actors face a massive challenge to find new ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value from renewable energy technologies. This study investigates utilities' business models for renewable energies by analyzing two generic business models based on a series of in-depth interviews with German utility managers. It is found that utilities have developed viable business models for large-scale utility-side renewable energy generation. At the same time, utilities lack adequate business models to commercialize small-scale customer-side renewable energy technologies. By combining the business model concept with innovation and organization theory practical recommendations for utility mangers and policy makers are derived. - Highlights: • The energy transition creates a fundamental business model challenge for utilities. • German utilities succeed in large-scale and fail in small-scale renewable generation. • Experiences from other industries are available to inform utility managers. • Business model innovation capabilities will be crucial to master the energy transition

Customer-oriented risk assessment in network utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gómez Fernández, Juan F.; Márquez, Adolfo Crespo; López-Campos, Mónica A.

2016-01-01

For companies that distribute services such as telecommunications, water, energy, gas, etc., quality perceived by the customers has a strong impact on the fulfillment of financial goals, positively increasing the demand and negatively increasing the risk of customer churn (loss of customers). Failures by these companies may cause customer affection in a massive way, augmenting the intention to leave the company. Therefore, maintenance performance and specifically service reliability has a strong influence on financial goals. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate the contribution of the maintenance department in economic terms, based on service unreliability by network failures. The developed methodology aims to provide an analysis of failures to facilitate decision making about maintenance (preventive/predictive and corrective) costs versus negative impacts in end-customer invoicing based on the probability of losing customers. Survival analysis of recurrent failures with the General Renewal Process distribution is used for this novel purpose with the intention to be applied as a standard procedure to calculate the expected maintenance financial impact, for a given period of time. Also, geographical areas of coverage are distinguished, enabling the comparison of different technical or management alternatives. Two case studies in a telecommunications services company are presented in order to illustrate the applicability of the methodology. - Highlights: • Reliability and reparability impact the rate of abandonment of customers. • Expected reliability and interruptions must be contemplated in services contracts. • Preventive maintenance reduces the risk of abandonment, besides corrective costs. • Analysis of investment in service reliability vs. impact on customer retention. • Reliability of services has a positive impact in business financial situation.

Using alternative segmentation techniques to examine residential customer`s energy needs, wants, and preferences

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hollander, C.; Kidwell, S. [Union Electric Co., St. Louis, MO (United States); Banks, J.; Taylor, E. [Cambridge Reports/Research International, MA (United States)

1994-11-01

The primary objective of this study was to examine residential customers` attitudes toward energy usage, conservation, and efficiency, and to examine the implications of these attitudes for how the utility should design and communicate about programs and services in these areas. This study combined focus groups and customer surveys, and utilized several customer segmentation schemes -- grouping customers by geodemographics, as well as customers` energy and environmental values, beliefs, and opinions -- to distinguish different segments of customers.

A framework and review of customer outage costs: Integration and analysis of electric utility outage cost surveys

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lawton, Leora; Sullivan, Michael; Van Liere, Kent; Katz, Aaron; Eto, Joseph

2003-11-01

A clear understanding of the monetary value that customers place on reliability and the factors that give rise to higher and lower values is an essential tool in determining investment in the grid. The recent National Transmission Grid Study recognizes the need for this information as one of growing importance for both public and private decision makers. In response, the U.S. Department of Energy has undertaken this study, as a first step toward addressing the current absence of consistent data needed to support better estimates of the economic value of electricity reliability. Twenty-four studies, conducted by eight electric utilities between 1989 and 2002 representing residential and commercial/industrial (small, medium and large) customer groups, were chosen for analysis. The studies cover virtually all of the Southeast, most of the western United States, including California, rural Washington and Oregon, and the Midwest south and east of Chicago. All variables were standardized to a consistent metric and dollar amounts were adjusted to the 2002 CPI. The data were then incorporated into a meta-database in which each outage scenario (e.g., the lost of electric service for one hour on a weekday summer afternoon) is treated as an independent case or record both to permit comparisons between outage characteristics and to increase the statistical power of analysis results. Unadjusted average outage costs and Tobit models that estimate customer damage functions are presented. The customer damage functions express customer outage costs for a given outage scenario and customer class as a function of location, time of day, consumption, and business type. One can use the damage functions to calculate outage costs for specific customer types. For example, using the customer damage functions, the cost experienced by an ''average'' customer resulting from a 1 hour summer afternoon outage is estimated to be approximately $3 for a residential customer, $1

Spanish utility turns customer bills into a strategic advantage with EDP

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stone, C. [StreamServe Inc., Burlington, MA (United States)

2007-03-15

Enterprise document presentments (EDPs) are now used at many utilities to enable the automated creation and presentment of documents in formats that suit the needs of their customers. Upgraded billing capabilities can reduce operational costs, as well as drive incremental revenue for utilities that offer a portfolio of services. EDP bills can also provide an adaptable vehicle for meeting regulatory information requirements, as well as for demonstrating the utility's community obligations. This paper discussed an EDP program used by the Spanish utility Hidroelectrica del Cantabrico. After consulting with various companies, the utility finally selected an EDP solution provided by StreamServe Utilities, which offered data source independence. SAP data was received in RDI format, which provided the ability to rapidly design and generate invoices, contracts, and other documents. The EDP system selected by the utility also allowed them to consolidate electricity and gas consumption into a single invoice. Invoices were classified by distinct criteria, and optical labels were inserted to provide greater flexibility for design changes. The EDP solution allowed the utility to improve its corporate image on each printed document and optimize its client relationships by establishing a new marketing channel through the invoice itself. It was concluded that the utility has also achieved significant cost savings on paper and postage, as promotional campaigns are now inserted into invoice envelopes. 1 fig.

Spanish utility turns customer bills into a strategic advantage with EDP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stone, C.

2007-01-01

Enterprise document presentments (EDPs) are now used at many utilities to enable the automated creation and presentment of documents in formats that suit the needs of their customers. Upgraded billing capabilities can reduce operational costs, as well as drive incremental revenue for utilities that offer a portfolio of services. EDP bills can also provide an adaptable vehicle for meeting regulatory information requirements, as well as for demonstrating the utility's community obligations. This paper discussed an EDP program used by the Spanish utility Hidroelectrica del Cantabrico. After consulting with various companies, the utility finally selected an EDP solution provided by StreamServe Utilities, which offered data source independence. SAP data was received in RDI format, which provided the ability to rapidly design and generate invoices, contracts, and other documents. The EDP system selected by the utility also allowed them to consolidate electricity and gas consumption into a single invoice. Invoices were classified by distinct criteria, and optical labels were inserted to provide greater flexibility for design changes. The EDP solution allowed the utility to improve its corporate image on each printed document and optimize its client relationships by establishing a new marketing channel through the invoice itself. It was concluded that the utility has also achieved significant cost savings on paper and postage, as promotional campaigns are now inserted into invoice envelopes. 1 fig

Customer requirement modeling and mapping of numerical control machine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhongqi Sheng

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In order to better obtain information about customer requirement and develop products meeting customer requirement, it is necessary to systematically analyze and handle the customer requirement. This article uses the product service system of numerical control machine as research objective and studies the customer requirement modeling and mapping oriented toward configuration design. It introduces the conception of requirement unit, expounds the customer requirement decomposition rules, and establishes customer requirement model; it builds the house of quality using quality function deployment and confirms the weight of technical feature of product and service; it explores the relevance rules between data using rough set theory, establishes rule database, and solves the target value of technical feature of product. Using economical turning center series numerical control machine as an example, it verifies the rationality of proposed customer requirement model.

A Model to Explain Customer Loyalty Based on Customer Equity and Customer Satisfaction: A study in mobile services industry in Bushehr

OpenAIRE

manigeh Bahrainizadeh; Leila Tavasoli

2014-01-01

Abstruct: The development of telecom companies in the world and the maturity of markets of such services, the management of customer loyalty has become a major concern in the company. This research is trying to provide a model for mobile service customer loyalty considering the customer equity, value equity, brand equity, relationships equity and customer satisfaction in order to create better services for mobile operators and to increase customer loyalty. In terms of goal the research is ...

Customer-centered careflow modeling based on guidelines.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Biqing; Zhu, Peng; Wu, Cheng

2012-10-01

In contemporary society, customer-centered health care, which stresses customer participation and long-term tailored care, is inevitably becoming a trend. Compared with the hospital or physician-centered healthcare process, the customer-centered healthcare process requires more knowledge and modeling such a process is extremely complex. Thus, building a care process model for a special customer is cost prohibitive. In addition, during the execution of a care process model, the information system should have flexibility to modify the model so that it adapts to changes in the healthcare process. Therefore, supporting the process in a flexible, cost-effective way is a key challenge for information technology. To meet this challenge, first, we analyze various kinds of knowledge used in process modeling, illustrate their characteristics, and detail their roles and effects in careflow modeling. Secondly, we propose a methodology to manage a lifecycle of the healthcare process modeling, with which models could be built gradually with convenience and efficiency. In this lifecycle, different levels of process models are established based on the kinds of knowledge involved, and the diffusion strategy of these process models is designed. Thirdly, architecture and prototype of the system supporting the process modeling and its lifecycle are given. This careflow system also considers the compatibility of legacy systems and authority problems. Finally, an example is provided to demonstrate implementation of the careflow system.

Customer attractiveness, supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status: a review and a cycle model

OpenAIRE

Schiele, Holger; Veldman, Jasper; Hüttinger, L.

2012-01-01

In this paper, we introduce the concept of preferred customer status, i.e. a buyer is awarded preferential treatment of its important suppliers compared to their other customers. As there is a lack of knowledge of what motivates suppliers to serve selected buyers better than others, our research focuses on the suppliers’ evaluation of customers and how it can be influenced by buyers. Based on social exchange theory, we provide a conceptual model which proposes customer attractiveness, supplie...

Modeling the customer in electronic commerce.

Science.gov (United States)

Helander, M G; Khalid, H M

2000-12-01

This paper reviews interface design of web pages for e-commerce. Different tasks in e-commerce are contrasted. A systems model is used to illustrate the information flow between three subsystems in e-commerce: store environment, customer, and web technology. A customer makes several decisions: to enter the store, to navigate, to purchase, to pay, and to keep the merchandize. This artificial environment must be designed so that it can support customer decision-making. To retain customers it must be pleasing and fun, and create a task with natural flow. Customers have different needs, competence and motivation, which affect decision-making. It may therefore be important to customize the design of the e-store environment. Future ergonomics research will have to investigate perceptual aspects, such as presentation of merchandize, and cognitive issues, such as product search and navigation, as well as decision making while considering various economic parameters. Five theories on e-commerce research are presented.

Certified meter data managers provide potent tool : Utilities, customers benefit from accurate energy data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hall, V.

2004-02-01

The use of customer energy information and its importance in building business-to-business and business-to-consumer demographic profiles, and the role of certified meter data management agents, i.e. companies that have created infrastructures to manage large volumes of energy data that can be used to drive marketing to energy customers, is discussed. Short and long-term load management planning, distribution planning, outage management and demand response programs, efforts to streamline billing and create revenue-generating value-added services, are just some of the areas that can benefit from comprehensively collected and accurate consumer data. The article emphasizes the process of certification, the benefits certified meter data management companies can provide to utilities as well as to consumers, their role in disaster recovery management, and characteristics of the way such companies bring the benefits of their operations to their client utilities and consumers. 1 tab.

Learning from and with Customers with Social Media: A Model for Social Customer Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hannu Kärkkäinen

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Social media can enable and significantly increase the collaboration andlearning from customers in various ways, for instance by novel social waysof providing and receiving feedback from new products and concepts. Wehave created a model that can support managers and researchers to betteranalyse and understand the possibilities of social media approaches especiallyfrom the business-to-business (B2B customer interface standpoint. Weused the model to analyse found various types of business-to-business relatedsocial media approaches to create new understanding of the scarcelyresearched field of social media in the customer learning and the customerinterface of B2B innovation.

A duopoly model with heterogeneous congestion-sensitive customers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mandjes, M.R.H.; Timmer, Judith B.

2003-01-01

This paper analyzes a model with multiple firms (providers), and two classes of customers. These customers classes are characterized by their attitude towards `congestion' (caused by other customers using the same resources); a firm is selected on the basis of both the prices charged by the firms,

A duopoly model with heterogeneous congestion-sensitive customers.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mandjes, M.R.H.; Timmer, J.

2007-01-01

Abstract This paper analyzes a model with two firms (providers), and two classes of customers. These customers classes are characterized by their attitude towards ‘congestion’ (caused by other customers using the same resources); a firm is selected on the basis of both the prices charged by the

A duopoly model with heterogeneous congestion-sensitive customers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mandjes, M.R.H.; Timmer, Judith B.

This paper analyzes a model with two firms (providers), and two classes of customers. These customers classes are characterized by their attitude towards ‘congestion’ (caused by other customers using the same resources); a firm is selected on the basis of both the prices charged by the firms, and

Modeling switching behaviour of direct selling customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P Msweli-Mbanga

2004-04-01

Full Text Available The direct selling industry suffers a high turnover rate of salespeople, resulting in high costs of training new salespeople. Further costs are incurred when broken relationships with customers cause them to switch from one product supplier to another. This study identifies twelve factors that drive the switching behaviour of direct sales customers and examines the extent to which these factors influence switching. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the validity of these factors. The factors were represented in a model that posits that an interpersonal relationship between a direct sales person and a customer moderates the relationship between switching behaviour and loyalty. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model. The author then discusses the empirical findings and their managerial implications, providing further avenues for research.

A Financial Data Mining Model for Extracting Customer Behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark K.Y. Mak

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Facing the problem of variation and chaotic behavior of customers, the lack of sufficient information is a challenge to many business organizations. Human analysts lacking an understanding of the hidden patterns in business data, thus, can miss corporate business opportunities. In order to embrace all business opportunities, enhance the competitiveness, discovery of hidden knowledge, unexpected patterns and useful rules from large databases have provided a feasible solution for several decades. While there is a wide range of financial analysis products existing in the financial market, how to customize the investment portfolio for the customer is still a challenge to many financial institutions. This paper aims at developing an intelligent Financial Data Mining Model (FDMM for extracting customer behavior in the financial industry, so as to increase the availability of decision support data and hence increase customer satisfaction. The proposed financial model first clusters the customers into several sectors, and then finds the correlation among these sectors. It is noted that better customer segmentation can increase the ability to identify targeted customers, therefore extracting useful rules for specific clusters can provide an insight into customers' buying behavior and marketing implications. To validate the feasibility of the proposed model, a simple dataset is collected from a financial company in Hong Kong. The simulation experiments show that the proposed method not only can improve the workflow of a financial company, but also deepen understanding of investment behavior. Thus, a corporation is able to customize the most suitable products and services for customers on the basis of the rules extracted.

The rise of smart customers. How consumer power will change the global power and utilities business. What consumers think

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2011-08-15

Smart technology puts unprecedented power in the hands of consumers to manage and control their energy use. In time, this will fundamentally shift the balance of customer relations. It seems the era of a one-way relationship - where a utility delivers energy to domestic consumers, end of story - is over. Most power and utility businesses are currently treating the smart transition as an infrastructure upgrade, focusing chiefly on the technology and on fulfilling regulatory obligations. So far, the customer perspective and need for consumer education have not figured prominently in smart implementation programs. But following customer resistance to implementations in the US and Australia, the sector has been alerted to further challenges. Consumers' newfound power to say 'no' is one that the industry is not used to dealing with. Power and utility businesses must learn from the mistakes made so far. They need customer buy-in before they can exploit the host of new business opportunities that smart technology could provide. To explore the sector's readiness to respond to the present cycle of change, we asked domestic energy consumers how they viewed their relationship with energy providers. We wanted to know if they understood the benefits of smart metering, as well as their appetite for smart energy services.

Cyclic delivery scheduling to customers with different priorities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katarzyna Zofia Gdowska

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Background: In this paper a cyclic delivery scheduling problem for customers with different priorities is presented. Shops, which are provided with deliveries, are occasionally located in places which are crucial for the proper flow of traffic. In such places coordination of deliveries is crucial; therefore it allows to completely eliminate the phenomenon of the simultaneous arrivals of suppliers. Methods: In this paper the cyclic delivery scheduling problem for customers with different priorities was presented. To this theoretical problem a mix integer programming model was developed. Specific approach to the cyclic delivery scheduling problem is inspired by timetabling problem for urban public transport. Results: Mixed integer programming model was employed for solving four cases of cyclic delivery scheduling problem for customers with different priorities. When the value of the synchronization priority assigned to a single customer raised then the total number of synchronizations in the whole network decreased. In order to compare solutions a synchronization rate was utilized. A simple factor was utilized - the proportion of number of synchronizations of deliveries to a given customer to the total number of synchronizations obtained for the whole network. When the value of synchronization priority raised then the value of synchronization rate of this customer improved significantly. Conclusions: The mixed integer programming model for the cyclic delivery scheduling problem for customers with different priorities presented in this paper can be utilized for generating schedules of serving customers located in places where only one delivery can be received and unloaded at one go and where there is no space for other suppliers to wait in a queue. Such a schedule can be very useful for organizing deliveries to small shops united in a franchising network, since they operate in a way that is very similar to the network presented in this paper

Pengaruh Customer Service Quality, Customer Perceived Value, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Trust Dan Switching Barriers Terhadap Customer Retention.

OpenAIRE

Hardjanti, Adiati; Amalia, Dinna

2014-01-01

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh customer service quality, customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer trust dan switching barriers terhadap customer retention. Rancangan penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah pengujian hipotesis (testing hypotesis). Pengambilan sampel dalam penelitian ini menggunakan teknik purposive sampling dan keseluruhan hipotesis diuji dengan metode structural equation modeling yang menggunakan Amos 7.0. Data dalam peneliti...

A customer-friendly Space Station

Science.gov (United States)

Pivirotto, D. S.

1984-01-01

This paper discusses the relationship of customers to the Space Station Program currently being defined by NASA. Emphasis is on definition of the Program such that the Space Station will be conducive to use by customers, that is by people who utilize the services provided by the Space Station and its associated platforms and vehicles. Potential types of customers are identified. Scenarios are developed for ways in which different types of customers can utilize the Space Station. Both management and technical issues involved in making the Station 'customer friendly' are discussed.

Designing Customer Relationship Management Model in Hospital

OpenAIRE

Mohammad Abbaszadeh; Roohollah Askari; Morad Alizadeh; Mohammad Amin Bahrami

2017-01-01

Background: Customer relationship management is a modern marketing concept which is also considered as a successful business strategy. The present study aimed to design a customer relationship management model in the hospital. Methods: The study is an applied research performed in 2 phases of 1) texts investigation and 2) the experts' opinions to achieve consensus. Data were analyzed using SPSS 18 software along with descriptive statistics. Results: The designed model included areas of ...

Negative Correlation Learning for Customer Churn Prediction: A Comparison Study

OpenAIRE

Rodan, Ali; Fayyoumi, Ayham; Faris, Hossam; Alsakran, Jamal; Al-Kadi, Omar

2015-01-01

Recently, telecommunication companies have been paying more attention toward the problem of identification of customer churn behavior. In business, it is well known for service providers that attracting new customers is much more expensive than retaining existing ones. Therefore, adopting accurate models that are able to predict customer churn can effectively help in customer retention campaigns and maximizing the profit. In this paper we will utilize an ensemble of Multilayer perceptrons ...

Advantages of utilizing DMD based rapid manufacturing systems in mass customization applications

Science.gov (United States)

El-Siblani, A.

2010-02-01

The Use of DMD based Rapid Manufacturing Systems has proven to be very advantageous in the production of highly accurate plastic based components for use in mass customization market such as hearing aids, and dental markets. The voxelization process currently afforded with the DLP technology eliminates any layering effect associated with all existing additive Rapid Manufacturing technologies. The smooth accurate surfaces produced in an additive process utilizing DLP technology, through the voxelization approach, allow for the production of custom finished products. The implementation of DLP technology in rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing systems allow for the usage of highly viscous photopolymer based liquid and paste composites for rapid manufacturing that could not be used in any other additive process prior to implementation of DLP technology in RP and RM systems. It also allowed for the greater throughput in production without sacrificing quality and accuracy.

Price or Privilege? Customer Perception on Loyalty Programs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asnan Furinto

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The main purpose of the research is to understand how customers perceive loyalty programs. The author argues that types of loyalty programs could be classified into two: price based and privilege based. This research models that customer perceptions on loyalty programs, differ between these two types, and is contingent upon the relationship between customers and firm. Using settings of air-line domestic passengers and bank customers in Indonesia, the research provides evidence that price based rewards are perceived to provide higher utility perception in contractual relationships compared to non contractual relationships. However, this research failed to provide empirical support that privilege based rewards are perceived to provide higher utility perception in non contractual relation-ship compared to contractual relationship. Firms are therefore, encouraged to incorporate affective elements into their loyalty programs, on top of monetary elements, in order for the loyalty programs to be better perceived by their customers.

The Use of the Kano Model to Enhance Customer Satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Južnik Rotar Laura

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Background/purpose: The interest of measuring customer satisfaction is reflected in its ability to gain customer loyalty, enhance favourable word of mouth, lead to repeat purchases and improve a company’s market share and profitability. The issue of integrating the Kano model of customer satisfaction with other models and tools to support development or improvement of a product, or to determine market strategies, is relatively unexplored in the Slovenian sector. This research aims to construct the Kano model in order to enhance customer satisfaction in the case of home appliances.

A research model of health-care competition and customer satisfaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Asoh, Derek A; Rivers, Patrick A

2007-11-01

In all industries, competition among businesses has long been encouraged as a mechanism to increase value for customers. In other words, competition ensures the provision of better products and services to satisfy the needs of customers. Various perspectives of competition, the nature of service quality, health-care system costs and customer satisfaction in health care are examined. A model of the relationship among these variables is developed. The model depicts customer satisfaction as an outcome measure directly dependent on competition. Quality of care and health-care system costs, while also directly dependent on competition, are considered as determinants of customer satisfaction as well. The model is discussed in the light of propositions for empirical research.

Applications of custom scripting in digital micrograph: general image manipulation and utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mitchell, D.R.G.

2002-01-01

Full text: The Gatan Imaging Filter (GIF) uses a charge coupled device (CCD) camera to capture images and spectra. Image capture and manipulation is achieved through Gatan's Digital Micrograph software. This has many capabilities built-in, and can be further extended through installation of custom scripts. These are typically short programs written in a powerful scripting language, which permits many aspects of image acquisition and subsequent manipulation to be controlled by the user. Custom scripts can be added to the normal pull down menus, producing a very flexible and easy to use environment. The scripts described here demonstrate how custom scripting can enhance the functionality of a modem analytical TEM equipped with, in this instance, a GIF. However, scripting will enhance any TEM using a CCD camera controlled through Digital Micrograph. The examples shown here include: a) a script to rotationally average a selected area diffraction pattern and produce a calibrated radial intensity profile, b) a utility script which monitors and graphically displays the CCD temperature as a function of time and c) a simple script to propagate image spatial calibrations to uncalibrated images, such as EFTEM images. Other scripts by the author along with some scripting resources are also discussed. Copyright (2002) Australian Society for Electron Microscopy Inc

New Texas utility offers all customers a web-based Demand Side Management tool that helps them lower their electric bills

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hall, V.

2002-10-01

The great success achieved by the newly established Sharyland Utilities, by offering all its commercial, industrial and residential consumers the ability to view their daily energy consumption via the Internet, thereby enabling them to make informed energy conservation decisions, is described. Sharyland Utilities operating in Sharyland Plantation, a new community in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border, is the first utility in the U. S. to offer these services to all its 650 customers. Expected to stretch to some 22,000 acres when fully developed over the next ten years, Sharyland Plantation is predicted to become the largest integrated master-planned international community anywhere. The utility currently provides AMR-ready metering for the housing market, mass-storage metering for the business sector, as well as a number of fee-based services (through contract with Arlington, Texas-based UDRI/MeterSmart) including, where appropriate, to the class of customer, automatic meter reading, data validation and editing, real-time pricing and billing, load research, data archiving, turnkey load control solutions, on-site technical support, Internet presentation and more. The ability to view their energy use information, in both numeric and graphic form, on the Internet is available to all customers free of charge. Access requires neither dedicated workstations, nor proprietary software nor programming. Additional on-line services are expected to be available on Sharyland's repertoire soon, on a subscription basis. These will include direct-to-the-customer e-mail reports detailing daily, weekly or monthly energy usage, and an energy alarm service that will notify residential and business customers when user-defined maximum energy thresholds have been exceeded.

Customer journey in B2B SaaS business models

OpenAIRE

Opanasenko, Mariia

2017-01-01

In this paper customer journey for B2B SaaS business models was analyzed to study customer experience, customer success and its key performance indicators. The research method is the case study of Supplier Relationship Management SaaS solution provider. In recent years, the research in customer journey management identified the tendency of acknowledge customer journey as a differentiator and a competitive advantage. Customer journey is a complex process that entails structured customer experi...

DSM and the transformation of an electric utility and its customers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fraser, M.

1993-01-01

This paper will trace the evolution of Ontario Hydro's DSM programs from an alternative to supply side resources to a core function of the utility. Ontario Hydro is changing from an energy provider to an energy services company. Four years of ambitious DSM have been successful. A key element of Ontario Hydro's strategy is to create a fundamental cultural transformation in the way Ontarians think about energy and energy efficiency. The impacts on customers, the market place and Ontario Hydro have been significant. This paper will trace these impacts through a description of Ontario Hydro's evolving approach to demand-side management

Customer Satisfaction Index Model on Three Level Of Socioeconomic Status In Bogor Case Study: Customer Satisfaction on Branded Cooking Oil Product

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Budi Setiawan

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Customer satisfaction index models have been developed in many countries, including Indonesia. Those models were commonly not focused on the socioeconomic status (SES of the customer, sothis condition could be a research gap. The aims of this research is to analyze the customer satisfaction index model of branded cooking oil product in Bogor, Indonesia based on SES established from the household monthly routine consumption. Questionnaires were used as primary data collection instrument in this study, while data analysis was carried out with variance based structural equation modeling (SEM which is also known as Partial Least Square (PLS model, and Kruskall Wallis nonparametric test. Perceived quality, perceived value and customer expectation as were significantly influencing the customer satisfaction construct in the structural model. This study also concluded that there is different level of overall customer satisfaction on the three levels of customer’s SES

The future of utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs in the USA. Projected spending and savings to 2025

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barbose, G.L.; Goldman, C.A.; Hoffman, I.M.; Billingsley, M. [Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS 90R4000, Berkeley, CA 94720-8136 (United States)

2013-08-15

We develop projections of future spending on, and savings from, energy efficiency programs funded by electric and gas utility customers in the USA, under three scenarios through 2025. Our analysis, which updates a previous LBNL study, relies on detailed bottom-up modeling of current state energy efficiency policies, regulatory decisions, and demand-side management and utility resource plans. The three scenarios are intended to represent a range of potential outcomes under the current policy environment (i.e., without considering possible major new policy developments). Key findings from the analysis are as follows: (1) By 2025, spending on electric and gas efficiency programs (excluding load management programs) is projected to double from 2010 levels to USD 9.5 billion in the medium case, compared to USD 15.6 billion in the high case and USD 6.5 billion in the low case; (2) Compliance with statewide legislative or regulatory savings or spending targets is the primary driver for the increase in electric program spending through 2025, though a significant share of the increase is also driven by utility DSM planning activity and integrated resource planning; (3) Our analysis suggests that electric efficiency program spending may approach a more even geographic distribution over time in terms of absolute dollars spent, with the Northeastern and Western states declining from over 70 % of total USA spending in 2010 to slightly more than 50 % in 2025, and the South and Midwest splitting the remainder roughly evenly; (4) Under our medium case scenario, annual incremental savings from customer-funded electric energy efficiency programs increase from 18.4 TWh in 2010 in the USA (which is about 0.5 % of electric utility retail sales) to 28.8 TWh in 2025 (0.8 % of retail sales); (5) These savings would offset the majority of load growth in the Energy Information Administration's most recent reference case forecast, given specific assumptions about the extent to which future

Optimization and Customer Utilities under Dynamic Lead Time Quotation in an M/M Type Base Stock System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Koichi Nakade

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In a manufacturing and inventory system, information on production and order lead time helps consumers’ decision whether they receive finished products or not by considering their own impatience on waiting time. In Savaşaneril et al. (2010, the optimal dynamic lead time quotation policy in a one-stage production and inventory system with a base stock policy for maximizing the system’s profit and its properties are discussed. In this system, each arriving customer decides whether he/she enters the system based on the quoted lead time informed by the system. On the other hand, the customer’s utility may be small under the optimal quoted lead time policy because the actual lead time may be longer than the quoted lead time. We use a utility function with respect to benefit of receiving products and waiting time and propose several kinds of heuristic lead time quotation policies. These are compared with optimal policies with respect to both profits and customer’s utilities. Through numerical examples some kinds of heuristic policies have better expected utilities of customers than the optimal quoted lead time policy maximizing system’s profits.

Customer value - the missing link

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pierce, A.R.; Martin, M.G.; Wagner, V.E.

1993-01-01

For many years electric utilities found it easy to provide value to their shareholders. With a monopoly service and decreasing costs it was easy to sell 70% more electricity each year and earn attractive returns. In the last 20 years electric utilities have teamed that it is not possible to provide value to their shareholders without providing value to their customers. Detroit Edison is learning that customer value is not always what the utility thinks it is. There is no better way to find out what customers value than to ask them. Detroit Edison has done a lot of direct asking in the last couple of years, through market research and individual interviews, and has learned indirectly from customers when a particular program does not succeed as we thought it should. Two areas where more has been learned about customer value are Demand Side Management (DSM) and Power Quality

Rancang Bangun Sistem Informasi Customer Loyalty untuk Keunggulan Kompetitif Organisasi

OpenAIRE

Sri Mulyani; Mustafid Mustafid; Catur Edi Widodo

2014-01-01

Utilization of information technology to achieve competitive advantage has become a necessity  for business people and managers of organizations  in the information age now. This research aim to create a customer loyalty that the information system is one part of theCustomer  Relationship  Management  to  collect  data  on  indicators  of  customer  loyalty.  Indicator  of  customer  loyalty  is  determined according  empirical  model  customer  loyalty  and  create  customer  loyalty  inform...

Study of behavior and determination of customer lifetime value(CLV) using Markov chain model

Science.gov (United States)

Permana, Dony; Indratno, Sapto Wahyu; Pasaribu, Udjianna S.

2014-03-01

Customer Lifetime Value or CLV is a restriction on interactive marketing to help a company in arranging financial for the marketing of new customer acquisition and customer retention. Additionally CLV can be able to segment customers for financial arrangements. Stochastic models for the fairly new CLV used a Markov chain. In this model customer retention probability and new customer acquisition probability play an important role. This model is originally introduced by Pfeifer and Carraway in 2000 [1]. They introduced several CLV models, one of them only involves customer and former customer. In this paper we expand the model by adding the assumption of the transition from former customer to customer. In the proposed model, the CLV value is higher than the CLV value obtained by Pfeifer and Caraway model. But our model still requires a longer convergence time.

Study of behavior and determination of customer lifetime value(CLV) using Markov chain model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Permana, Dony, E-mail: donypermana@students.itb.ac.id [Statistics Research Division, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia and Statistics Study Program, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Padang State University (Indonesia); Indratno, Sapto Wahyu; Pasaribu, Udjianna S. [Statistics Research Division, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Bandung Institute of Technology (Indonesia)

2014-03-24

Customer Lifetime Value or CLV is a restriction on interactive marketing to help a company in arranging financial for the marketing of new customer acquisition and customer retention. Additionally CLV can be able to segment customers for financial arrangements. Stochastic models for the fairly new CLV used a Markov chain. In this model customer retention probability and new customer acquisition probability play an important role. This model is originally introduced by Pfeifer and Carraway in 2000 [1]. They introduced several CLV models, one of them only involves customer and former customer. In this paper we expand the model by adding the assumption of the transition from former customer to customer. In the proposed model, the CLV value is higher than the CLV value obtained by Pfeifer and Caraway model. But our model still requires a longer convergence time.

Study of behavior and determination of customer lifetime value(CLV) using Markov chain model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Permana, Dony; Indratno, Sapto Wahyu; Pasaribu, Udjianna S.

2014-01-01

Customer Lifetime Value or CLV is a restriction on interactive marketing to help a company in arranging financial for the marketing of new customer acquisition and customer retention. Additionally CLV can be able to segment customers for financial arrangements. Stochastic models for the fairly new CLV used a Markov chain. In this model customer retention probability and new customer acquisition probability play an important role. This model is originally introduced by Pfeifer and Carraway in 2000 [1]. They introduced several CLV models, one of them only involves customer and former customer. In this paper we expand the model by adding the assumption of the transition from former customer to customer. In the proposed model, the CLV value is higher than the CLV value obtained by Pfeifer and Caraway model. But our model still requires a longer convergence time

Queueing System with Heterogeneous Customers as a Model of a Call Center with a Call-Back for Lost Customers

OpenAIRE

Dudin, Sergey; Kim, Chesoong; Dudina, Olga; Baek, Janghyun

2013-01-01

A multiserver queueing system with infinite and finite buffers, two types of customers, and two types of servers as a model of a call center with a call-back for lost customers is investigated. Type 1 customers arrive to the system according to a Markovian arrival process. All rejected type 1 customers become type 2 customers. Type r, r=1,2, servers serve type r customers if there are any in the system and serve type r′, r′=1,2,  r′≠r, customers if there are no type r customers in the system....

A Simulation Model for Measuring Customer Satisfaction through Employee Satisfaction

Science.gov (United States)

Zondiros, Dimitris; Konstantopoulos, Nikolaos; Tomaras, Petros

2007-12-01

Customer satisfaction is defined as a measure of how a firm's product or service performs compared to customer's expectations. It has long been a subject of research due to its importance for measuring marketing and business performance. A lot of models have been developed for its measurement. This paper propose a simulation model using employee satisfaction as one of the most important factors leading to customer satisfaction (the others being expectations and disconfirmation of expectations). Data obtained from a two-year survey in customers of banks in Greece were used. The application of three approaches regarding employee satisfaction resulted in greater customer satisfaction when there is serious effort to keep employees satisfied.

Customization Issues

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Taps, Stig B.

2014-01-01

Implementation of mass customization and product configuration in companies requires fundamental considerations about how products can fulfil the demand from customers. In order to support such decision-making, a multi-level model for customization is developed. This model identifies four different...... levels of customization, ranging from the structure level at the bottom, through the performance level and the experience level, to the learning level at the top. The model also has a dual view with customers/demand at one side and product/supplier at the other side. It is a rather general model, which...... can be applied to many types of products, and typically, product designers must decide how far up in levels the customization should aim. In this paper, the four-level customization model is applied to wheel chairs....

Expanding business-to-business customer relationships : modeling the customer's upgrade decision

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bolton, R.; Lemon, K.N.; Verhoef, P.C.

This article develops a model of a business customer's decision to upgrade service contracts conditional on the decision to renew the contract. It proposes that the firm's upgrade decision is influenced by (1) decision-maker perceptions of the relationship with the supplier, (2) contract-level

Models of Customer Behavior as a Basis of Marketing Strategy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T A Ivanova

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to the analysis of six main models of customer behavior in contemporary society and the specific tasks of marketing departments of companies at today's stage of development. The given models take into consideration: motives for choosing a product, the degree of product awareness and independence of choice, the degree of customer satisfaction with the product, lines and possibilities of making an impact on customer choice through marketing and promotion stimulation. The author believes that these models may serve as a basis in the formation of effective marketing strategies, as they describe the customers in all the stages of their actions in the process of buying products, accumulating and analyzing the experience of using them.

The Future of Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs in the United States: Projected Spending and Savings to 2025

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barbose, Galen [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Goldman, Charles [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Hoffman, Ian [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Billingsley, Megan [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2012-09-11

We develop projections of future spending on, and savings from, energy efficiency programs funded by electric and gas utility customers in the United States, under three scenarios through 2025. Our analysis, which updates a previous LBNL study, relies on detailed bottom-up modeling of current state energy efficiency policies, regulatory decisions, and demand-side management and utility resource plans. The three scenarios are intended to represent a range of potential outcomes under the current policy environment (i.e., without considering possible major new policy developments). By 2025, spending on electric and gas efficiency programs (excluding load management programs) is projected to double from 2010 levels to $9.5 billion in the medium case, compared to $15.6 billion in the high case and $6.5 billion in the low case. Compliance with statewide legislative or regulatory savings or spending targets is the primary driver for the increase in electric program spending through 2025, though a significant share of the increase is also driven by utility DSM planning activity and integrated resource planning. Our analysis suggests that electric efficiency program spending may approach a more even geographic distribution over time in terms of absolute dollars spent, with the Northeastern and Western states declining from over 70% of total U.S. spending in 2010 to slightly more than 50% in 2025, with the South and Midwest splitting the remainder roughly evenly. Under our medium case scenario, annual incremental savings from customer-funded electric energy efficiency programs increase from 18.4 TWh in 2010 in the U.S. (which is about 0.5% of electric utility retail sales) to 28.8 TWh in 2025 (0.8% of retail sales). These savings would offset the majority of load growth in the Energy Information Administration’s most recent reference case forecast, given specific assumptions about the extent to which future energy efficiency program savings are captured in that forecast

DESIGNING A MODEL OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT FOR A MOBILE PHONE COMPANY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

BRUTU MĂDĂLINA

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Customer relationship management refers to establishing, maintaining, developing and optimizing the relations between an organization and its customers and focuses on understanding and meeting its customers’ wishes and demands, the core items of the business strategy of any performant company. This paper aims at designing and testing a model of customer relationship management applicable within a mobile phone company. Starting from this purpose, the main objectives of the research were: presenting the concept of customer relationship management; the importance of companies’ orientation to the market; identifying a model of customer relationship management and, not least, analyzing the efficiency of this model. The results lead to the conclusion that the model of customer relationship management is extremely effective in the mobile phone industry, bringing significant profits.

Team Risk Management: A New Model for Customer-Supplier Relationships

Science.gov (United States)

1994-07-01

Management : A New Model for Customer - Supplier Relationships Ronald P. Higuera "Audrey J. Dorofee Julie A. Walker Ray C. Williams July 1994 ""•// 94...N/A N/A N/A 11. TITLE (Include Secuity Claaaificatioa) Team Risk Management : A New Model for Customer -Supplier Relationships 12. PERSONAL AUTHOR(S...by block number) FIELD GROUP SUB. GR. Customer - Supplier Relationships Risk Team Risk Management 19. ABSTRACT (cominus on = if necesaryd id’y by block

Customer-focused planning: Beyond integrated resource planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hastings, P.C.

1992-01-01

Integrated resource planning (IRP) evolved from the growing recognition by utilities and regulators that efforts to influence the use of electricity by customers could be more cost-effective than simply expanding the generation system. Improvements in IRP methodology are taking many different forms. One major effort is to move planning closer to the customer. Customer-focused planning (CFP) starts with customer values and uses these to drive decision-making within the utility. CFP is process- rather than product- oriented and typically operates at the bulk power system level. Options available to meet customer needs include electricity, alternative fuels, capital substitution, and end-use management or control. The customer selects the option(s) based on a value set that typically includes safety, reliability, convenience, and cost. There are also four possible levels of decision-making: the end-use; customer/power meter; transmission/distribution interface; and the utility bulk power system. Challenges of implementing CFP include identifying customer wants, needs, and values; integration of utility planning efforts; and the dynamics of the CFP process, in which costs can change with each modification of the transmission and distribution system. Two examples of recent moves toward CFP at Central Maine Power are reviewed. 2 refs., 1 fig

Customer perspectives on district heating price models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kerstin Sernhed

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In Sweden there has been a move towards more cost reflective price models for district heating in order to reduce economic risks that comes with variable heat demand and high shares of fixed assets. The keywords in the new price models are higher shares of fixed cost, seasonal energy prices and charging for capacity. Also components that are meant to serve as incentives to affect behaviour are introduced, for example peak load components and flow components. In this study customer responses to these more complex price models have been investigated through focus group interviews and through interviews with companies that have changed their price models. The results show that several important customer requirements are suffering with the new price models. The most important ones are when energy savings do not provide financial savings, when costs are hard to predict and are perceived to be out of control.

Hierarchical Neural Regression Models for Customer Churn Prediction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Golshan Mohammadi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available As customers are the main assets of each industry, customer churn prediction is becoming a major task for companies to remain in competition with competitors. In the literature, the better applicability and efficiency of hierarchical data mining techniques has been reported. This paper considers three hierarchical models by combining four different data mining techniques for churn prediction, which are backpropagation artificial neural networks (ANN, self-organizing maps (SOM, alpha-cut fuzzy c-means (α-FCM, and Cox proportional hazards regression model. The hierarchical models are ANN + ANN + Cox, SOM + ANN + Cox, and α-FCM + ANN + Cox. In particular, the first component of the models aims to cluster data in two churner and nonchurner groups and also filter out unrepresentative data or outliers. Then, the clustered data as the outputs are used to assign customers to churner and nonchurner groups by the second technique. Finally, the correctly classified data are used to create Cox proportional hazards model. To evaluate the performance of the hierarchical models, an Iranian mobile dataset is considered. The experimental results show that the hierarchical models outperform the single Cox regression baseline model in terms of prediction accuracy, Types I and II errors, RMSE, and MAD metrics. In addition, the α-FCM + ANN + Cox model significantly performs better than the two other hierarchical models.

Comparing hospital staff and patient perceptions of customer service: a pilot study utilizing survey and focus group data.

Science.gov (United States)

Fottler, Myron D; Dickson, Duncan; Ford, Robert C; Bradley, Kenneth; Johnson, Lee

2006-02-01

The measurement of patient satisfaction is crucial to enhancing customer service and competitive advantage in the health-care industry. While there are numerous approaches to such measurement, this paper provides a case study which compares and contrasts patient and staff perceptions of customer service using both survey and focus group data. Results indicate that there is a high degree of correlation between staff and patient perceptions of customer service based on both survey and focus group data. However, the staff and patient subgroups also provided complementary information regarding patient perceptions of their service experience. Staff members tended to have more negative perceptions of service attributes than did the patients themselves. The focus group results provide complementary information to survey results in terms of greater detail and more managerially relevant information. While these results are derived from a pilot study, they suggest that diversification of data sources beyond patient surveys may enhance the utility of customer service information. If further research can affirm these findings, they create exciting possibilities for gathering valid, reliable and cost-effective customer service information.

Customer Satisfaction Index Model on Three Level Of Socioeconomic Status In Bogor Case Study: Customer Satisfaction on Branded Cooking Oil Product

OpenAIRE

Budi Setiawan

2014-01-01

Customer satisfaction index models have been developed in many countries, including Indonesia. Those models were commonly not focused on the socioeconomic status (SES) of the customer, sothis condition could be a research gap. The aims of this research is to analyze the customer satisfaction index model of branded cooking oil product in Bogor, Indonesia based on SES established from the household monthly routine consumption. Questionnaires were used as primary data collection instrument in th...

Research on customer satisfaction with the quality of services provided by public utilities of the city of Belgrade

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Živković Radmila

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Monopoly market conditions, in which public companies used to operate ten to twenty years ago, substantially dictated the way of considering and creating business of public companies in Serbia. However, introduction of changes to the environment, such as more intensive competition and changes of needs and demands of the customers requires abandoning old orientations to business. Public companies are in position to create and offer a higher level of service quality, based on better and more intensified communication with their customers. Public enterprises are monitored by public authorities, especially in the areas of restrictions on the choice of business strategies, pricing and price restrictions, selection of suppliers and the like. On the other hand, there is a branch competition occurring, on which public companies must count. In such an environment, creating effective services should be the key strategic objective for the development of public utility companies of the city of Belgrade. Service companies should be modern service companies, able to actively participate in the market, looking upon customers - citizens as users of their services. The aim of the research is to determine the perception of value and customer satisfaction with the services provided by the public utilities of Belgrade. The results of the study indicate that respondents are not satisfied with provided services and do not have clearly defined attitudes towards key aspects of public enterprises, which are supposed to be important for positioning and improving the quality of services in the market.

Mass Customization Measurements Metrics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Kjeld; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn

2014-01-01

A recent survey has indicated that 17 % of companies have ceased mass customizing less than 1 year after initiating the effort. This paper presents measurement for a company’s mass customization performance, utilizing metrics within the three fundamental capabilities: robust process design, choice...... navigation, and solution space development. A mass customizer when assessing performance with these metrics can identify within which areas improvement would increase competitiveness the most and enable more efficient transition to mass customization....

MASS CUSTOMIZATION and PRODUCT MODELS

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svensson, Carsten; Malis, Martin

2003-01-01

to the product. Through the application of a mass customization strategy, companies have a unique opportunity to create increased customer satisfaction. In a customized production, knowledge and information have to be easily accessible since every product is a unique combination of information. If the dream...... of a customized alternative instead of a uniform mass-produced product shall become a reality, then the cross-organizational efficiency must be kept at a competitive level. This is the real challenge for mass customization. A radical restructuring of both the internal and the external knowledge management systems...

A GENERALIZATION OF TRADITIONAL KANO MODEL FOR CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renáta Turisová

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The theory of attractiveness determines the relationship between the technically achieved and customer perceived quality of product attributes. The most frequently used approach in the theory of attractiveness is the implementation of Kano‘s model. There exist a lot of generalizations of that model which take into consideration various aspects and approaches focused on understanding the customer preferences and identification of his priorities for a selling  product. The aim of this article is to outline another possible generalization of Kano‘s model.Methodology/Approach: The traditional Kano’s model captures the nonlinear relationship between reached attributes of quality and customer requirements. The individual attributes of quality are divided into three main categories: must-be, one-dimensional, attractive quality and into two side categories: indifferent and reverse quality. The well selling product has to contain the must-be attribute. It should contain as many one-dimensional attributes as possible. If there are also supplementary attractive attributes, it means that attractiveness of the entire product, from the viewpoint of the customer, nonlinearly sharply rises what has a direct positive impact on a decision of potential customer when purchasing the product. In this article, we show that inclusion of individual quality attributes of a product to the mentioned categories depends, among other things, also on costs on life cycle of the product, respectively on a price of the product on the market.Findings: In practice, we are often encountering the inclusion of products into different price categories: lower, middle and upper class. For a certain type of products the category is either directly declared by a producer (especially in automotive industry, or is determined by a customer by means of assessment of available market prices. To each of those groups of a products different customer expectations can be assigned

Quality and customer satisfaction: A case study in Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Barcellos, Paulo Fernando Pinto

The dissertation deals with the case of CEEE-Companhia Estadual de Energia Eletrica, an electric power utility located in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil. Customer satisfaction with the services provided by CEEE is investigated within three groups of consumers: residential, commercial, and industrial. The purpose of the dissertation is to find answers to the following research questions: (1) What is service quality in public utilities, and particularly in an electric power company? (2) What service quality dimensions do customers want to be provided and favor the most? (3) How does the market measure service quality? (4) What should be done by companies, and particularly by an electric utility monopoly, to increase the performance of the rendered service? (5) How does this impact customer satisfaction, retention, and intention to recommend? and (6) How do we start a company-wide quality program provided that the resources are scarce and therefore priorities should be set forth? To investigate the posed questions, the study begins with an exploratory survey of CEEE's Board. The survey is followed by qualitative research of the three customer groups. After qualitative analysis of the data is concluded, questionnaires for the quantitative research, as well as hypothetical models, are developed. Dillman's "Total Design Method" is used to design the questionnaires. The basic ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Model) is used to approach customer satisfaction. Data are processed by PLS (Partial Least Squares) which follows the procedure developed at the National Quality Research Center of the University of Michigan Business School. In summary, commercial customers are the most dissatisfied with the services provided by CEEE, while residential customers are the most satisfied. To improve quality, priority should be placed on commercial customers and include efforts to improve productivity gains throughout the company. Also, CEEE's image should be

Customer satisfaction research

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tormasi, T

1987-03-01

A review of four aspects of the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria's study of customer satisfaction covers: (1) corporate goals to meet its responsibility as a public utility and operate as a successful marketing organization, (2) the history of customer satisfaction research by GFC, (3) measurements of customer satisfaction through expectations research, and (4) case studies involving domestic appliance maintenance and gas mains renewal. Continuous validation of GFC's policies and procedures is the basis for future growth and success. 3 tables.

A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to Investigate Negative Word of Mouth Impact on Customer-Based Brand Equity: Does Attribution Matter?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmed Yehia Ebeid

2014-09-01

Full Text Available There is a shortage in the research which addresses the relationship between negative word of mouth (WOM communication and customer-based brand equity dilution. This research utilizes attribution theory to demonstrate the negative word-of-mouth impact on the customer-based brand equity. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the proposed effect of negative WOM on brand equity. The study sample consists of 71 post-graduate students, the object of negative WOM was laptops which considered a highly involvement product. Experimental investigation results reveal that customer exposure to negative word-of-mouth increases the brand equity dilution. Results were discussed in the light of casual attribution theory, and practical implications were provided.

Competence Model and Modern Trends of Development of the Russian Institute of Technical Customer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mishlanova Marina

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Article considers modern maintenance and development of the management actor by the investment-construction projects of the technical customer. Urgent problems of the formation of Institute of the technical customer establishment are allocated. Elementary competence model is presented: based competences of technical customer, model of the primary competence, example of the operational level of the model. Analysis of the development of the Institute of the technical customer was performed: compliance with current realities of investment-construction activities, improvement of contractual relations, compliance with international standards, state participation, creation of the single technical customer. Necessity of development of competence models for the urgent justification of professional standards is assessed. The possibility of modeling of the competencies and functions of technical customer in approach to the FIDIC-model was revealed. Possibility of usage of the competence model of the technical customer on the stage of building in terms of public-private partnership. Results show the direction for further researches.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM SUCCESS FACTORS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammed ALAMGIR

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Customer relationship management (CRM can improve organization’s performance through applying customer knowledge and maintaining relationships with customers. Literature on CRM in an integrative fashion is sparse, rather issues are presented in isolation mostly focusing on technology ignoring other extra-organizational issues like social rapport and customer knowledge. Likewise, CRM success is poorly sketched and social rapport as a facilitator of knowledge generation has received little attention in the previous literature. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to investigate the role of CRM, customer knowledge and social rapport on CRM success. The present study considers the Resource-based view in developing CRM success framework. A Qualitative research approach has been taken in this study where ten customer-service managers of different telecom operators of Bangladesh have been interviewed. To identify the factors along with their associated variables and also to further develop a research model a content analysis technique has been utilized. The results of the interviews identified three factors affecting CRM success. This paper also highlights the research and managerial implications of the model.  

Rancang Bangun Sistem Informasi Customer Loyalty untuk Keunggulan Kompetitif Organisasi

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sri Mulyani

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Utilization of information technology to achieve competitive advantage has become a necessity  for business people and managers of organizations  in the information age now. This research aim to create a customer loyalty that the information system is one part of theCustomer  Relationship  Management  to  collect  data  on  indicators  of  customer  loyalty.  Indicator  of  customer  loyalty  is  determined according  empirical  model  customer  loyalty  and  create  customer  loyalty  information  system  that  can  be  used  to  gain  competitive advantage organizations. Structural Equation Modeling is used to obtain indicators of customer loyalty. Customer loyalty info rmation system designed using prototype system development and modeling analysis using Data Flow Diagram, database design using  Entity Relationship  Diagram,  and  a  web-based  interface.  Web-based  information  systems  that  provide online  customer  survey  facilities  and analysis  results  in  the  form  of  customer  loyalty  index  values  shaped  by  the  dynamic  graphic  indicator  of  loyalty  according  to  the empirical study of customer loyalty that can be used to gain competitive advantage. The value of customer loyalty index cons ists of four main variables, namely: the ability to anticipate customer value, customer value anticipation peace, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.Keywords: Customer loyalty, Structural Equation Modeling, Index loyalty, Competitive advantage

The EDP data base as a marketing instrument in the supply industry. Methods and experiences in natural gas customer acquisition of the Munich municipal utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wind, F.; Disser, U.

1994-01-01

The natural gas marketing concept of the Munich municipal utilities describes the aims and objectives for the acquisition of new customers beyond the year 2000. One target is to extend the grids into new areas but also activate natural gas clients in densely populated areas. The marketing strategies concentrate on extensive advice and consulting co-ordinated by the customer service representatives with the support of electronic data processing. The following report shows how modern database systems were integrated into marketing activities by the Munich municipal utility company and describes the strategies selected in new areas and areas with a high customer population. (orig.) [de

Fabrication of custom-shaped grafts for cartilage regeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Koo, Seungbum; Hargreaves, Brian A; Gold, Garry E; Dragoo, Jason L

2010-10-01

to create a custom-shaped graft through 3D tissue shape reconstruction and rapid-prototype molding methods using MRI data, and to test the accuracy of the custom-shaped graft against the original anatomical defect. An iatrogenic defect on the distal femur was identified with a 1.5 Tesla MRI and its shape was reconstructed into a three-dimensional (3D) computer model by processing the 3D MRI data. First, the accuracy of the MRI-derived 3D model was tested against a laser-scan based 3D model of the defect. A custom-shaped polyurethane graft was fabricated from the laser-scan based 3D model by creating custom molds through computer aided design and rapid-prototyping methods. The polyurethane tissue was laser-scanned again to calculate the accuracy of this process compared to the original defect. The volumes of the defect models from MRI and laser-scan were 537 mm3 and 405 mm3, respectively, implying that the MRI model was 33% larger than the laser-scan model. The average (±SD) distance deviation of the exterior surface of the MRI model from the laser-scan model was 0.4 ± 0.4 mm. The custom-shaped tissue created from the molds was qualitatively very similar to the original shape of the defect. The volume of the custom-shaped cartilage tissue was 463 mm3 which was 15% larger than the laser-scan model. The average (±SD) distance deviation between the two models was 0.04 ± 0.19 mm. This investigation proves the concept that custom-shaped engineered grafts can be fabricated from standard sequence 3-D MRI data with the use of CAD and rapid-prototyping technology. The accuracy of this technology may help solve the interfacial problem between native cartilage and graft, if the grafts are custom made for the specific defect. The major source of error in fabricating a 3D custom-shaped cartilage graft appears to be the accuracy of a MRI data itself; however, the precision of the model is expected to increase by the utilization of advanced MR sequences with higher magnet

Kopernik : modeling business processes for digital customers

OpenAIRE

Estañol Lamarca, Montserrat; Castro, Manuel; Díaz-Montenegro, Sylvia; Teniente López, Ernest

2016-01-01

This paper presents the Kopernik methodology for modeling business processes for digital customers. These processes require a high degree of flexibility in the execution of their tasks or actions. We achieve this by using the artifact-centric approach to process modeling and the use of condition-action rules. The processes modeled following Kopernik can then be implemented in an existing commercial tool, Balandra.

With better connection between utility and its customers and with more quality database toward more efficiently DSM program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tomasic-Skevin, S.

1996-01-01

In this paper new demand-side technologies and their influence on power system are described. Better connection between utility and its customers is the most important thing for build up good data-base and that data-base is base for efficient usage of DSM program. (author)

Investigating the Customer Loyalty Model in the Chain Stores of Iran

OpenAIRE

Ali Sanayei; Alireza Haddadian; Amirhossein Bagherieh

2015-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to investigate customer loyalty model for the chain stores of Iran according to factors include perceived value, customer satisfaction, perceived quality, store image, customer relationship, perceived equity, trust and store atmosphere as preconditions of loyalty and brand preference, repurchase intention, word of mouth referral and expected switching cost as consequences of customer loyalty. This study is applied research and descriptive - correlation in terms of...

When to "Fire" Customers: Customer Cost-Based Pricing

OpenAIRE

Jiwoong Shin; K. Sudhir; Dae-Hee Yoon

2012-01-01

The widespread adoption of activity-based costing enables firms to allocate common service costs to each customer, allowing for precise measurement of both the cost to serve a particular customer and the customer's profitability. In this paper, we investigate how pricing strategies based on customer cost information affects a firm's customer acquisition and retention dynamics, and ultimately its profit, using a two-period monopoly model with high- and low-cost customer segments. Although past...

Identification of effective factors on customer loyalty with mobile industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soheila Sardar Donighi

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Customers or clients are counted to be reasons for existence and continuation of life of every organization and, therefore, it is essential to review various aspects of customer satisfaction. Many customers may seem to be satisfied but they may switch to competitor companies for various reasons. Loyal customers constitute a major factor for organizational successes and there are many attempts to create loyal customers. The customer loyalty was defined as commitment of customers to deal with a particular organization or buy given goods repeatedly. During the present research, the researcher engages in the evaluation of factors effective on satisfaction and loyalty of customers and in the study of their interactions, using the famous American Model of Customer Satisfaction. Major variables of such pattern are as follows: customer expectations, perceived quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, Repurchase Likelihood, Price Tolerance changes and customer complaint. In this study, 384 cell-phone users were randomly selected from different departments of North Tehran Branch of Islamic Azad University. Valuable data were gathered by closed response questionnaire. Afterward we derived eleven correlations between different parameters by using structural equation modeling. Finally, all of suppositions were confirmed by confidence level up to 95%. In addition, the SPSS and XLSTAT PLS software packages are utilized in the process and analysis of data and investigation of study's hypotheses and necessary analyses have been done.

Negative correlation learning for customer churn prediction: a comparison study.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodan, Ali; Fayyoumi, Ayham; Faris, Hossam; Alsakran, Jamal; Al-Kadi, Omar

2015-01-01

Recently, telecommunication companies have been paying more attention toward the problem of identification of customer churn behavior. In business, it is well known for service providers that attracting new customers is much more expensive than retaining existing ones. Therefore, adopting accurate models that are able to predict customer churn can effectively help in customer retention campaigns and maximizing the profit. In this paper we will utilize an ensemble of Multilayer perceptrons (MLP) whose training is obtained using negative correlation learning (NCL) for predicting customer churn in a telecommunication company. Experiments results confirm that NCL based MLP ensemble can achieve better generalization performance (high churn rate) compared with ensemble of MLP without NCL (flat ensemble) and other common data mining techniques used for churn analysis.

How Does Target Know so Much about Its Customers? Utilizing Customer Analytics to Make Marketing Decisions

Science.gov (United States)

Corrigan, Hope B.; Craciun, Georgiana; Powell, Allison M.

2014-01-01

Every time shoppers make a purchase at a store or browse a Web site, customer behavior is tracked, analyzed, and perhaps shared with other businesses. Target Corporation is a leader in analyzing vast amounts of data to identify buying patterns, improve customer satisfaction, predict future trends, select promotional strategies, and increase…

Captivate the customer or vanish

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Regis, J.

1994-01-01

Throughout its expansion program in the 1960s and its energy efficiency programs in the 1970s and 1980s, Hydro-Quebec had a satisfactory proportion of satisfied customers. However, at the end of the 1980s, the utility's customer satisfaction rating slipped below 50% for the first time. Hydro-Quebec's first response was to re-establish transmission system reliability. Service interruptions per customer were reduced from 10 h/y in 1989 to just over 4 h in 1993. Starting in 1990, the utility devised a strategy aimed at fully integrated quality management, with customer service as the top priority. A series of performance commitments was adopted which pinpointed 27 specific targets, each linked to a specific activity; of those targets, 16 are directly related to customer service. A training plan was developed which makes the customer the focus of every action taken by a Hydro-Quebec employee, and office hours have been reorganized in response to constantly evolving customer needs. A courtesy call strategy has been adopted to anticipate customer expectations before they are expressed. Highly personalized and accurately targeted informational tools have been developed for each customer category and a toll-free energy efficiency hotline has been established. Energy efficiency publications are distributed to business and residential customers. Satisfaction with Hydro-Quebec activities rose from 77% in 1992 to 93% in 1993, and credibility in energy efficiency rose from 73% to 85%. A new project being investigated is an electronic superhighway with a variety of customer applications including home automation, load and meter telecontrol, telebilling, and direct payment

Quantifying the financial impacts of net-metered PV on utilities and ratepayers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Satchwell, Andrew; Mills, Andrew; Barbose, Galen

2015-01-01

Deployment of customer-sited photovoltaics (PV) in the United States has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven by falling PV system prices, the advent of customer financing options, and various forms of policy support at the federal, state, and local levels. With the success of these efforts, heated debates have surfaced in a number of U.S. states about the impacts of customer-sited PV on utility shareholders and ratepayers. We performed a scoping analysis using a financial model to quantify the financial impacts of customer-sited PV on utility shareholders and ratepayers and to assess the magnitude of these impacts under alternative utility conditions. We find that customer-sited PV generally reduces utility collected revenues greater than reductions in costs leading to a revenue erosion effect and lost future earnings opportunities. We also find that average retail rates increase as utility costs are spread over a relatively smaller sales base. We analyze these results under various assumptions about utility operating and regulatory environments and find that these impacts can vary greatly depending upon the specific circumstances of the utility. Based on this analysis, we highlight potential implications for policymakers and identify key issues warranting further analysis. - Highlights: • Customer-sited PV erodes utility revenues and avoids future utility investments. • Reductions in utility sales greater than utility costs increases average rates. • Impacts of customer-sited PV can vary depending on specific circumstances of utility

Table of tables of Hydro-Quebec customer needs: Support guide, June 1993

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1994-01-01

Hydro-Quebec conducted surveys of its direct and indirect customers concerning their needs and expectations. Direct customers are those who have a business relationship with the utility and include residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional customers, large corporations, and neighboring utilities. Indirect customers are agencies whose regulatory authority applies to the utility. These agencies fall into the categories of nuclear energy, environment and land use development, products and services, and occupational health and safety. Using techniques including group discussions, interviews, and telephone surveys, direct customers were asked to define the features of the goods and services they expect from the utility. The importance of elements such as customer treatment, rates, energy conservation programs, payment terms, and behavior of utility personnel were evaluated and ranked. For indirect customers, their requirements were determined and the importance of each was evaluated by corporate experts. The impact of the utility's performance on meeting customer needs was then evaluated in five areas: sales and quality of service, supply of electricity, safety, price, and social responsibility. Results of the 1993 survey are presented, by customer category, and compared to results of the 1992 survey. 21 tabs

Three-dimensional body scanning system for apparel mass-customization

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Bugao; Huang, Yaxiong; Yu, Weiping; Chen, Tong

2002-07-01

Mass customization is a new manufacturing trend in which mass-market products (e.g., apparel) are quickly modified one at a time based on customers' needs. It is an effective competing strategy for maximizing customers' satisfaction and minimizing inventory costs. An automatic body measurement system is essential for apparel mass customization. This paper introduces the development of a body scanning system, body size extraction methods, and body modeling algorithms. The scanning system utilizes the multiline triangulation technique to rapidly acquire surface data on a body, and provides accurate body measurements, many of which are not available with conventional methods. Cubic B-spline curves are used to connect and smooth body curves. From the scanned data, a body form can be constructed using linear Coons surfaces. The body form can be used as a digital model of the body for 3-D garment design and for virtual try-on of a designed garment. This scanning system and its application software enable apparel manufacturers to provide custom design services to consumers seeking personal-fit garments.

Customer complaints and recovery effectiveness : A customer base approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Knox, G.; van Oest, R.D.

2014-01-01

Although customer complaints are a well-studied aspect of business, no study has measured the impact of actual complaints and recoveries on subsequent customer purchasing. The authors develop a customer base model to investigate the effectiveness of recovery in preventing customer churn. They

Delivering customer solutions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bergsma, J.

1997-01-01

Convergence of the energy industries began with customer's demands for the best energy choice and value. In a converged energy market customers buy year-round home comfort, rather than gas heat or electric air conditioning. Union Gas has been facilitating cogeneration development to its customers since the mid 1980's. A brief description of the corporate context of Union Gas and Centra Gas was provided. Convergence at the retail level was discussed in detail. The essence of converge at the retail level is that an energy service provider will tailor products and services to meet a customer's specific needs for choice, value and best prices. Consequently, a residential customer will have the choice to select an environmentally preferred fuel source for home comfort, plus billing options, merchandise and repair services, all for one price, and from one utility

How Managers' Shared Mental Models of Business–Customer Interactions Create Different Sensemaking of Social Media

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rydén, Pernille; Ringberg, Torsten; Wilke, Ricky

2015-01-01

Building on empirical research, we identify four mental models of business–customer interactions and show how each uniquely affects how managers conceptualize and use social media. The four models are “business-to-customers,” “business-from-customers,” “business-with-customers,” and “business......-for-customers.” The mental model approach helps explain why managers' use of social media does not necessarily lead to radical changes in their interaction with customers, despite the opportunities facilitated by these media. We provide a conceptual framework that enables managers to introspectively investigate their own...... mental models and thereby revise their sensemaking and use of social media....

A Midwest utility's perspective of DSM [demand-side management]: Balancing the needs of customers, shareholders and the environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Collins, G.F.

1990-01-01

PSI Energy, a predominately coal-burning Indiana electric utility, is very concerned about the environment and is using demand-side management (DSM) as part of a strategy to balance the sometimes conflicting interests of the environment, the economy, customers and shareholders. Faced with slow growth within its service territory, an abundance of low-cost, high sulfur coal burning baseload capacity, massive future expenditures for acid rain mitigation and a weakened financial state due to a cancelled nuclear project, PSI Energy has taken a novel approach to preserving value for customers, shareholders, the economy and environment. To accomodate Indiana's goal of least cost utility planning, PSI initiated an all-source bidding program in which it solicited bids for peaking capacity or the equivalent. Four parallel but separate solicitations were pursued: combustion turbine manufacturers for PSI owned and operated capacity, other utilities and non-utility generators for purchased power and third parties for demand-side management. PSI's philosophy with respect to bidding can be expressed as: simplicity, flexibility, creativity, partnerships, expeditious and fairness. There is a minimum bid of 5 MW of summer peak demand reduction, and the minimum contract length is 10 years. The entire 550 MW capacity block available to be filled in the program is open to demand-side resources. The ten major evaluation criteria involved in the program are: price, sponsor qualifications, operational impact, marketing plan, technology, financing plan, verification and measurement, form of security, project management plan, and project cost estimates

Large Scale Product Recommendation of Supermarket Ware Based on Customer Behaviour Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Kanavos

2018-05-01

Full Text Available In this manuscript, we present a prediction model based on the behaviour of each customer using data mining techniques. The proposed model utilizes a supermarket database and an additional database from Amazon, both containing information about customers’ purchases. Subsequently, our model analyzes these data in order to classify customers as well as products, being trained and validated with real data. This model is targeted towards classifying customers according to their consuming behaviour and consequently proposes new products more likely to be purchased by them. The corresponding prediction model is intended to be utilized as a tool for marketers so as to provide an analytically targeted and specified consumer behavior. Our algorithmic framework and the subsequent implementation employ the cloud infrastructure and use the MapReduce Programming Environment, a model for processing large data-sets in a parallel manner with a distributed algorithm on computer clusters, as well as Apache Spark, which is a newer framework built on the same principles as Hadoop. Through a MapReduce model application on each step of the proposed method, text processing speed and scalability are enhanced in reference to other traditional methods. Our results show that the proposed method predicts with high accuracy the purchases of a supermarket.

Customization of a generic 3D model of the distal femur using diagnostic radiographs.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmutz, B; Reynolds, K J; Slavotinek, J P

2008-01-01

A method for the customization of a generic 3D model of the distal femur is presented. The customization method involves two steps: acquisition of calibrated orthogonal planar radiographs; and linear scaling of the generic model based on the width of a subject's femoral condyles as measured on the planar radiographs. Planar radiographs of seven intact lower cadaver limbs were obtained. The customized generic models were validated by comparing their surface geometry with that of CT-reconstructed reference models. The overall mean error was 1.2 mm. The results demonstrate that uniform scaling as a first step in the customization process produced a base model of accuracy comparable to other models reported in the literature.

Customer Decision Making in Web Services with an Integrated P6 Model

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Zhaohao; Sun, Junqing; Meredith, Grant

Customer decision making (CDM) is an indispensable factor for web services. This article examines CDM in web services with a novel P6 model, which consists of the 6 Ps: privacy, perception, propensity, preference, personalization and promised experience. This model integrates the existing 6 P elements of marketing mix as the system environment of CDM in web services. The new integrated P6 model deals with the inner world of the customer and incorporates what the customer think during the DM process. The proposed approach will facilitate the research and development of web services and decision support systems.

Integrated Cost-Benefit Assessment of Customer-Driven Distributed Generatio

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Čedomir Zeljković

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Distributed generation (DG has the potential to bring respectable benefits to electricity customers, distribution utilities and community in general. Among the customer benefits, the most important are the electricity bill reduction, reliability improvement, use of recovered heat, and qualifying for financial incentives. In this paper, an integrated cost-benefit methodology for assessment of customer-driven DG is presented. Target customers are the industrial and commercial end-users that are critically dependent on electricity supply, due to high consumption, high power peak demand or high electricity supply reliability requirements. Stochastic inputs are represented by the appropriate probability models and then the Monte Carlo simulation is employed for each investment alternative. The obtained probability distributions for the prospective profit are used to assess the risk, compare the alternatives and make decisions.

Understanding Customer Attrition at an Individual Level: a New Model in Grocery Retail Context

OpenAIRE

Gautrais , Clément; Cellier , Peggy; Guyet , Thomas; Quiniou , René; Termier , Alexandre

2016-01-01

International audience; This paper presents a new model to detect and explain customer defection in a grocery retail context. This new model analyzes the evolution of each customer basket content. It therefore provides actionable knowledge for the retailer at an individual scale. In addition, this model is able to identify customers that are likely to defect in the future months.

Model Pengukuran Kinerja Customer Relationship Management dalam Industri Perbankan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Freddy Simbolon

2014-05-01

Full Text Available High competition in the banking industry requires the banking industry to properly manage relationships with customers, as it is known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM. CRM applications will become effective when supported by information technology. Investment in information technology is not a small investment, because the higher the information technology, the greater the value of the investment. This study aims to obtain a model of CRM performance measurement in the banking industry efficiently and effective. The method in this study uses descriptive analytical method, while the results obtained in this study is a CRM Scorecard. CRM Scorecard is one of the approach models that correctly measure the performance of CRM, which is based on information technology. Through CRM Scorecard approach, information technology investment in CRM is no longer seen as a cost center, but seen to be a profit center, because the company can manage customers efficiently and effectively in order to enhance shareholder value in the future.

Customizing Standard Software as a Business Model in the IT Industry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kautz, Karlheinz; Rab, Sameen M.; Sinnet, Michael

2011-01-01

This research studies a new business model in the IT industry, the customization of standard software as the sole foundation for a software company’s earnings. Based on a theoretical background which combines the concepts of inter-organizational networks and open innovation we provide an interpre......This research studies a new business model in the IT industry, the customization of standard software as the sole foundation for a software company’s earnings. Based on a theoretical background which combines the concepts of inter-organizational networks and open innovation we provide...... an interpretive case study of a small software company which customizes a standard product. We investigate the company’s interactions with a large global software company which is the producer of the original software product and with other companies which are involved in the software customization process. We...... primarily on complex, formal partnerships, in which also opportunistic behavior occurs and where informal relations are invaluable sources of knowledge. In addition, the original software producer’s view and treatment of these companies has a vital impact on the customizing company’s practice which...

Solving inverse problem for Markov chain model of customer lifetime value using flower pollination algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Ma'shumah, Fathimah; Permana, Dony; Sidarto, Kuntjoro Adji

2015-12-01

Customer Lifetime Value is an important and useful concept in marketing. One of its benefits is to help a company for budgeting marketing expenditure for customer acquisition and customer retention. Many mathematical models have been introduced to calculate CLV considering the customer retention/migration classification scheme. A fairly new class of these models which will be described in this paper uses Markov Chain Models (MCM). This class of models has the major advantage for its flexibility to be modified to several different cases/classification schemes. In this model, the probabilities of customer retention and acquisition play an important role. From Pfeifer and Carraway, 2000, the final formula of CLV obtained from MCM usually contains nonlinear form of the transition probability matrix. This nonlinearity makes the inverse problem of CLV difficult to solve. This paper aims to solve this inverse problem, yielding the approximate transition probabilities for the customers, by applying metaheuristic optimization algorithm developed by Yang, 2013, Flower Pollination Algorithm. The major interpretation of obtaining the transition probabilities are to set goals for marketing teams in keeping the relative frequencies of customer acquisition and customer retention.

Modeling of customer adoption of distributed generation in Japan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Asano, Hiroshi; Nishio, Ken-ichiro; Imanaka, Takeo; Imamura, Ei-ichi

2005-01-01

This paper presents the modeling of customer adoption of distributed generation (DG) in industrial and residential sectors in Japan. We classified the DG market into an existing industrial DG market that is based on conventional prime movers (steam turbines, diesel engines, gas turbines, and gas engines) and a new residential DG market that is based on micro gas engines and fuel cell technology. Customers adopt self-generation considering the different prime movers and thermally activated equipment, fuel choice, growth of industrial output, and energy demand. The trend of the installed capacity of each prime mover shows different diffusion patterns. We conducted regression analysis of time-series data of self-generating facilities for the period from 1983 to 2001. We also modeled residential customer adoption of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and micro engine cogeneration systems (CGSs) until 2020. The feature of this model is the dynamic choice of multiple technologies such as gas CGSs and heat-pump water heaters. Sensitivity analysis of energy efficiency and the initial cost of energy systems for technology diffusion reveal alternative penetration paths and impacts on energy consumption and CO2 emission. (Author)

Antecedents and consequences of customer-company identification: expanding the role of relationship marketing.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahearne, Michael; Bhattacharya, C B; Gruen, Thomas

2005-05-01

This article presents an empirical test of organizational identification in the context of customer-company (C-C) relationships. It investigates whether customers identify with companies and what the antecedents and consequences of such identification are. The model posits that perceived company characteristics, construed external image, and the perception of the company's boundary-spanning agent lead to C-C identification. In turn, such identification is expected to impact both in-role behavior (i.e., product utilization) as well as extra-role behavior (i.e., citizenship). The model was tested in a consultative selling context of pharmaceutical sales reps calling on physicians. Results from the empirical test indicated that customers do indeed identify with organizations and that C-C identification positively impacts both product utilization behavior and extra-role behavior even when the effect of brand perception is accounted for. Second, the study found that the organization's characteristics as well as the salesperson's characteristics contributed to the development of C-C identification.

On the Path to SunShot. Utility Regulatory and Business Model Reforms for Addressing the Financial Impacts of Distributed Solar on Utilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barbose, Galen [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Miller, John [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Sigrin, Ben [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Reiter, Emerson [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Cory, Karlynn [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); McLaren, Joyce [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Seel, Joachim [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Mills, Andrew [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Darghouth, Naim [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Satchwell, Andrew [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2016-05-01

Net-energy metering (NEM) has helped drive the rapid growth of distributed PV (DPV) but has raised concerns about electricity cost shifts, utility financial losses, and inefficient resource allocation. These concerns have motivated real and proposed reforms to utility regulatory and business models. This report explores the challenges and opportunities associated with such reforms in the context of the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative. Most of the reforms to date address NEM concerns by reducing the benefits provided to DPV customers and thus constraining DPV deployment. Eliminating NEM nationwide, by compensating exports of PV electricity at wholesale rather than retail rates, could cut cumulative DPV deployment by 20% in 2050 compared with a continuation of current policies. This would slow the PV cost reductions that arise from larger scale and market certainty. It could also thwart achievement of the SunShot deployment goals even if the initiative's cost targets are achieved. This undesirable prospect is stimulating the development of alternative reform strategies that address concerns about distributed PV compensation without inordinately harming PV economics and growth. These alternatives fall into the categories of facilitating higher-value DPV deployment, broadening customer access to solar, and aligning utility profits and earnings with DPV. Specific strategies include utility ownership and financing of DPV, community solar, distribution network operators, services-driven utilities, performance-based incentives, enhanced utility system planning, pricing structures that incentivize high-value DPV configurations, and decoupling and other ratemaking reforms that reduce regulatory lag. These approaches represent near- and long-term solutions for preserving the legacy of the SunShot Initiative.

Customer complaints as a source of customer-focused process improvement: A constructive case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Uusitalo, K.,

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Process-based thinking commonly focuses on enhancing the efficiency of processes, while it is often criticized for not paying enough attention to the customer. This paper argues that customer complaint information can be used as a basis for customer-focused process improvement. Thus, it is not enough to make the complaining customer satisfied, but the complaint information should also feed back to the actual processes where the fault causing the complaint arose and where it can be removed. The empirical component of the study includes the development of a novel construction to utilize customer complaints for process improvements, which was implemented in a large Finnish enterprise operating in the wholesale logistics environment. The results show benefits at both operational and strategic levels.

Bridging Models and Business: Understanding heterogeneity in hidden drivers of customer purchase behavior

NARCIS (Netherlands)

E. Korkmaz (Evsen)

2014-01-01

markdownabstract__Abstract__ Recent years have seen many advances in quantitative models in the marketing literature. Even though these advances enable model building for a better understanding of customer purchase behavior and customer heterogeneity such that firms develop optimal targeting and

Regulatory and ratemaking approaches to mitigate financial impacts of net-metered PV on utilities and ratepayers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Satchwell, Andrew; Mills, Andrew; Barbose, Galen

2015-01-01

The financial interests of U.S. utilities are poorly aligned with customer-sited solar photovoltaics (PV) under traditional regulation. Customer-sited PV, especially under a net-metering arrangement, may result in revenue erosion and lost earnings opportunities for utility shareholders as well as increases in average retail rates for utility ratepayers. Regulators are considering alternative regulatory and ratemaking approaches to mitigate these financial impacts. We performed a scoping analysis using a financial model to quantify the efficacy of mitigation approaches in reducing financial impacts of customer-sited PV on utility shareholders and ratepayers. We find that impacts can be mitigated through various incremental changes to utility regulatory and business models, though the efficacy varies considerably depending on design and particular utility circumstances. Based on this analysis, we discuss tradeoffs policymakers should consider, which ultimately might need to be resolved within broader policy contexts. -- Highlights: •Customer-sited PV presents negatively impacts utilities and ratepayers. •Regulatory and ratemaking approaches exist to mitigate profitability and rate impacts. •Mitigation approaches entail tradeoffs among stakeholders

Customer involvement in greening the supply chain: an interpretive structural modeling methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, Sanjay; Luthra, Sunil; Haleem, Abid

2013-04-01

The role of customers in green supply chain management needs to be identified and recognized as an important research area. This paper is an attempt to explore the involvement aspect of customers towards greening of the supply chain (SC). An empirical research approach has been used to collect primary data to rank different variables for effective customer involvement in green concept implementation in SC. An interpretive structural-based model has been presented, and variables have been classified using matrice d' impacts croises- multiplication appliqué a un classement analysis. Contextual relationships among variables have been established using experts' opinions. The research may help practicing managers to understand the interaction among variables affecting customer involvement. Further, this understanding may be helpful in framing the policies and strategies to green SC. Analyzing interaction among variables for effective customer involvement in greening SC to develop the structural model in the Indian perspective is an effort towards promoting environment consciousness.

Philadelphia obtains useful information from its customers about taste and odour quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Burlingame, G A; Mackey, E D

2007-01-01

Customers are sensitive to the flavour of water. Customers evaluate drinking water based on their expectations, on experiences with their usual drinking water and on experiences with alternative waters. The Philadelphia Water Department provides one example of success in developing a better understanding of customer perceptions and attitudes about tap water taste and odour. Philadelphia found that customers do communicate in ways that water utilities can understand. Water utilities can enhance that communication and collect useful data. In addition, water utilities can characterise their tap water flavour, track it for changes and correlate changes to customer complaints.

Understanding customers' intention to use social network sites as complaint channel: an analysis of young customers' perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Setiawan, Retno Agus; Setyohadi, Djoko Budiyanto; Pranowo

2018-02-01

Social network sites (SNSs) have grown rapidly in recent years. More and more companies have used SNSs as part of their business strategy. SNSs offer numerous advantages, especially in enhancing communication. SNSs have a potential as a new complaint channel for young customers to file their complaints to companies. The objective of this study is to investigate the acceptance of SNSs as complaint channel based on TAM. A structured questionnaire was distributed to young participants, which collected 222 valid questionnaires. Furthermore, structural equation modeling was utilized to investigate the structural model. The results revealed that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have a positive correlation on the attitude towards SNSs. While the attitude plays an important role in understanding customers' intention to use SNSs to voice complaints. However perceived usefulness has no significant impact on intention to use. Limitations and further research were also discussed.

Evaluation and decision of products conceptual design schemes based on customer requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huang, Hong Zhong; Li, Yan Feng; Liu, Yu; Wang, Zhonglai [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan (China); Liu, Wenhai [2China Science Patent Trademark Agents Ltd., Beijing (China)

2011-09-15

Within the competitive market environment, understanding customer requirements is crucial for all corporations to obtain market share and survive competition. Only the products exactly meeting customer requirements can win in the market place. Therefore, customer requirements play a very important role in the evaluation and decision process of conceptual design schemes of products. In this paper, an evaluation and decision method based on customer requirements is presented. It utilizes the importance of customer requirements, the satisfaction degree of each evaluation metric to the specification, and an evaluation metric which models customer requirements to evaluate the satisfaction degree of each design scheme to specific customer requirements via the proposed BP neural networks. In the evaluation and decision process, fuzzy sets are used to describe the importance of customer requirements, the relationship between customer requirements and evaluation metrics, the satisfaction degree of each scheme to customer requirements, and the crisp set is used to describe the satisfaction degree of each metric to specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an example of front suspension fork design of mountain bikes.

Evaluation and decision of products conceptual design schemes based on customer requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Hong Zhong; Li, Yan Feng; Liu, Yu; Wang, Zhonglai; Liu, Wenhai

2011-01-01

Within the competitive market environment, understanding customer requirements is crucial for all corporations to obtain market share and survive competition. Only the products exactly meeting customer requirements can win in the market place. Therefore, customer requirements play a very important role in the evaluation and decision process of conceptual design schemes of products. In this paper, an evaluation and decision method based on customer requirements is presented. It utilizes the importance of customer requirements, the satisfaction degree of each evaluation metric to the specification, and an evaluation metric which models customer requirements to evaluate the satisfaction degree of each design scheme to specific customer requirements via the proposed BP neural networks. In the evaluation and decision process, fuzzy sets are used to describe the importance of customer requirements, the relationship between customer requirements and evaluation metrics, the satisfaction degree of each scheme to customer requirements, and the crisp set is used to describe the satisfaction degree of each metric to specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an example of front suspension fork design of mountain bikes

Expansion of the Kano model to identify relevant customer segments and functional requirements

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Atlason, Reynir Smari; Stefansson, Arnaldur Smari; Wietz, Miriam

2017-01-01

The Kano model of customer satisfaction has been widely used to analyse perceived needs of customers. The model provides product developers valuable information about if, and then how much a given functional requirement (FR) will impact customer satisfaction if implemented within a product, system...... or a service. A current limitation of the Kano model is that it does not allow developers to visualise which combined sets of FRs would provide the highest satisfaction between different customer segments. In this paper, a stepwise method to address this particular shortcoming is presented. First......, a traditional Kano analysis is conducted for the different segments of interest. Second, for each FR, relationship functions are integrated between x=0 and x=1. Third, integrals are inserted into a combination matrix crossing segments and FRs, where FRs with the highest sum across the chosen segments...

Understanding the relationship between Kano model's customer satisfaction scores and self-stated requirements importance.

Science.gov (United States)

Mkpojiogu, Emmanuel O C; Hashim, Nor Laily

2016-01-01

Customer satisfaction is the result of product quality and viability. The place of the perceived satisfaction of users/customers for a software product cannot be neglected especially in today competitive market environment as it drives the loyalty of customers and promotes high profitability and return on investment. Therefore understanding the importance of requirements as it is associated with the satisfaction of users/customers when their requirements are met is worth the pain considering. It is necessary to know the relationship between customer satisfactions when their requirements are met (or their dissatisfaction when their requirements are unmet) and the importance of such requirement. So many works have been carried out on customer satisfaction in connection with the importance of requirements but the relationship between customer satisfaction scores (coefficients) of the Kano model and users/customers self-stated requirements importance have not been sufficiently explored. In this study, an attempt is made to unravel the underlying relationship existing between Kano model's customer satisfaction indexes and users/customers self reported requirements importance. The results of the study indicate some interesting associations between these considered variables. These bivariate associations reveal that customer satisfaction index (SI), and average satisfaction coefficient (ASC) and customer dissatisfaction index (DI) and average satisfaction coefficient (ASC) are highly correlated (r = 96 %) and thus ASC can be used in place of either SI or DI in representing customer satisfaction scores. Also, these Kano model's customer satisfaction variables (SI, DI, and ASC) are each associated with self-stated requirements importance (IMP). Further analysis indicates that the value customers or users place on requirements that are met or on features that are incorporated into a product influences the level of satisfaction such customers derive from the product. The

DESIGNING A MODEL OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT FOR A MOBILE PHONE COMPANY

OpenAIRE

BRUTU MĂDĂLINA; MIHAI DANIELA MELANIA

2015-01-01

Customer relationship management refers to establishing, maintaining, developing and optimizing the relations between an organization and its customers and focuses on understanding and meeting its customers’ wishes and demands, the core items of the business strategy of any performant company. This paper aims at designing and testing a model of customer relationship management applicable within a mobile phone company. Starting from this purpose, the main objectives of the research were: prese...

Procuring load curtailment from local customers under uncertainty.

Science.gov (United States)

Mijatović, Aleksandar; Moriarty, John; Vogrinc, Jure

2017-08-13

Demand side response (DSR) provides a flexible approach to managing constrained power network assets. This is valuable if future asset utilization is uncertain. However there may be uncertainty over the process of procurement of DSR from customers. In this context we combine probabilistic modelling, simulation and optimization to identify economically optimal procurement policies from heterogeneous customers local to the asset, under chance constraints on the adequacy of the procured DSR. Mathematically this gives rise to a search over permutations, and we provide an illustrative example implementation and case study.This article is part of the themed issue 'Energy management: flexibility, risk and optimization'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Developing a communication model between banking services quality via mediating variables of quality of relationship with customers and satisfaction with customer loyalty: A case study of Tejarat Bank

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hossein Rahimi Koloor

2015-03-01

Full Text Available This study develops a communication model. The purpose of this research was designing a regression model and developing a structural equation modeling (SEM for earning loyalty of Tejarat Bank customers. Given this concept, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among branches of Tejarat Bank in Ardabil. The data analyzed using LISREL software within the framework of path analysis using SEM model. Research results suggested that the quality of banking services, customer satisfaction, and the quality of bank relationship with customers had the most effects on customer loyalty, respectively. The findings of the study are discussed in detail.

Targeting the robo-advice customer: the development of a psychographic segmentation model for financial advice robots

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Thiel, D.; van Raaij, W.F.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to develop the world’s first psychographic market segmentation model that supports personalization, customer education, customer activation, and customer engagement strategies with financial advice robots. As traditional segmentation models in consumer finance primarily

Team Foundation Server 2013 customization

CERN Document Server

Beeming, Gordon

2014-01-01

This book utilizes a tutorial based approach, focused on the practical customization of key features of the Team Foundation Server for collaborative enterprise software projects.This practical guide is intended for those who want to extend TFS. This book is for intermediate users who have an understanding of TFS, and basic coding skills will be required for the more complex customizations.

The rise of smart customers. How consumer power will change the global power and utilities business. What the sector thinks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2011-09-15

This report is the second in a two-part study, geared to helping power and utilities companies adapt their business strategies and customer handling in a new smart world. It explores the views of power and utilities leaders across 12 countries on how smart might change consumers' needs and behaviors, what new services they plan to offer and where they see the strongest new opportunities and competitors. We also compare these results with those of the first study, which examined the views of consumers and their appetite for new smart services.

An Empirical Based Proposal for Mass Customization Business Model in Footwear Industry

OpenAIRE

Pourabdollahian , Golboo; Corti , Donatella; Galbusera , Chiara; Silva , Julio ,

2012-01-01

Part 2: Design, Manufacturing and Production Management; International audience; This research aims at developing a business model for companies in the footwear industry interested in implementing Mass Customization with the goal of offering to the market products which perfectly match customers’ needs. The studies on mass customization are actually mostly focused on product development and production system aspects. This study extends the business modeling including also Supply Chain aspects...

Measuring Customer Profitability in Complex Environments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holm, Morten; Kumar, V.; Rohde, Carsten

2012-01-01

Customer profitability measurement is an important element in customer relationship management and a lever for enhanced marketing accountability. Two distinct measurement approaches have emerged in the marketing literature: Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Profitability Analysis (CPA...... propositions. Additionally, the framework provides design and implementation guidance for managers seeking to implement customer profitability measurement models for resource allocation purposes....... that the degree of sophistication deployed when implementing customer profitability measurement models is determined by the type of complexity encountered in firms’ customer environments. This gives rise to a contingency framework for customer profitability measurement model selection and five research...

Impact of customer churn [or turnover] on profitability. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hamblin, D.; Ratchford, B.T.

1998-12-01

This report responds to a concern of a newly deregulated industry about the impact of customer churn, or turnover, on both the bottom line and staying power of incumbent utility distribution companies and new-entrant energy services providers. This research effort identifies those issues that will be of greatest importance to an energy service provider within a historical context that looks at churn impacts in other industries in the US as well as privatized electricity markets abroad. Churn and price maintenance or market power impacts on profitability are examined by looking at privatization and deregulation experiences within the context of economics. The report also looks at the marketing literature describing and modeling customer satisfaction, customer churn or retention, and price maintenance or market power

Customer satisfaction and business excellence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Kai; Martensen, Anne; Grønholdt, Lars

The topic for this paper is the link between customer satisfaction and business performance, which makes it possible to use customer satisfaction measures as basis for creating business excellence. First, the paper presents microeconomic models for the relationship between customer satisfaction......, customer loyalty and performance, and optimal customer satisfaction is characterized which will help management choose the right quality parameters for improvement. Second, the paper describes empirical evidence that customer satisfaction measures, based on a modelling approach, have impact on economic...

Empirical research on Kano's model and customer satisfaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Feng-Han; Tsai, Sang-Bing; Lee, Yu-Cheng; Hsiao, Cheng-Fu; Zhou, Jie; Wang, Jiangtao; Shang, Zhiwen

2017-01-01

Products are now developed based on what customers desire, and thus attractive quality creation has become crucial. In studies on customer satisfaction, methods for analyzing quality attributes and enhancing customer satisfaction have been proposed to facilitate product development. Although substantial studies have performed to assess the impact of the attributes on customer satisfaction, little research has been conducted that quantitatively calculate the odds of customer satisfaction for the Kano classification, fitting a nonlinear relationship between attribute-level performance and customer satisfaction. In the present study, the odds of customer satisfaction were determined to identify the classification of quality attributes, and took customer psychology into account to suggest how decision-makers should prioritize the allocation of resources. A novel method for quantitatively assessing quality attributes was proposed to determine classification criteria and fit the nonlinear relationship between quality attributes and customer satisfaction. Subsequently, a case study was conducted on bicycle user satisfaction to verify the novel method. The concept of customer satisfaction odds was integrated with the value function from prospect theory to understand quality attributes. The results of this study can serve as a reference for product designers to create attractive quality attributes in their products and thus enhance customer satisfaction.

Factors affecting pharmacy engagement and pharmacy customer devotion in community pharmacy: A structural equation modeling approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Nitadpakorn, Sujin; Farris, Karen B; Kittisopee, Tanattha

2017-01-01

The concept of customer engagement and devotion has been applied in various service businesses to keep the customers with business However, a limited number of studies were performed to examine the context of customer engagement and devotion in pharmacy business which focus on the impact of customer perceptions about pharmacists, perceived quality of pharmacy structure, medication price strategy on pharmacy engagement and pharmacy customer devotion in a pharmacy providing pharmaceutical care to the customers. This study aimed to assess a conceptual model depicting the relationships among customer perceptions about pharmacists, pharmacy quality structure, medication price, customer engagement, and customer devotion. And also aimed to assess and measure if there is a direct or indirect relationship between these factors. A quantitative study was conducted by using self-administered questionnaires. Two hundred and fifty three customers who regularly visited the pharmacy were randomly recruited from a purposively selected 30 community pharmacies in Bangkok. The survey was completed during February to April 2016. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to assess the direct and indirect relationships between constructs. A total of 253/300 questionnaires were returned for analysis, and the response rate was 84%. Only perceptions about pharmacist in customers receiving professional pharmacy services was statically significant regarding relationship with pharmacy engagement (beta=0.45). Concurrently, the model from empirical data fit with the hypothetical model (p-value = 0.06, adjusted chi-square (CMIN/DF)=1.16, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI)=0.93, Comparatively Fit Index (CFI)=0.99, and Root Mean Square Error Approximation (RMSEA)=0.03). The study confirmed the indirect positive influence of customer perceptions about pharmacist on pharmacy customer devotion in providing pharmacy services via pharmacy engagement It was customer perceptions about pharmacist that influenced

Factors affecting pharmacy engagement and pharmacy customer devotion in community pharmacy: A structural equation modeling approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nitadpakorn S

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Background: The concept of customer engagement and devotion has been applied in various service businesses to keep the customers with business However, a limited number of studies were performed to examine the context of customer engagement and devotion in pharmacy business which focus on the impact of customer perceptions about pharmacists, perceived quality of pharmacy structure, medication price strategy on pharmacy engagement and pharmacy customer devotion in a pharmacy providing pharmaceutical care to the customers. Objective: This study aimed to assess a conceptual model depicting the relationships among customer perceptions about pharmacists, pharmacy quality structure, medication price, customer engagement, and customer devotion. And also aimed to assess and measure if there is a direct or indirect relationship between these factors. Methods: A quantitative study was conducted by using self-administered questionnaires. Two hundred and fifty three customers who regularly visited the pharmacy were randomly recruited from a purposively selected 30 community pharmacies in Bangkok. The survey was completed during February to April 2016. A structural equation model (SEM was used to assess the direct and indirect relationships between constructs. Results: A total of 253/300 questionnaires were returned for analysis, and the response rate was 84%. Only perceptions about pharmacist in customers receiving professional pharmacy services was statically significant regarding relationship with pharmacy engagement (beta=0.45. Concurrently, the model from empirical data fit with the hypothetical model (p-value = 0.06, adjusted chi-square (CMIN/DF=1.16, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI=0.93, Comparatively Fit Index (CFI=0.99, and Root Mean Square Error Approximation (RMSEA=0.03. Conclusion: The study confirmed the indirect positive influence of customer perceptions about pharmacist on pharmacy customer devotion in providing pharmacy services via pharmacy

Application of fault tree analysis for customer reliability assessment of a distribution power system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abdul Rahman, Fariz; Varuttamaseni, Athi; Kintner-Meyer, Michael; Lee, John C.

2013-01-01

A new method is developed for predicting customer reliability of a distribution power system using the fault tree approach with customer weighted values of component failure frequencies and downtimes. Conventional customer reliability prediction of the electric grid employs the system average (SA) component failure frequency and downtime that are weighted by only the quantity of the components in the system. These SA parameters are then used to calculate the reliability and availability of components in the system, and eventually to find the effect on customer reliability. Although this approach is intuitive, information is lost regarding customer disturbance experiences when customer information is not utilized in the SA parameter calculations, contributing to inaccuracies when predicting customer reliability indices in our study. Hence our new approach directly incorporates customer disturbance information in component failure frequency and downtime calculations by weighting these parameters with information of customer interruptions. This customer weighted (CW) approach significantly improves the prediction of customer reliability indices when applied to our reliability model with fault tree and two-state Markov chain formulations. Our method has been successfully applied to an actual distribution power system that serves over 2.1 million customers. Our results show an improved benchmarking performance on the system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI) by 26% between the SA-based and CW-based reliability calculations. - Highlights: ► We model the reliability of a power system with fault tree and two-state Markov chain. ► We propose using customer weighted component failure frequencies and downtimes. ► Results show customer weighted values perform superior to component average values. ► This method successfully incorporates customer disturbance information into the model.

Modelling and evaluating customer loyalty using neural networks: Evidence from startup insurance companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azarnoush Ansari

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to investigate the customer–service provider relationship in the insurance industry using artificial neural networks and linear regression. Using a sample of 389 customers from 10 different startup insurance companies, it was found that artificial neural networks are an efficient way to evaluate the factors affecting customer loyalty. The results indicated that customer satisfaction and perceived value are significant predictors of customer loyalty. Additionally, it was found that trust, perceived quality, and empathy have a significant impact on both customer satisfaction and perceived value. The results also showed that customer commitment to service provider is positively associated with customer satisfaction and loyalty. After comparing the performance of linear regression models with artificial neural networks, it was found that the use of neural networks is a better approach for analyzing the customer loyalty, satisfaction, and perceived value. The use of new techniques such as artificial neural networks for analyzing the customer behavior can be particularly beneficial for startup companies who aspire to gain competitive advantage over their strong and well-established rivals.

Customized computer models of eyes with intraocular lenses.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosales, P; Marcos, S

2007-03-05

We compared experimental wave aberrations in pseudophakic eyes with aspheric intraocular lenses (IOLs) to simulate aberrations from numerical ray tracing on customized computer eye models using corneal topography, angle lambda, ocular biometry, IOL geometry, and IOL tilt and decentration measured on the same eyes. We found high correlations between real and simulated aberrations even for the eye with only the cornea, and these increased on average when the IOL geometry and position were included. Relevant individual aberrations were well predicted by the complete eye model. Corneal spherical aberration and horizontal coma were compensated by the IOL, and in 58.3% of the cases IOL tilt and decentration contributed to compensation of horizontal coma. We conclude that customized computer eye models are a good representation of real eyes with IOLs and allow understanding of the relative contribution of optical, geometrical and surgically-related factors to image quality. Corneal spherical aberration is reduced by aspheric IOLs, although other corneal high order aberrations are still a major contributor to total aberrations in pseudophakic eyes. Tilt and decentration of the IOLs represent a relatively minor contribution of the overall optical quality of the eye.

Utilization of power customers in the end user market. Analysis of the competitive relationship between the Norwegian power contracts; Utnytting av kraftkundar i sluttbrukarmarknaden. Analyser av konkurransetilhoevet mellom norske kraftavtaler

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sunde, Bjarne Bjoerkavaag

2011-07-01

This study deals with the competitive relationship between the Norwegian power agreements in end user markets. As expected we find clear evidence of an exploitation of locked-in customers through expensive standard variable rate agreements. One also find evidence that the extent of this utilization have increased after power providers began to use price discrimination of customers more actively. Vendors say the exploitation of locked-in customers have held out for and utilization is often seen as the biggest problem for the market. In time to come, it is not however given that exploitation of locked-customers, through expensive standard variable rate agreements, will continue to be the biggest problem with the market. Today, 60% of households are connected to the spot price contract, and such a percentage would indicate less use of customers. Electricity suppliers uses hand spot agreements without notification to exploit uncertainty customers have about competitive premiums. Agreements without notification will not be registered in this summary power to the Competition Authority and the agreements are therefore difficult to compare for customers. Today, over half of the spot price agreements without notification, and power providers achieve much greater profit on these agreements than the spot price agreements with notification.(eb)

The value of customer preference

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herig, C.; Houston, A.

1996-01-01

Customer preference (CP), or green pricing, may be the financial hedge for electric supply industry integration of photovoltaics. CP is currently defined as a voluntary contribution for energy generated with renewable resources. Several utilities have examined the CP financing of renewables through experimental or implemented programs and market research. This paper first expands the concept of customer preference to include both voluntary and involuntary customer contributions. It then categorizes the features of existing and proposed CP programs. The connections between these features and market research and marketing strategies for new product development from a competitive industry are analyzed

The value of customer preference

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Herig, C.; Houston, A. [National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)

1996-05-01

Customer preference (CP), or green pricing, may be the financial hedge for electric supply industry integration of photovoltaics. CP is currently defined as a voluntary contribution for energy generated with renewable resources. Several utilities have examined the CP financing of renewables through experimental or implemented programs and market research. This paper first expands the concept of customer preference to include both voluntary and involuntary customer contributions. It then categorizes the features of existing and proposed CP programs. The connections between these features and market research and marketing strategies for new product development from a competitive industry are analyzed.

Utilizing Mass Customization Methods for Modular Manufacturing System Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Steffen; Jacobsen, Alexia; Nielsen, Kjeld

2011-01-01

Markets today have become dynamic and demand rapid product changes, product variety, and customized products. In order to operate under and taking advantages of such conditions requires, amongst other aspects, manufacturing processes robust to product changes - a contradiction to traditional...... manufacturing systems developed as dedicated engineer-to-order solutions, tailored to production of a specific product or a limited product assortment. In response, modular manufacturing concepts are evolving, which are aimed at possessing the needed responsiveness and aimed at being the manufacturing paradigm...... of Mass Customization (MC). Research focus has been on the basic principles and enabling technologies, while modular architectures and system design have received less attention. A potential to fill these gaps by applying selected design theories and methods of MC have been seen. Based on a communality...

Customer retention and new product marketing strategies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

O'Day, T.

1997-01-01

Business strategies readily accessible for utilization by electric utility companies in the post-deregulation competitive environment were discussed. Among these strategies, shifting the company''s focus towards customers and their needs, is perhaps the most important. Utilities could use their corporate identity to capitalize on the introduction of new services. These services could include HVAC equipment servicing, building services, cable TV wiring and service and appliance repairs. The consumer would already identify the utility with some of these services and therefore, these sectors would be the most obvious areas for utility companies to enter. Attempting to make the transition into an unrelated field suggests squandering precious corporate expertise and abandonment of the corporate identity. This may not only result in failure in the new endeavour, but also in loss of credibility and customer goodwill in the old one

A CBR-Based and MAHP-Based Customer Value Prediction Model for New Product Development

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yu-Jie; Luo, Xin-xing; Deng, Li

2014-01-01

In the fierce market environment, the enterprise which wants to meet customer needs and boost its market profit and share must focus on the new product development. To overcome the limitations of previous research, Chan et al. proposed a dynamic decision support system to predict the customer lifetime value (CLV) for new product development. However, to better meet the customer needs, there are still some deficiencies in their model, so this study proposes a CBR-based and MAHP-based customer value prediction model for a new product (C&M-CVPM). CBR (case based reasoning) can reduce experts' workload and evaluation time, while MAHP (multiplicative analytic hierarchy process) can use actual but average influencing factor's effectiveness in stimulation, and at same time C&M-CVPM uses dynamic customers' transition probability which is more close to reality. This study not only introduces the realization of CBR and MAHP, but also elaborates C&M-CVPM's three main modules. The application of the proposed model is illustrated and confirmed to be sensible and convincing through a stimulation experiment. PMID:25162050

Major customer accounts - strategic alliances for the future

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shields, R.G.; Ricker, S.M.

1990-01-01

As electric utilities look to the future, they are forecasting a need for increased power supply capacity to meet load requirements. But rather than focus solely on the construction of new generating capacity, many utilities facing supply shortages have sought to develop and apply peak shaving and load shifting techniques. They commonly evaluate both new generation and demand side management (DSM) as alternative options in an integrated, least-cost planning approach. Demand side management poses new challenges for utilities because for demand side management to be successful, the product needs to be sold to customers. Gone are the days when a utility simply had to market a single product - electricity. Today, supply planning and marketing organizations need to form an integrated approach to furthering a company's DSM objectives and to bring marketing concepts to this process. This paper does not attempt to argue the pros and cons of demand side management, nor to identify the right DSM alternatives. Rather, the authors focus on issues utilities must address in implementing DSM: (1) value and means of forming strategic alliances with major utility customers if a utility is going to be able to perform in an increasingly competitive environment in the future; (2) critical success factors for an effective DSM program targeted at major utility customers; and (3) necessity of applying key marketing principles to DSM program design and implementation

Investigating The Effects Of Customer Perceptions Resulted From Online Shopping Sites On Customer Satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Dr. vildan ateş

2017-01-01

Customer satisfaction has an important role providing continuity, profitability of online shopping sites and in the development of customer loyalty. The aim of this study is to determine the effects of customer perceptions arising from online shopping sites’ on customers’ satisfaction and to reveal a customer satisfaction model related to customer perceptions. Firstly, the indicators of customer satisfaction about online shopping sites and the customer perceptions thought...

A new class of information complexity (ICOMP) criteria with an application to customer profiling and segmentation

OpenAIRE

Bozdogan, Hamparsun

2010-01-01

This paper introduces several forms of a new class of information-theoretic measure of complexity criterion called ICOMP as a decision rule for model selection in statistical modeling to help provide new approaches relevant to statistical inference. The practical utility and the importance of ICOMP is illustrated by providing a real numerical example in data mining of mobile phone data for customer profiling and segmentation of mobile phone customers using a novel multi-class support vector m...

Investigating the Relationship between Corporate Reputation and Customer Behavioral Intentions through Roles of Customer Trust, Customer Commitment and Customer Recognition (Case Study: Iran Insurance Company in Iran, Isfahan City)

OpenAIRE

Fariddeddin Allameh Haery; Hassan Ghorbani; Bahram Zamani

2014-01-01

Current study entitled "Investigating therelationship between corporate reputation and customer behavioral intentions through roles of customer trust, customer commitment and customer recognition" investigates the role of corporate reputation in purchase intention and tendency to pay premiums regarding variables such as trust, commitment and recognition of customers of Iran Insurance Company in Iran, Isfahan city. In this study regarding the proposed model there is a main hypothesis (which in...

Optimal Allocation of Smart Substations in a Distribution System Considering Interruption Costs of Customers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sun, Lei; You, Shi; Hu, Junjie

2016-01-01

number and allocation of smart substations in a given distribution system is presented, with the upgrade costs of substations and the interruption costs of customers taken into account. Besides, the reliability criterion is also properly considered in the model. By linearization strategies, the SSAM......One of the major functions of a smart substation (SS) is to restore power supply to interrupted customers as quickly as possible after an outage. The high cost of a smart substation limits its widespread utilization. In this paper, a smart substation allocation model (SSAM) to determine the optimal...

Inventory Model with Partial Backordering When Backordered Customers Delay Purchase after Stockout-Restoration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ren-Qian Zhang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Many inventory models with partial backordering assume that the backordered demand must be filled instantly after stockout restoration. In practice, however, the backordered customers may successively revisit the store because of the purchase delay behavior, producing a limited backorder demand rate and resulting in an extra inventory holding cost. Hence, in this paper we formulate the inventory model with partial backordering considering the purchase delay of the backordered customers and assuming that the backorder demand rate is proportional to the remaining backordered demand. Particularly, we model the problem by introducing a new inventory cost component of holding the backordered items, which has not been considered in the existing models. We propose an algorithm with a two-layer structure based on Lipschitz Optimization (LO to minimize the total inventory cost. Numerical experiments show that the proposed algorithm outperforms two benchmarks in both optimality and efficiency. We also observe that the earlier the backordered customer revisits the store, the smaller the inventory cost and the fill rate are, but the longer the order cycle is. In addition, if the backordered customers revisit the store without too much delay, the basic EOQ with partial backordering approximates our model very well.

Application of customer-interruption costs for optimum distribution planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mok, Y.L.; Chung, T.S.

1996-01-01

We present a new methodology for obtaining optimum values of the integrated cost of utility investment with customer interruption in distribution planning for electric power systems by determining the reliability cost and worth of the distribution system. Reliability cost refers to investment cost of the utility in achieving a defined level of reliability. Reliability worth is the benefit gained by the utility customer from an increase of reliability. A computer program has been developed to determine comparative reliability indices for a typical distribution network. With the average interruption cost, outage duration, average disconnected load, cost data for distribution equipment, etc. being known, the relation between reliability cost, reliability worth and reliability at the specified load point are obtained. The optimum reliability of the distribution system is then determined from the minimum cost to the utility with customer interruption. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated by several practical networks. (Author)

The effects of online shopping on the customer loyalty

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hamideh Afrashteh

2014-09-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the use of Online Shopping as one of electronic marketing techniques as well as the effect of applying this shopping method and marketing on customer loyalty in Iran. The variables are extracted according to the review of literature and studies conducted in the field of shopping through cyberspace. A questionnaire is designed by applying these variables and distributed among a sample of service providers and users after testing its reliability and validity. Performing the statistical tests on the results of investigation led to the identification of effective factors. In addition, another questionnaire is distributed according to the obtained components in order to achieve a structural model for the impact of components on the customer loyalty. The structural equation modeling (SEM is designed to learn the impact of obtained components on customer loyalty as a basis influencing on the survival of business space using SEM method. The study identified different components affected by utilization of online shopping websites including comprehensive information system, system development, choice power, viability and system optimization.

Maximum Potential Score (MPS: An operating model for a successful customer-focused strategy.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cabello González, José Manuel

2015-12-01

Full Text Available One of marketers’ chief objectives is to achieve customer loyalty, which is a key factor for profitable growth. Therefore, they need to develop a strategy that attracts and maintains customers, giving them adequate motives, both tangible (prices and promotions and intangible (personalized service and treatment, to satisfy a customer and make him loyal to the company. Finding a way to accurately measure satisfaction and customer loyalty is very important. With regard to typical Relationship Marketing measures, we can consider listening to customers, which can help to achieve a competitive sustainable advantage. Customer satisfaction surveys are essential tools for listening to customers. Short questionnaires have gained considerable acceptance among marketers as a means to achieve a customer satisfaction measure. Our research provides an indication of the benefits of a short questionnaire (one/three questions. We find that the number of questions survey is significantly related to the participation in the survey (Net Promoter Score or NPS. We also prove that a the three question survey is more likely to have more participants than a traditional survey (Maximum Potential Score or MPS . Our main goal is to analyse one method as a potential predictor of customer loyalty. Using surveys, we attempt to empirically establish the causal factors in determining the satisfaction of customers. This paper describes a maximum potential operating model that captures with a three questions survey, important elements for a successful customer-focused strategy. MPS may give us lower participation rates than NPS but important information that helps to convert unhappy customers or just satisfied customers, into loyal customers.

One-to-one modeling and simulation: a new approach in customer relationship management for grocery retail

Science.gov (United States)

Baydar, Cem M.

2002-03-01

The ever-increasing competition in retail industry puts pressure on retailers to deal with their customers more efficiently. Currently most companies use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to maximize the customer satisfaction level by trying to understand more about their behaviors. However, one disadvantage of the current approaches is that they focus on the segmentation of customers into homogenous groups and they disregard examining the one-to-one relationship of each individual's behavior toward each product. Therefore, individual behavior cannot be captured in detail. Modeling individual behavior for each product enables several strategies of pricing by keeping the customer satisfaction at the maximum level. One example is offering a personal discount on a particular item to a customer who is price sensitive to that particular product. Therefore, you can still sell other products at the non-discounted level to this customer by keeping him satisfied. In this paper, individual pricing approach is discussed. The aim of this study is to develop a conceptual framework to analyze the feasibility of individual pricing. Customer behaviors can be modeled individually with respect to each product for a grocery store. Several factors can be used to determine these behaviors such as customer's need, brand loyalty and price sensitivity. Each customer can be modeled as an adaptive agent using qualitative descriptions of behaviors (i.e., highly price sensitive). Then, the overall shopping behavior can be simulated using a multi-agent Monte-Carlo simulation. It is expected that with this approach, retailers will be able to determine better strategies to obtain more profits, better sales and better customer satisfaction.

The Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) Model for Energy Service Delivery

Science.gov (United States)

Houck, Jason; Rickerson, Wilson

2009-01-01

Climate change, energy price spikes, and concerns about energy security have reignited interest in state and local efforts to promote end-use energy efficiency, customer-sited renewable energy, and energy conservation. Government agencies and utilities have historically designed and administered such demand-side measures, but innovative…

Utility Bill Insert for Wastewater Services

Science.gov (United States)

Intended for use by wastewater and water supply utilities, one side of the utility bill insert has information for customers that discharge to sanitary sewer systems; the other side is for customers with septic systems.

Optimal control of a head-of-line processor sharing model with regular and opportunity customers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wijk, van A.C.C.

2011-01-01

Motivated by a workload control setting, we study a model where two types of customers are served by a single server according to the head-of-line processor sharing discipline. Regular customers and opportunity customers are arriving to the system according to two independent Poisson processes, each

Recovery of Utility Fixed Costs: Utility, Consumer, Environmental and Economist Perspectives

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wood, Lisa [Inst. for Electric Innovation and The Edison Foundation, Washington DC (United States); Hemphill, Ross [RCHemphill Solutions, Columbus, OH (United States); Howat, John [National Consumer Law Center, Boston, MA (United States); Cavanagh, Ralph [Natural Resources Defense Council, New York, NY (United States); Borenstein, Severin [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Deason, Jeff [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Schwartz, Lisa [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Schwartz, Lisa [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2016-06-14

Utilities recover costs for providing electric service to retail customers through a combination of rate components that together comprise customers’ monthly electric bills. Rates and rate designs are set by state regulators and vary by jurisdiction, utility and customer class. In addition to the fundamental tenet of setting fair and reasonable rates, rate design balances economic efficiency, equity and fairness, customer satisfaction, utility revenue stability, and customer price and bill stability.1 At the most basic level, retail electricity bills in the United States typically include a fixed monthly customer charge — a set dollar amount regardless of energy usage — and a volumetric energy charge for each kilowatt-hour consumed.2 The energy charge may be flat across all hours, vary by usage level (for example, higher rates at higher levels of usage), or vary based on time of consumption.3 While some utility costs, such as fuel costs, clearly vary according to electricity usage, other costs are “fixed” over the short run — generally, those that do not vary over the course of a year. Depending on your point of view, and whether the state’s electricity industry has been restructured or remains vertically integrated, the set of costs that are “fixed” may be quite limited. Or the set may extend to all capacity costs for generation, transmission and distribution. In the long run, all costs are variable. In the context of flat or declining loads in some regions, utilities are proposing a variety of changes to retail rate designs, particularly for residential customers, to recover fixed costs. In this report, authors representing utility (Chapter 1), consumer (Chapter 2), environmentalist (Chapter 3) and economist (Chapter 4) perspectives discuss fixed costs for electric utilities and set out their principles for recovering those costs. The table on the next page summarizes each author’s relative preferences for various options for fixed cost

Linear Friction Welding Process Model for Carpenter Custom 465 Precipitation-Hardened Martensitic Stainless Steel

Science.gov (United States)

2014-04-11

Carpenter Custom 465 precipitation-hardened martensitic stainless steel to develop a linear friction welding (LFW) process model for this material...Model for Carpenter Custom 465 Precipitation-Hardened Martensitic Stainless Steel The views, opinions and/or findings contained in this report are... Martensitic Stainless Steel Report Title An Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite-element analysis is combined with thermo-mechanical material

On the Path to SunShot - Utility Regulatory Business Model Reforms forAddressing the Financial Impacts of Distributed Solar on Utilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None, None

2016-05-01

Net-energy metering (NEM) with volumetric retail electricity pricing has enabled rapid proliferation of distributed photovoltaics (DPV) in the United States. However, this transformation is raising concerns about the potential for higher electricity rates and cost-shifting to non-solar customers, reduced utility shareholder profitability, reduced utility earnings opportunities, and inefficient resource allocation. Although DPV deployment in most utility territories remains too low to produce significant impacts, these concerns have motivated real and proposed reforms to utility regulatory and business models, with profound implications for future DPV deployment. This report explores the challenges and opportunities associated with such reforms in the context of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. As such, the report focuses on a subset of a broader range of reforms underway in the electric utility sector. Drawing on original analysis and existing literature, we analyze the significance of DPV’s financial impacts on utilities and non-solar ratepayers under current NEM rules and rate designs, the projected effects of proposed NEM and rate reforms on DPV deployment, and alternative reforms that could address utility and ratepayer concerns while supporting continued DPV growth. We categorize reforms into one or more of four conceptual strategies. Understanding how specific reforms map onto these general strategies can help decision makers identify and prioritize options for addressing specific DPV concerns that balance stakeholder interests.

Enabling complex nanoscale pattern customization using directed self-assembly.

Science.gov (United States)

Doerk, Gregory S; Cheng, Joy Y; Singh, Gurpreet; Rettner, Charles T; Pitera, Jed W; Balakrishnan, Srinivasan; Arellano, Noel; Sanders, Daniel P

2014-12-16

Block copolymer directed self-assembly is an attractive method to fabricate highly uniform nanoscale features for various technological applications, but the dense periodicity of block copolymer features limits the complexity of the resulting patterns and their potential utility. Therefore, customizability of nanoscale patterns has been a long-standing goal for using directed self-assembly in device fabrication. Here we show that a hybrid organic/inorganic chemical pattern serves as a guiding pattern for self-assembly as well as a self-aligned mask for pattern customization through cotransfer of aligned block copolymer features and an inorganic prepattern. As informed by a phenomenological model, deliberate process engineering is implemented to maintain global alignment of block copolymer features over arbitrarily shaped, 'masking' features incorporated into the chemical patterns. These hybrid chemical patterns with embedded customization information enable deterministic, complex two-dimensional nanoscale pattern customization through directed self-assembly.

Trends in Utility Green Pricing Programs (2006)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, L.; Kaiser, M.

2007-10-01

In the early 1990s, only a handful of utilities offered their customers a choice of purchasing electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Today, more than 750 utilities--or about 25% of all utilities nationally--provide their customers a "green power" option. Through these programs, more than 70 million customers have the ability to purchase renewable energy to meet some portion or all of their electricity needs--or make contributions to support the development of renewable energy resources. Typically, customers pay a premium above standard electricity rates for this service. This report presents year-end 2006 data on utility green pricing programs, and examines trends in consumer response and program implementation over time. The data in this report, which were obtained via a questionnaire distributed to utility green pricing program managers, can be used by utilities to benchmark the success of their green power programs.

Targeting the robo-advice customer: the development of a psychographic segmentation model for financial advice robots

OpenAIRE

van Thiel, D.; van Raaij, W.F.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to develop the world’s first psychographic market segmentation model that supports personalization, customer education, customer activation, and customer engagement strategies with financial advice robots. As traditional segmentation models in consumer finance primarily focus on externally observed demographics or economic criteria such as profession, age, income, or wealth, post-hoc psychographic segmentation further supports personalization in the digital adviso...

Business Model Innovation for Local Energy Management: A Perspective from Swiss Utilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Facchinetti, Emanuele, E-mail: emanuele.facchinetti@hslu.ch [Lucerne Competence Center for Energy Research, Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts, Horw (Switzerland); Eid, Cherrelle [Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft (Netherlands); Bollinger, Andrew [Urban Energy Systems Laboratory, EMPA, Dübendorf (Switzerland); Sulzer, Sabine [Lucerne Competence Center for Energy Research, Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts, Horw (Switzerland)

2016-08-04

The successful deployment of the energy transition relies on a deep reorganization of the energy market. Business model innovation is recognized as a key driver of this process. This work contributes to this topic by providing to potential local energy management (LEM) stakeholders and policy makers a conceptual framework guiding the LEM business model innovation. The main determinants characterizing LEM concepts and impacting its business model innovation are identified through literature reviews on distributed generation typologies and customer/investor preferences related to new business opportunities emerging with the energy transition. Afterwards, the relation between the identified determinants and the LEM business model solution space is analyzed based on semi-structured interviews with managers of Swiss utilities companies. The collected managers’ preferences serve as explorative indicators supporting the business model innovation process and provide insights into policy makers on challenges and opportunities related to LEM.

Business Model Innovation for Local Energy Management: A Perspective from Swiss Utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Facchinetti, Emanuele; Eid, Cherrelle; Bollinger, Andrew; Sulzer, Sabine

2016-01-01

The successful deployment of the energy transition relies on a deep reorganization of the energy market. Business model innovation is recognized as a key driver of this process. This work contributes to this topic by providing to potential local energy management (LEM) stakeholders and policy makers a conceptual framework guiding the LEM business model innovation. The main determinants characterizing LEM concepts and impacting its business model innovation are identified through literature reviews on distributed generation typologies and customer/investor preferences related to new business opportunities emerging with the energy transition. Afterwards, the relation between the identified determinants and the LEM business model solution space is analyzed based on semi-structured interviews with managers of Swiss utilities companies. The collected managers’ preferences serve as explorative indicators supporting the business model innovation process and provide insights into policy makers on challenges and opportunities related to LEM.

Business marketing: understand what customers value.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, J C; Narus, J A

1998-01-01

How do you define the value of your market offering? Can you measure it? Few suppliers in business markets are able to answer those questions, and yet the ability to pinpoint the value of a product or service for one's customers has never been more important. By creating and using what the authors call customer value models, suppliers are able to figure out exactly what their offerings are worth to customers. Field value assessments--the most commonly used method for building customer value models--call for suppliers to gather data about their customers firsthand whenever possible. Through these assessments, a supplier can build a value model for an individual customer or for a market segment, drawing on data gathered form several customers in that segment. Suppliers can use customer value models to create competitive advantage in several ways. First, they can capitalize on the inevitable variation in customers' requirements by providing flexible market offerings. Second, they can use value models to demonstrate how a new product or service they are offering will provide greater value. Third, they can use their knowledge of how their market offerings specifically deliver value to craft persuasive value propositions. And fourth, they can use value models to provide evidence to customers of their accomplishments. Doing business based on value delivered gives companies the means to get an equitable return for their efforts. Once suppliers truly understand value, they will be able to realize the benefits of measuring and monitoring it for their customers.

Customer-experienced rapid prototyping

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Lijuan; Zhang, Fu; Li, Anbo

2008-12-01

In order to describe accurately and comprehend quickly the perfect GIS requirements, this article will integrate the ideas of QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and UML (Unified Modeling Language), and analyze the deficiency of prototype development model, and will propose the idea of the Customer-Experienced Rapid Prototyping (CE-RP) and describe in detail the process and framework of the CE-RP, from the angle of the characteristics of Modern-GIS. The CE-RP is mainly composed of Customer Tool-Sets (CTS), Developer Tool-Sets (DTS) and Barrier-Free Semantic Interpreter (BF-SI) and performed by two roles of customer and developer. The main purpose of the CE-RP is to produce the unified and authorized requirements data models between customer and software developer.

A Mechanism of Modeling and Verification for SaaS Customization Based on TLA

Science.gov (United States)

Luan, Shuai; Shi, Yuliang; Wang, Haiyang

With the gradually mature of SOA and the rapid development of Internet, SaaS has become a popular software service mode. The customized action of SaaS is usually subject to internal and external dependency relationships. This paper first introduces a method for modeling customization process based on Temporal Logic of Actions, and then proposes a verification algorithm to assure that each step in customization will not cause unpredictable influence on system and follow the related rules defined by SaaS provider.

Perancangan Model Basis Data Sistem Operasional Berbasiskan Customer Relationship Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tanty Oktavia

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Data is a very important asset for a company since it describes the company’s running processes. Database as a part of the information system components provides a big influence in helping data integration in a company. Therefore, we need a system which can facilitate the availability of data to be processed and used as needed, This study takes a company engaged in the sale of bike and spare parts, namely PT TDI, as the object of the study. At this time, PT TDI uses an integrated system in helping the company's operations. Along with thevision and mission, PT TDI intends to build a new operating system by applying the concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM which is believed to assist the company in maintaining relationships with customers using web-based platform. It aims to facilitate interaction with customers so that it can be done anytime and anywhere. This study implements the database design life cycle adjusted to the component aspects of CRM. The result achieved is a model that combines database CRM systems that can help companies improve relationships with customers.

Enhancing the value of information collected by advanced meters : customer and operational procedures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huntley, R.

2006-01-01

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) meters will have the ability to transform electric power utilities if data is utilized in an appropriate manner. This presentation provided an overview of the benefits of AMI. Case studies were used to present details of new meter data management (MDM) tools developed by Nexus Energy Software. The segmentation and loading aspects of AMI have the capacity to handle complex billing processes as well as increase distribution efficiency. AMI multi-dimensional aggregation can increase revenue protection and provide outage support. Customer bill integration and analytics can aid utilities in forecasting and load research activities. Demand and response, and customer AMI applications can lower customer service costs and leverage more effective pricing programs. A critical peak pricing support tool was used at a California utility to send monthly enhanced information electronic mail to increase customer understanding of behaviours on costs. The result was an amplified customer response to dynamic pricing. Day ahead notification is now regularly provided for peak periods. It was concluded that meter data has little value until it is aligned and synchronized with customer and asset data. Systems should be expandable over time to support new business processes and associated data elements without the need for customization. refs., tabs., figs

Managing customer loyalty in liberalized residential energy markets: the impact of energy branding

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hartmann, P.; Ibanez, V.A.

2007-01-01

In numerous recently deregulated energy markets, utilities previously operating in monopolistic environments are now focusing on customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this study, a conceptual framework is proposed that analyses the effects of brand associations and perceived switching costs on customer satisfaction and loyalty in residential energy markets. Several brand associations relevant to energy branding are identified: perceived technical service quality and service process quality, perception of value-added services, environmental and social commitment of the company, brand trust, price perceptions and brand associations related to the corporate attributes 'innovative and dynamic'. Subsequently, the proposed model is tested in the scope of a representative survey of Spanish residential energy customers. Results indicate that customer satisfaction, brand trust and perceived switching costs are positively related to customer loyalty and that brand trust exerts a stronger influence on customer loyalty than satisfaction and switching costs. Findings also show significant effects of the perception of service process quality and environmental and social commitment on loyalty via customer satisfaction. Implications for energy brand managers and regulators are discussed. [Author

Managing customer loyalty in liberalized residential energy markets: The impact of energy branding

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hartmann, Patrick; Apaolaza Ibanez, Vanessa

2007-01-01

In numerous recently deregulated energy markets, utilities previously operating in monopolistic environments are now focusing on customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this study, a conceptual framework is proposed that analyses the effects of brand associations and perceived switching costs on customer satisfaction and loyalty in residential energy markets. Several brand associations relevant to energy branding are identified: perceived technical service quality and service process quality, perception of value-added services, environmental and social commitment of the company, brand trust, price perceptions and brand associations related to the corporate attributes 'innovative and dynamic'. Subsequently, the proposed model is tested in the scope of a representative survey of Spanish residential energy customers. Results indicate that customer satisfaction, brand trust and perceived switching costs are positively related to customer loyalty and that brand trust exerts a stronger influence on customer loyalty than satisfaction and switching costs. Findings also show significant effects of the perception of service process quality and environmental and social commitment on loyalty via customer satisfaction. Implications for energy brand managers and regulators are discussed

Managing customer loyalty in liberalized residential energy markets: the impact of energy branding

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hartmann, P.; Ibanez, V.A. [University of the Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain). Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales

2007-04-15

In numerous recently deregulated energy markets, utilities previously operating in monopolistic environments are now focusing on customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this study, a conceptual framework is proposed that analyses the effects of brand associations and perceived switching costs on customer satisfaction and loyalty in residential energy markets. Several brand associations relevant to energy branding are identified: perceived technical service quality and service process quality, perception of value-added services, environmental and social commitment of the company, brand trust, price perceptions and brand associations related to the corporate attributes 'innovative and dynamic'. Subsequently, the proposed model is tested in the scope of a representative survey of Spanish residential energy customers. Results indicate that customer satisfaction, brand trust and perceived switching costs are positively related to customer loyalty and that brand trust exerts a stronger influence on customer loyalty than satisfaction and switching costs. Findings also show significant effects of the perception of service process quality and environmental and social commitment on loyalty via customer satisfaction. Implications for energy brand managers and regulators are discussed. [Author].

EFEK CUSTOMER CUSTOMER INTERACTION TERHADAP SATISFACTION DAN WORD OF MOUTH PADA HOTEL MANDARIN ORIENTAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Putri Hijir

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The background of this research was the effect of Customer to Customer Interaction affect satisfaction, word of mouth, in mandarin oriental hotel. The objective of this research is to examine the impact of Customer satisfaction, Service Atmosphere, Personal Interaction, Customer Customer Interaction, Word of Mouth. The design of this research applies primary data obtained by distributing questionnaires to 200 customer who are using Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Data analysis method used in this research is Structural Equation Model (SEM. The result of this research there is positive impact Personal Interaction Quality toward customer Satisfaction, there is positive impact Service Atmosphere toward Customer Satisfaction, there is positive impact Service atmosphere toward Customer Customer Interaction, there is positive impact Customer Customer Interaction toward Customer Satisfaction, there is positive impact Customer Customer Interaction toward Word of Mouth, there is positive impact Customer Satisfaction toward Word of Mouth.

Customization and Customer-Product Learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn

2011-01-01

, through the performance level and the experience level to the learning level at the top. This model has a dual view with customers/demand at one side and product/supplier at the other side. It is developed so that it can be generally applied and, typically, product designers must decide how far up...... in levels the customisation should aim. This paper sets special focus on the upper levels of customisation, especially the learning level, and it is shown that products with a large range of user-oriented functionalities often require much training to use and that customers on the other hand are sometimes...

Optimal pricing of default customers in electrical distribution systems: Effect behavior performance of demand response models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yusta, J.M.; Khodr, H.M.; Urdaneta, A.J.

2007-01-01

The response of a non-linear mathematical model is analyzed for the calculation of the optimal prices for electricity assuming default customers under different scenarios and using five different mathematical functions for the consumer response: linear, hyperbolic, potential, logarithmic and exponential. The mathematical functions are defined to simulate the hourly changes in the consumer response according to the load level, the price of electricity, and also depending on the elasticity at every hour. The behavior of the optimization model is evaluated separately under two different objective functions: the profit of the electric utility and the social welfare. The optimal prices as well as the served load are calculated for two different operation schemes: in an hourly basis and also assuming a single constant price for the 24 h of the day. Results obtained by the optimization model are presented and compared for the five different consumer load functions. (author)

Modeling and Application of Customer Lifetime Value in Online Retail

OpenAIRE

Pavel Jasek; Lenka Vrana; Lucie Sperkova; Zdenek Smutny; Marek Kobulsky

2018-01-01

This article provides an empirical statistical analysis and discussion of the predictive abilities of selected customer lifetime value (CLV) models that could be used in online shopping within e-commerce business settings. The comparison of CLV predictive abilities, using selected evaluation metrics, is made on selected CLV models: Extended Pareto/NBD model (EP/NBD), Markov chain model and Status Quo model. The article uses six online store datasets with annual revenues in the order of tens o...

Empirical research on Kano’s model and customer satisfaction

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Feng-Han; Tsai, Sang-Bing; Lee, Yu-Cheng; Hsiao, Cheng-Fu; Zhou, Jie; Wang, Jiangtao; Shang, Zhiwen

2017-01-01

Products are now developed based on what customers desire, and thus attractive quality creation has become crucial. In studies on customer satisfaction, methods for analyzing quality attributes and enhancing customer satisfaction have been proposed to facilitate product development. Although substantial studies have performed to assess the impact of the attributes on customer satisfaction, little research has been conducted that quantitatively calculate the odds of customer satisfaction for the Kano classification, fitting a nonlinear relationship between attribute-level performance and customer satisfaction. In the present study, the odds of customer satisfaction were determined to identify the classification of quality attributes, and took customer psychology into account to suggest how decision-makers should prioritize the allocation of resources. A novel method for quantitatively assessing quality attributes was proposed to determine classification criteria and fit the nonlinear relationship between quality attributes and customer satisfaction. Subsequently, a case study was conducted on bicycle user satisfaction to verify the novel method. The concept of customer satisfaction odds was integrated with the value function from prospect theory to understand quality attributes. The results of this study can serve as a reference for product designers to create attractive quality attributes in their products and thus enhance customer satisfaction. PMID:28873418

Three dimensional modelling of customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty for measuring quality of service

OpenAIRE

Pezeshki, Vahid

2009-01-01

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University. The aim of this thesis is to propose a model that explains the relationship between customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty based on service quality attributes. The three elements of satisfaction, retention and loyalty towards products represent ongoing challenges for the corporate financial performance. Customer behaviour analysis (known as business intelligence or customer relationship...

A modelling framework for mitigating customers' waiting time at a vehicle inspection centre

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmad, Norazura; Abidin, Norhaslinda Zainal; Ilyas, Khibtiyah; Abduljabbar, Waleed Khalid

2017-11-01

In Malaysia, an agency that is entrusted by the Government to perform mandatory vehicle inspection for public, commercial and private vehicles, receive many customers daily. Often complaints of problems received from the customers are associated with waiting time that leads to lost of business and dissatisfied customers. To address this issue, we propose a framework for modelling a vehicle inspection system using an integration of simulation and optimization approaches. The strengths of simulation and optimization are reviewed briefly that is hoped to reveal the synergy between the established methods in determining an appropriate customer's waiting time for inspection at a vehicle inspection centre. Relevant concepts and preliminary results are also presented and discussed in this paper.

'Utility marketing' as an oxymoron

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gedge, P.

1996-01-01

Electricity industry restructuring through the elimination of monopolies and the introduction of competition was examined. A distinction was made between marketing a product and brand marketing, emphasizing the customer loyalty, customer confidence and high profitability associated with brand names. The meaning of 'brand' in general and particularly in relation to electric power was explained. The old and the new utilities world were contrasted, and the place and importance of marketing in the deregulated, customer choice-based, market-driven new utilities world was described

`Utility marketing` as an oxymoron

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gedge, P. [TransAlta Utilities Corp., Calgary, AB (Canada)

1996-12-31

Electricity industry restructuring through the elimination of monopolies and the introduction of competition was examined. A distinction was made between marketing a product and brand marketing, emphasizing the customer loyalty, customer confidence and high profitability associated with brand names. The meaning of `brand` in general and particularly in relation to electric power was explained. The old and the new utilities world were contrasted, and the place and importance of marketing in the deregulated, customer choice-based, market-driven new utilities world was described.

What is a free customer worth? Armchair calculations of nonpaying customers' value can lead to flawed strategies.

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Sunil; Mela, Carl F

2008-11-01

Free customers who are subsidized by paying customers are essential to a vast array of businesses, such as media companies, employment services, and even IT providers. But because they generate revenue only indirectly, figuring out the true value of those customers--and how much attention to devote them--has always been a challenge. Traditional customer-valuation models don't help; they focus exclusively on paying customers and largely ignore network effects, or how customers help draw other customers to a business. Now a new model, devised by professors Gupta, of Harvard Business School, and Mela, of Fuqua School of Business, takes into account not only direct network effects (where buyers attract more buyers or sellers more sellers) but also indirect network effects (where buyers attract more sellers or vice versa) . The model calculates the precise long-term impact of each additional free customer on a company's profits, factoring in the degree to which he or she brings in other customers--whether free or paying--and the ripple effect of those customers. The model helped an online auction house make several critical decisions. The business made its money on fees charged to sellers but recognized that its free customers--its buyers--were valuable, too. As competition heated up, the company worried that it wasn't wooing enough buyers. Using the model, the business discovered that the network effects of buyers were indeed large and that those customers were worth over $1,000 each--much more than had been assumed. Armed with that information, the firm increased its research on buyers, invested more in targeting them with ads, and improved their experience. The model also helped the company identify the effects of various pricing strategies on sellers, showing that they became less price-sensitive over time. As a result, the company raised the fees it charged them as well.

A customer oriented systematic framework to extract business strategy in Indian electricity services

Science.gov (United States)

Satapathy, Suchismita; Mishra, Pravudatta

2013-11-01

Competition in the electric service industry is highlighting the importance of a number of issues affecting the nature and quality of customer service. The quality of service(s) provided to electricity customers may be enhanced by competition, if doing so offers service suppliers a competitive advantage. On the other hand, service quality offered to some consumers could decline if utilities focus their attention on those customers most likely to exercise choice, while reducing effort and investment to serve customers less likely to choose alternatives. Service quality is defined as the way in which the utility interacts with and responds to the needs of its customers. To achieve maximum consumer satisfaction in electricity service, This paper has designed a framework by QFD by measuring service quality of electricity utility sector in ANN and also find interrelationship between these design requirements by ISM.

Improving customer churn models as one of customer relationship management business solutions for the telecommunication industry

OpenAIRE

Slavescu, Ecaterina; Panait, Iulian

2012-01-01

Nowadays, when companies are dealing with severe global competition, they are making serious investments in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies. One of the cornerstones in CRM is customer churn prediction, the practice of determining a mathematical relation between customer characteristics and the likelihood to end the business contract with the company. This paper focuses on how to better support marketing decision makers in identifying risky customers in telecom industry by us...

Trends in Utility Green Pricing Programs (2004)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, L.; Brown, E.

2005-10-01

In the early 1990s, only a handful of utilities offered their customers a choice of purchasing electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Today, nearly 600 utilities in regulated electricity markets--or almost 20% of all utilities nationally--provide their customers a "green power" option. Because some utilities offer programs in conjunction with cooperative associations or other publicly owned power entities, the number of distinct programs totals about 125. Through these programs, more than 40 million customers spanning 34 states have the ability to purchase renewable energy to meet some portion or all of their electricity needs--or make contributions to support the development of renewable energy resources. Typically, customers pay a premium above standard electricity rates for this service. This report presents year-end 2004 data on utility green pricing programs, and examines trends in consumer response and program implementation over time. The data in this report, which were obtained via a questionnaire distributed to utility green pricing program managers, can be used by utilities as benchmarks by which to gauge the success of their green power programs.

Customer Satisfaction and Switching Cost Toward Trust in the Brand and Customer Retention of Simpati in Jember

OpenAIRE

Mohamad Dimyati

2015-01-01

The aim of this research was to examine the effects of customer satisfaction towards trust in the brand, switching cost towards trust in the brand, customer satisfaction towards customer retention, switching cost towards customer retention and trust in the brand towards customer retention. A total sample of 120 respondents living in the town of Jember was collected through purposive sampling technique. The model analysis applied was Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The resul...

Trends in Utility Green Pricing Programs (2006)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, Lori [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Kaiser, Marshall [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2007-10-01

In the early 1990s, only a handful of utilities offered their customers a choice of purchasing electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Today, more than 750 utilities—or about 25% of all utilities nationally—provide their customers a “green power” option. Through these programs, more than 70 million customers have the ability to purchase renewable energy to meet some portion or all of their electricity needs—or make contributions to support the development of renewable energy resources. Typically, customers pay a premium above standard electricity rates for this service. This report presents year-end 2006 data on utility green pricing programs, and examines trends in consumer response and program implementation over time. The data in this report, which were obtained via a questionnaire distributed to utility green pricing program managers, can be used by utilities to benchmark the success of their green power programs.

Assured clean power enhances customer service

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Angell, D.; Venosdel, K.; Padaca, V.

1998-01-01

Steps taken by Idaho Power Co. (IPCO) in Boise, Idaho, to increase efficiency and reduce costs by installing more distribution automation capabilities were outlined. The utility monitors the quality and reliability of power supplied to hi-tech industrial customers through state-of-the-art, client-server software linked to digital meters. The digital metering was integrated into the company's existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and energy management systems (EMS). IPCO's territory covers about 51,800 sq km throughout southern Idaho, eastern Oregon and northern Nevada and consists of 79 towns and a dispersed population of 700,000. Many of the customers are farmers. Seventeen hydro and three coal-fired plants supply the diverse customer population with power through 234 substations. Box and mobile substations are used to reach the company's dispersed customer base. The digital power meters (3710 ACM) from Power Measurements Ltd. of Victoria, British Columbia, were installed about six years ago. They are used to analyze collected data and to prevent the utility from overloading its equipment and risking customer power outages. The data is also used to help farmers increase the efficiency of their water pumps. The meter is programmable, allowing IPCO to choose the information it wants to monitor, including harmonics-created problems in its distribution system. The new meters also eliminate the need for extra transducers to collect voltage, current, watts and VAR information. 2 figs

Business model innovation for Local Energy Management: a perspective from Swiss utilities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emanuele Facchinetti

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The successful deployment of the energy transition relies on a deep reorganization of the energy market. Business model innovation is recognized as a key driver of this process. This work contributes to this topic by providing to potential Local Energy Management stakeholders and policy makers a conceptual framework guiding the Local Energy Management business model innovation. The main determinants characterizing Local Energy Management concepts and impacting its business model innovation are identified through literature reviews on distributed generation typologies and customer/investor preferences related to new business opportunities emerging with the energy transition. Afterwards, the relation between the identified determinants and the Local Energy Management business model solution space is analyzed based on semi-structured interviews with managers of Swiss utilities companies. The collected managers’ preferences serve as explorative indicators supporting the business model innovation process and provide insights to policy makers on challenges and opportunities related to Local Energy Management.

Analytics for Customer Engagement

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bijmolt, Tammo H. A.; Leeflang, Peter S. H.; Block, Frank; Eisenbeiss, Maik; Hardie, Bruce G. S.; Lemmens, Aurelie; Saffert, Peter

In this article, we discuss the state of the art of models for customer engagement and the problems that are inherent to calibrating and implementing these models. The authors first provide an overview of the data available for customer analytics and discuss recent developments. Next, the authors

Customer Ranking Model for Project Businesses: A Case Study from the Automotive Industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernd Markus Zunk

2014-03-01

Full Text Available For technology-orientated enterprises that operate project-based businesses, the goal-oriented allocation of scarce marketing resources has great potential to help consolidate their competitive position. An important precondition for goal-oriented management is the identification of the most valuable customers. This enables technology-orientated enterprises to segment markets in order to make tactical marketing decisions. This theorybased paper aims to develop and test a holistic customer ranking model. By deploying the five steps presented in this paper, customer relationship managers are better able to identify and to rank their customers in project-based businesses. A case study provides an example of the application of the method from the automotive industry in Austria. The experiences derived from this case study show that using a customer ranking framework is a crucial factor for enterprises in narrow technology markets to be successful and to achieve their corporate goals.

Customer portfolios

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clarke, Ann Højbjerg; Freytag, Per Vagn; Zolkiewski, Judith

2017-01-01

gives managers a tool to help to cope with the dynamic aspects of the customer portfolio. Recognition of the importance of communication to the process, the development of trust and the role of legitimacy also provides areas that managers can focus upon in their relationship management processes......Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the discussion about customer portfolios beyond simple identification of models and how they can be used for balanced resource allocation to a discussion about how portfolios should take into account views from relationship partners and how they should...... that helps improve the understanding of how customer portfolio models can actually be applied from a relational perspective. Findings The key aspects of the conceptual framework relate to how alignment of the relationships in the portfolio is achieved. Critical to this are the interaction spaces...

Employee customer orientation in manufacturing organizations: joint influences of customer proximity and the senior leadership team.

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Hui; Subramony, Mahesh

2008-03-01

Pursuing a customer-focused strategy in manufacturing organizations requires employees across functions to embrace the importance of understanding customer needs and to align their everyday efforts with the goal of satisfying and retaining customers. Little prior research has examined what factors influence employee customer orientation in manufacturing settings. Drawing on the attraction-selection-attrition model, upper-echelons theory, and contingency theories of leadership, this study investigated the joint influences of functional roles' proximity to external customers and the senior leadership team's customer orientation on employee customer orientation. Hierarchical linear modeling results based on data obtained from 4,299 employees and 403 senior leaders from 42 facilities of a global manufacturer operating in 16 countries revealed that employees occupying customer-contact roles had the highest level of customer orientation, followed by employees occupying production roles, and then by those in support roles. In addition, there was a positive relationship between the senior leadership team's customer orientation and employee customer orientation for all 3 functional roles. The positive relationship between the senior leadership team and employee customer orientation was the strongest for employees in support roles, suggesting that lower levels of proximity to external customers may create a greater need for leadership in developing employees' customer-oriented attitudes. Copyright 2008 APA

Developing a Customer Relationship Management Model for Better Health Examination Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lyu Jr-Jung

2014-11-01

Full Text Available People emphasize on their own health and wish to know more about their conditions. Chronic diseases now take up to 50 percent of top 10 causes of death. As a result, the health-care industry has emerged and kept thriving. This work adopts a customer-oriented business model since most clients are proactive and spontaneous in taking the “distinguished” health examination programs. We adopt the soft system dynamics methodology (SSDM to develop and to evaluate the steps of introducing customer relationship management model into a case health examination organization. Quantitative results are also presented for a case physical examination center and to assess the improved efficiency. The case study shows that the procedures developed here could provide a better service.

B2C Mass Customization in the Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Visich, John K.; Gu, Qiannong; Khumawala, Basheer M.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this article is to describe an internet-based mass customization assignment in Operations Management/Supply Chain Management classes where students utilize the Web site of a company that offers a customized product. Students evaluate the user interface, judge the value proposition of the product they demonstrate, and discuss issues…

Regulator preferences and utility prices: evidence from natural gas distribution utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klein, C.C.; Sweeney, G.H.

1999-01-01

We investigate the determinants of regulators' relative weighting of the social welfare of customer groups and utilities using panel data on natural gas distribution utilities in the US state of Tennessee. In contrast to previous empirical work on cross-sections of electric utilities, our results are statistically robust and consistent with the interest group theory of regulation. Intervention in rate cases, settlement vs. litigation of cases, and prices of alternative energy sources, as well as the size characteristics of customer groups and the firm, are significant determinants of the elasticity-weighted price-cost margin (Ramsey number) for each group. (Copyright (c) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam. All rights reserved.)

A structural model of customer satisfaction and trust in vendors involved in mobile commerce

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suki, N.M.

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation of factors influencing customer satisfaction and trust in vendors involved in mobile commerce (m-commerce. The study sample consists of 200 respondents. Data were analyzed by employing structural equation modelling (SEM supported by AMOS 5.0 with maximum likelihood estimation in order to test the proposed hypotheses. The proposed model was empirically tested and results confirmed that users’ satisfaction with vendors in m-commerce was not significantly influenced by two antecedents of the vendor’s website quality: interactivity and customisation, and also two antecedents of mobile technology quality: usefulness and ease-of-use. Meanwhile, users’ trust towards the vendor in m-commerce is affected by users’ satisfaction with the vendor. Interestingly, vendor quality dimensions such as responsiveness and brand image influence customer satisfaction with vendors in m-commerce. Based on the findings, vendors in m-commerce should focus on the factors which generate more satisfaction and trust among customers. For vendors in general, the results can help them to better develop customer trust in m-commerce. Vendors of m-commerce can provide a more satisfying experience for customers.

General review of quality assurance system requirements. The utility or customer requirement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fowler, J.L.

1976-01-01

What are the customer's Quality Assurance requirements and how does he convey these to his contractor, or apply them to himself. Many documents have been prepared mostly by countries with high technology availability and it is significant to note that many of the documents, particularly those of the United States of America, were prepared for nuclear safety related plant, but the logic of these documents equally applied to heavy engineering projects that are cost effective, and this is the current thinking and practice within the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board). Some documents have legislative backing, others rely on contractual disciplines, but they all appear to repeat the same basic requirements, so why does one continue to write more documents. The basic problem is that customers have to satisfy differing national legislative, economic and commercial requirements and, like all discerning customers, wish to reserve the right to satisfy their own needs, which are very often highly specialized. The CEGB are aware of this problem and are actively co-operating with most of the national and international authorities who are leading in this field, with a view to obtaining compatibility of requirements, but now there still remains the problem of satisfying national custom and practice. (author)

Trends in Utility Green Pricing Programs (2005)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, Lori [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Brown, Elizabeth [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2006-10-01

In the early 1990s, only a handful of utilities offered their customers a choice of purchasing electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Today, more than 600 utilities—or about 20% of all utilities nationally—provide their customers a “green power” option. Because some utilities offer programs in conjunction with cooperative associations or other publicly owned power entities, the number of distinct programs totals more than 130. Through these programs, more than 50 million customers have the ability to purchase renewable energy to meet some portion or all of their electricity needs—or make contributions to support the development of renewable energy resources. Typically, customers pay a premium above standard electricity rates for this service. This report presents year-end 2005 data on utility green pricing programs, and examines trends in consumer response and program implementation over time. The data in this report, which were obtained via a questionnaire distributed to utility green pricing program managers, can be used by utilities to benchmark the success of their green power programs.

Are loyal customers profitable? : customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer profitability at the individual level

OpenAIRE

Helgesen, Øyvind

2000-01-01

Customer satisfaction is supposed to be positively related to profitability. This conception may be called “the paradigm of customer satisfaction”. Nevertheless, only a few studies have examined this fundamental relationship. Thus, evidence for this “much talked about relationship” is questioned. In this working paper the focus is on the individual customer with respect to the relationships between customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer profitability at the customer level. The f...

Charging Customers or Making Profit? Business Model Change in the Software Industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Margit Malmmose Peyton

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Advancements in technology, changing customer demands or new market entrants are often seen as a necessary condition to trigger the creation of new Business Models, or disruptive change in existing ones. Yet, the sufficient condition is often determined by pricing and how customers are willing to pay for the technology (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002. As a consequence, much research on Business Models has focused on innovation and technology management (Rajala et al., 2012; Zott et al., 2011, and software-specific frameworks for Business Models have emerged (Popp, 2011; Rajala et al., 2003; Rajala et al., 2004; Stahl, 2004. This paper attempts to illustrate Business Model change in the software industry. Design: Drawing on Rajala et al. (2003, this case study explores the (1 antecedents and (2 consequences of a Business Model-change in a logistics software company. The company decided to abolish their profitable fee-based licensing for an internet-based version of its core product and to offer it as freeware including unlimited service. Findings: Firstly, we illustrate how external developments in technology and customer demands (pricing, as well as the desire for a sustainable Business Model, have led to this drastic change. Secondly, we initially find that much of the company’s new Business Model is congruent with the company-focused framework of Rajala et al. (2003 [product strategy; distribution model, services and implementation; revenue logic]. Value: The existing frameworks for Business Models in the software industry cannot fully explain the disruptive change in the Business Model. Therefore, we suggest extending the framework by the element of ‘innovation’.

Accuracy of Implant Placement Utilizing Customized Patient Instrumentation in Total Knee Arthroplasty

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William D. Bugbee

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Customized patient instrumentation (CPI combines preoperative planning with customized cutting jigs to position and align implants during total knee arthroplasty (TKA. We compared postoperative implant alignment of patients undergoing surgery with CPI to traditional TKA instrumentation for accuracy of implant placement. Twenty-five consecutive TKAs using CPI were analyzed. Preoperative CT scans of the lower extremities were segmented using a computer program. Limb alignment and mechanical axis were computed. Virtual implantation of computer-aided design models was done. Postoperative coronal and sagittal view radiographs were obtained. Using 3D image-matching software, relative positions of femoral and tibial implants were determined. Twenty-five TKAs implanted using traditional instrumentation were also analyzed. For CPI, difference in alignment from the preoperative plan was calculated. In the CPI group, the mean absolute difference between the planned and actual femoral placements was 0.67° in the coronal plane and 1.2° in the sagittal plane. For tibial alignment, the mean absolute difference was 0.9° in the coronal plane and 1.3° in the sagittal plane. For traditional instrumentation, difference from ideal placement for the femur was 1.5° in the coronal plane and 2.3° in the sagittal plane. For the tibia, the difference was 1.8° in the coronal plane. CPI achieved accurate implant positioning and was superior to traditional TKA instrumentation.

A wholesale customer's view of retail access

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andrews, D.

1998-01-01

The commitment of ENMAX (the city of Calgary's electric system) to facilitate and enable efficient and economic improvements in the electric power industry was discussed. The utility encourages small load centre generation and the reduction of emissions by improved efficiency and trading. They recognize that customers are the major force for change. The first set of issues that must be resolved include: (1) defining regulatory powers of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, (2) assuring exclusivity of wires within municipalities, (3) verifying credit worthiness of energy service providers (ESPs), (4) customer ESP switching, (5) resolving stranded assets, such as meters, and (6) stable rate option obligation risks for the utilities. Some other issues awaiting resolution include: (1) unbundling cost allocation, (2) disconnects, reconnects and new connects, (3) billing duplications, and (4) real time metering versus load profiling. 1 fig

Lessons Learned: A review of utility experience with conservation and load management programs for commercial and industrial customers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nadel, S.

1990-10-01

This report examines utility experience with conservation and load management (C LM) programs of commercial and industrial (C I) customers in order to summarize the lessons learned from program experiences to date and what these teach us about how to operate successful programs in the future. This analysis was motivated by a desire to learn about programs which achieve high participation rates and high electricity savings while remaining cost effective. Also, we wanted to review the very latest experiences with innovative program approaches -- approaches that might prove useful to utilities as they scale up their C LM activities. Specific objectives of this phase of the study are threefold: (1) To disseminate information on utility C LM experience to a nationwide audience. (2) To review current New York State utility programs and make suggestions on how these programs can be improved. (3) To collect data for the final phase of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy/New York State Energy Research and Development Authority project, which will examine the savings that are achievable if C LM programs are pushed to the limit'' of current knowledge on how to structure and run cost-effective C LM programs. 19 tabs.

The Student-Customer Orientation Questionnaire (SCOQ): Application of Customer Metaphor to Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Koris, Riina; Nokelainen, Petri

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study Bayesian dependency modelling (BDM) to validate the model of educational experiences and the student-customer orientation questionnaire (SCOQ), and to identify the categories of educatonal experience in which students expect a higher educational institutions (HEI) to be student-customer oriented.…

Loss-Averse Retailer’s Optimal Ordering Policies for Perishable Products with Customer Returns

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xu Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate the loss-averse retailer’s ordering policies for perishable product with customer returns. With the introduction of the segmental loss utility function, we depict the retailer’s loss aversion decision bias and establish the loss-averse retailer’s ordering policy model. We derive that the loss-averse retailer’s optimal order quantity with customer returns exists and is unique. By comparison, we obtain that both the risk-neutral and the loss-averse retailer’s optimal order quantities depend on the inventory holding cost and the marginal shortage cost. Through the sensitivity analysis, we also discuss the effect of loss-averse coefficient and the ratio of return on the loss-averse retailer’s optimal order quantity with customer returns.

The Relationship between Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty: An Investigation in Vietnamese Retail Banking Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ngo Vu Minh

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This study develops and empirically tests the interrelationships between service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in a retail banking context. Increasingly intense competitiveness and fundamental changes in the business environment nowadays are forcing firms to implement a customer-focused strategy which raises the importance of customer-related constructs such as customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer loyalty in explaining a firm’s performance. In particular, they are essential for competitiveness in industries where the exchanges are complex and customers are closely involved in the decision-making process, such as the banking industry. In this study, first, a research model about the interrelationships between service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty is suggested. Then a survey is conducted with retail banking customers about these constructs, which results in 261 valid respondents. The hypotheses are then proposed and tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA and the structural equation modelling technique (SME. The analysis reveals that service quality and customer satisfaction are important antecedents of customer loyalty and customer satisfaction mediates the effects of service quality on customer loyalty. These findings suggest that there are non-linear relationships between three constructs and emphasize the need to treat customer loyalty management as a process which includes plenty of factors interacting with each other.

Perceived quality, perceived risk and customer trust affecting customer loyalty of environmentally friendly electronics products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lalinthorn Marakanon

2017-01-01

Full Text Available At present, industrial business competition causes producers to be aware of quality, price, and variety in developing new products to meet the consumers' needs. This research reviewed the literature on green marketing and proposes a new conceptual framework of customer loyalty. It uses four constructs—perceived quality, perceived risk, customer trust, and customer loyalty—in the context of environmentally friendly electronics products in Thailand. This research employed an empirical study using the questionnaire survey method to verify the hypotheses. Data were obtained from 420 consumers who bought and used environmentally friendly electronic products, particularly mobile phones, computers, and laptops using a purposive sampling method. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA and structural equation modeling (SEM. The results showed that perceived risk and customer trust had a direct effect on customer loyalty while perceived quality had an indirect effect on customer loyalty via customer trust. Furthermore, perceived quality had direct effects on perceived risk and customer trust. The results from the final SEM model were used to confirm the proposed relationships among the variables.

Customer attractiveness, supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status : a review and a cycle model

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schiele, Holger; Veldman, Jasper; Hüttinger, L.

2012-01-01

In this paper, we introduce the concept of preferred customer status, i.e. a buyer is awarded preferential treatment of its important suppliers compared to their other customers. As there is a lack of knowledge of what motivates suppliers to serve selected buyers better than others, our research

A modified dynamic evolving neural-fuzzy approach to modeling customer satisfaction for affective design.

Science.gov (United States)

Kwong, C K; Fung, K Y; Jiang, Huimin; Chan, K Y; Siu, Kin Wai Michael

2013-01-01

Affective design is an important aspect of product development to achieve a competitive edge in the marketplace. A neural-fuzzy network approach has been attempted recently to model customer satisfaction for affective design and it has been proved to be an effective one to deal with the fuzziness and non-linearity of the modeling as well as generate explicit customer satisfaction models. However, such an approach to modeling customer satisfaction has two limitations. First, it is not suitable for the modeling problems which involve a large number of inputs. Second, it cannot adapt to new data sets, given that its structure is fixed once it has been developed. In this paper, a modified dynamic evolving neural-fuzzy approach is proposed to address the above mentioned limitations. A case study on the affective design of mobile phones was conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. Validation tests were conducted and the test results indicated that: (1) the conventional Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) failed to run due to a large number of inputs; (2) the proposed dynamic neural-fuzzy model outperforms the subtractive clustering-based ANFIS model and fuzzy c-means clustering-based ANFIS model in terms of their modeling accuracy and computational effort.

A Modified Dynamic Evolving Neural-Fuzzy Approach to Modeling Customer Satisfaction for Affective Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. K. Kwong

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Affective design is an important aspect of product development to achieve a competitive edge in the marketplace. A neural-fuzzy network approach has been attempted recently to model customer satisfaction for affective design and it has been proved to be an effective one to deal with the fuzziness and non-linearity of the modeling as well as generate explicit customer satisfaction models. However, such an approach to modeling customer satisfaction has two limitations. First, it is not suitable for the modeling problems which involve a large number of inputs. Second, it cannot adapt to new data sets, given that its structure is fixed once it has been developed. In this paper, a modified dynamic evolving neural-fuzzy approach is proposed to address the above mentioned limitations. A case study on the affective design of mobile phones was conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. Validation tests were conducted and the test results indicated that: (1 the conventional Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS failed to run due to a large number of inputs; (2 the proposed dynamic neural-fuzzy model outperforms the subtractive clustering-based ANFIS model and fuzzy c-means clustering-based ANFIS model in terms of their modeling accuracy and computational effort.

How integrated resource planning for US electric utilities affects shareholder interests

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hadley, S.; Hirst, E.

1995-01-01

Integrated resource planning (IRP) seeks to identify the mix of resources that can best meet the future energy-service needs of customers. These resources include new sources, types, and owners of power plants plus demand-side management (DSM) programs. However, little explicit attention is given to utility shareholders in the typical resource-planning proceeding. Because of the complexity of state regulatory practices and tax policies, it seems unlikely that different resources that provide comparable services to customers will yield comparable returns to shareholders. This study examines a typical US investor-owned utility's financial operations and performance using a spreadsheet model we developed for this project. The model simulates an electric utility's financial operations, and produces an annual income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement. We calculated the net present value of realized (cash) return on equity as the primary factor used to represent shareholder interests. We examined shareholder returns for these resources as functions of public utility commission regulation, taxes, and the utility's operating environment. Given the increasingly competitive nature of electricity markets, we examined shareholder returns for these resources in an environment where the utility competes with other suppliers solely on the basis of electricity price. (author)

Competitive Effects of Mass Customization

OpenAIRE

Oksana Loginova

2010-01-01

Earlier theoretical literature on mass customization maintains that customization reduces product differentiation and intensifies price competition. In contrast, operations management studies argue that customization serves primarily to differentiate a company from its competitors. Interactive involvement of the customer in product design creates an affective relationship with the firm, relaxing price competition. This paper provides a model that incorporates consumer involvement to explain t...

The Analysis And Design Of Customer Relationship Management Model At STMIK STIKOM BALI

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ni Wayan Deriani

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The advantages of an organization can be seen from the organization's ability to compete in the business world today is increasingly more competition. The competition should be used as well as possible in order to retain customers by providing the best service. one way to provide the best service is the provision of means in the form of comprehensive information systems and integrated. CRM is an integrated system that is useful for both of the organization and of course for the customer. In this research, design analysis model of CRM approach from the perspective Planner and owner of Zachman framework. Design analysis using DFD, ERD and conceptual database. The expected outcome of this research is a form of planning the Customer Relationship Management system model as a reference for the managers in the development of an integrated system in the future.

Optimal Electric Vehicle Scheduling: A Co-Optimized System and Customer Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Maigha

Electric vehicles provide a two pronged solution to the problems faced by the electricity and transportation sectors. They provide a green, highly efficient alternative to the internal combustion engine vehicles, thus reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Secondly, they bear the potential of supporting the grid as energy storage devices while incentivising the customers through their participation in energy markets. Despite these advantages, widespread adoption of electric vehicles faces socio-technical and economic bottleneck. This dissertation seeks to provide solutions that balance system and customer objectives under present technological capabilities. The research uses electric vehicles as controllable loads and resources. The idea is to provide the customers with required tools to make an informed decision while considering the system conditions. First, a genetic algorithm based optimal charging strategy to reduce the impact of aggregated electric vehicle load has been presented. A Monte Carlo based solution strategy studies change in the solution under different objective functions. This day-ahead scheduling is then extended to real-time coordination using a moving-horizon approach. Further, battery degradation costs have been explored with vehicle-to-grid implementations, thus accounting for customer net-revenue and vehicle utility for grid support. A Pareto front, thus obtained, provides the nexus between customer and system desired operating points. Finally, we propose a transactive business model for a smart airport parking facility. This model identifies various revenue streams and satisfaction indices that benefit the parking lot owner and the customer, thus adding value to the electric vehicle.

Customer service model for waste tracking at Los Alamos National Laboratory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dorries, Alison M.; Montoya, Andrew J.; Ashbaugh, Andrew E.

2010-01-01

The deployment of any new software system in a production facility will always face multiple hurtles in reaching a successful acceptance. However, a new waste tracking system was required at the plutonium processing facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) where waste processing must be integrated to handle Special Nuclear Materials tracking requirements. Waste tracking systems can enhance the processing of waste in production facilities when the system is developed with a focus on customer service throughout the project life cycle. In March 2010 Los Alamos National Laboratory Waste Technical Services (WTS) replaced the aging systems and infrastructure that were being used to support the plutonium processing facility. The Waste Technical Services (WTS) Waste Compliance and Tracking System (WCATS) Project Team, using the following customer service model, succeeded in its goal to meet all operational and regulatory requirements, making waste processing in the facility more efficient while partnering with the customer.

Customer relationship management implementation in the small and medium enterprise

Science.gov (United States)

Nugroho, Agus; Suharmanto, Agus; Masugino

2018-03-01

To win the global competition and sustain the business, small and medium enterprise shall implement a reliable information technology application to support their customer data base, production and sales as well as marketing management. This paper addresses the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in small and medium enterprise, CV. Densuko Jaya. It is a small and medium enterprises in Semarang, Central Java, Republic of Indonesia deal with rubber processing industry supply chain. ADDIE model utilized in study to setup the CRM functionality at these enterprises. The aim of the authors is to present the benefits resulting from the application of CRM technologies at these enterprises to solve their chronicle issues in the field of integrated customer data base, production management process and sales automation in order to boost their business in the near future. Training and coaching have been delivered to the enterprises staffs and management to ensure that they can execute the system.

Utility of Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) For The Rapid Manufacture of Customized Electric Vehicles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Love, Lonnie J [ORNL

2015-08-01

This Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Manufacturing Development Facility (MDF) technical collaboration project was conducted in two phases as a CRADA with Local Motors Inc. Phase 1 was previously reported as Advanced Manufacturing of Complex Cyber Mechanical Devices through Community Engagement and Micro-manufacturing and demonstrated the integration of components onto a prototype body part for a vehicle. Phase 2 was reported as Utility of Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) for the Rapid Manufacture of Customized Electric Vehicles and demonstrated the high profile live printing of an all-electric vehicle using ONRL s Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) technology. This demonstration generated considerable national attention and successfully demonstrated the capabilities of the BAAM system as developed by ORNL and Cincinnati, Inc. and the feasibility of additive manufacturing of a full scale electric vehicle as envisioned by the CRADA partner Local Motors, Inc.

Evaluation of higher distribution and/or utilization voltages. Final report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hazelrigg, Jr, George A.

1981-01-01

An electric energy distribution/utilization system cost analysis model is presented for exploring cost tradeoffs (capital innvestment, operation and maintenance and cost of losses) and optimizing system configuration. The model focuses on the treatment of residential and light commercial service areas with time-varying load characteristics, including customer load profile changes, per customer load growth and service area population growth. Applications of the model are discussed. These include providing insight on: the selection of primary and secondary voltages; conductor sizing; distribution transformer sizing, change out policies and copper-to-core-loss ratio; and limits on allowable voltage variation at the service entrance. Examples are provided to illustrate model capabilities.

Turn customer input into innovation.

Science.gov (United States)

Ulwick, Anthony W

2002-01-01

It's difficult to find a company these days that doesn't strive to be customer-driven. Too bad, then, that most companies go about the process of listening to customers all wrong--so wrong, in fact, that they undermine innovation and, ultimately, the bottom line. What usually happens is this: Companies ask their customers what they want. Customers offer solutions in the form of products or services. Companies then deliver these tangibles, and customers just don't buy. The reason is simple--customers aren't expert or informed enough to come up with solutions. That's what your R&D team is for. Rather, customers should be asked only for outcomes--what they want a new product or service to do for them. The form the solutions take should be up to you, and you alone. Using Cordis Corporation as an example, this article describes, in fine detail, a series of effective steps for capturing, analyzing, and utilizing customer input. First come indepth interviews, in which a moderator works with customers to deconstruct a process or activity in order to unearth "desired outcomes." Addressing participants' comments one at a time, the moderator rephrases them to be both unambiguous and measurable. Once the interviews are complete, researchers then compile a comprehensive list of outcomes that participants rank in order of importance and degree to which they are satisfied by existing products. Finally, using a simple mathematical formula called the "opportunity calculation," researchers can learn the relative attractiveness of key opportunity areas. These data can be used to uncover opportunities for product development, to properly segment markets, and to conduct competitive analysis.

Proceedings: Meeting customer needs with heat pumps, 1991

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-12-01

Electric heat pumps provide a growing number of residential and commercial customers with space heating and cooling as well as humidity control and water heating. Industrial customers use heat pump technology for energy-efficient, economical process heating and cooling. Heat pumps help utilities meet environmental protection needs and satisfy their load-shape objectives. The 1991 conference was held in Dallas on October 15--18, featuring 60 speakers representing electric utilities, consulting organizations, sponsoring organizations, and heat pump manufacturers. The speakers presented the latest information about heat pump markets, technologies, applications, trade ally programs, and relevant issues. Participants engaged in detailed discussions in ''breakout'' and parallel sessions and viewed more than 30 exhibits of heat pumps, software, and other products and services supporting heat pump installations and service. Electric utilities have the greatest vested interest in the sale of electric heat pumps and thus have responsibility to ensure quality installations through well-trained technicians, authoritative and accurate technical information, and wellinformed design professionals. The electric heat pump is an excellent tool for the electric utility industry's response to environmental and efficiency challenges as well as to competition from other fuel sources. Manufacturers are continually introducing new products and making research results available to meet these challenges. Industrial process heat pumps offer customers the ability to supply heat to process at a lower cost than heat supplied by primary-fuel-fired boilers. From the utility perspective these heat pumps offer an opportunity for a new electric year-round application

A field study using an adaptive in-house pricing model for commercial and industrial customers in Korea

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Min-Jeong

2017-01-01

Demand response programs provide customers with economic incentives for load reductions at times of high market prices and system reliability constraints. One type of demand response programs, price-based program, induces customers to respond to changes in product rates. However, some large-scale customers find it difficult to change their electricity consumption patterns, even with rate changes, because their electricity demands are commercial and industrial. This study proposes an adaptive in-house pricing model for large-scale customers, particularly those with multiple business facilities, for self-regulating price-based program. The adaptive in-house pricing model charges higher rates to customers with lower load factors by employing a peak-to-off-peak usage ratio in order to reduce usage at times of high prices at each facility. This study analyzes the daily electricity consumption patterns of large-scale customers through a field trial of the proposed pricing model at a telecom company with 447 offices and worksites for one month. The results show that the pricing model corresponds to average reductions of 3.54–28.69% during peak-demand times for four different types of workplaces. However, reductions in electricity consumption during off-peak periods did not show a significant difference. The results of this study prove that this proposed pricing model can be successfully applied to large-scale operations. - Highlights: • The pricing model induces reductions in energy consumption during peak-demand times. • The greatest decrease occurs in commercial buildings with higher POR. • Data centers with flat loads for necessities can do little to reduce usage.

A model-Driven Approach to Customize the Vocabulary of Communication Boards: Towards More Humanization of Health Care.

Science.gov (United States)

Franco, Natália M; Medeiros, Gabriel F; Silva, Edson A; Murta, Angela S; Machado, Aydano P; Fidalgo, Robson N

2015-01-01

This work presents a Modeling Language and its technological infrastructure to customize the vocabulary of Communication Boards (CB), which are important tools to provide more humanization of health care. Using a technological infrastructure based on Model-Driven Development (MDD) approach, our Modelin Language (ML) creates an abstraction layer between users (e.g., health professionals such as an audiologist or speech therapist) and application code. Moreover, the use of a metamodel enables a syntactic corrector for preventing creation of wrong models. Our ML and metamodel enable more autonomy for health professionals in creating customized CB because it abstracts complexities and permits them to deal only with the domain concepts (e.g., vocabulary and patient needs). Additionally, our infrastructure provides a configuration file that can be used to share and reuse models. This way, the vocabulary modelling effort will decrease our time since people share vocabulary models. Our study provides an infrastructure that aims to abstract the complexity of CB vocabulary customization, giving more autonomy to health professionals when they need customizing, sharing and reusing vocabularies for CB.

Study on the Development of Quality Measurements Models for Steering Business Services in Relation to Customer Satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katrin Marquardt

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The growing competition in the market, higher customer demands and globalisation forces the business service providers to improve their services much faster. Nowadays, it is not enough to provide good quality it is more important to delight the customers and to deliver more than they expect. Likewise, renowned research companies predicted that customer satisfaction will become the competitive differentiator within the next years. Thus, the main reasons of the present study are at first, establishing a common understanding on the term “quality” and presenting the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality. Secondly, the study summarizes the identified factors, which mostly influence the customer satisfaction, as well as the common methods used to measure service quality in relation to these factors. Thirdly, the authors introduce and explain the newly developed six step model for establishing an effective measurement method for service quality and the proposed three level service quality model with the related measurements and outcomes. Both models will assist business service providers to protect and improve their service quality and with that their customer satisfaction. The methodology used for this research is a systematic literature review focused on subjects of quality, customer satisfaction and best-practice metrics for service quality. In addition, surveys and studies from well-known research companies were evaluated. The outcome of the study is always focused on the business service area.

ServicePro. A comprehensive customer care tool for highly penetrated markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weiner, B.

1997-01-01

Contemporary marketing measures focus on recruiting new customers as a means of boosting sales. As the share of the market occupied by natural gas increases, the more probable it is that there will be dissatisfied customers who are prepared to switch to other energy sources. Systematic customer care measures are therefore a necessity ServicePro is a customer care concept that has been developed in response to this need. Its three modules are technical, contractual and general customer care. Practical local implementation is assisted by database software and a manual containing tools and examples. Customer care activities also strengthen customer relations and improve the gas utility's image. (au)

Customer-oriented innovations in the energy market - involving small and medium-sized commercial customers in product development; Kundenorientierte Innovationen im Energiemarkt - die Einbeziehung von Gewerbekunden in die Produktentwicklung

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Papesch, G. [Stadtwerke Augsburg (Germany); Holzhauer, B.; Lueers, T. [Prof. Homburg und Partner, Mannheim (Germany)

2007-06-15

Boon or burden? Next to large industrial customers and private customers, small and medium-sized commercial customers are an important customer group for power supply companies. Being too small for a separate contract they are usually grouped together with private customers in a single customer group. However, this manner of business fails to do justice to the special needs and the potential of small and medium-sized commercial customers. Qualitative market research methods can give valuable impulses in attempts to develop innovative approaches that are more appropriate to the specific needs and requirements of small and medium-sized commercial customers, as the example set by Augsburg utilities demonstrates.

Customer Loyalty and Customer Relationship Management

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Pengwei; Li, Min; Jiao, Xiaojing; Zhou, Ruijin

The contemporary company attaches great importance to marketing relationship and customer relations is the core of this relationship. Further, customer satisfaction and loyalty is the core of the customer relationship management. Sometimes, high customer satisfaction causes low profit because enterprises do not realize that strengthening the loyalty of the aimed customer is the key of customer relationship management.

Rabbit Calvarial Defect Model for Customized 3D-Printed Bone Grafts.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Kang-Gon; Lee, Kang-Sik; Kang, Yu-Jeoung; Hwang, Jong-Hyun; Lee, Se-Hwan; Park, Sang-Hyug; Park, Yongdoo; Cho, Young-Sam; Lee, Bu-Kyu

2018-05-01

Bone graft materials are commonly used to regenerate various bone defects, but their application is often limited because of the complex defect shape in various clinical conditions. Hence, customized bone grafts using three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques have been developed. However, conventional simple bone defect models are limited for evaluating the benefits and manufacturing accuracy of 3D-printed customized bone grafts. Thus, the aim of the present study was to develop a complex-shaped bone defect model. We designed an 8-shaped bony defect that consists of two simple circles attached to the rabbit calvarium. To determine the critical-sized defect (CSD) of the 8-shaped defects, 5.6- and 7-mm-diameter trephine burs were tested, and the 7-mm-diameter bur could successfully create a CSD, which was easily reproducible on the rabbit calvarium. The rate of new bone formation was 28.65% ± 8.63% at 16 weeks following creation of the defect. To confirm its efficacy for clinical use, the 8-shaped defect was created on a rabbit calvarium and 3D computed tomography (CT) was performed. A stereolithography file was produced using the CT data, and a 3D-printed polycaprolactone graft was fabricated. Using our 8-shaped defect model, we were able to modify the tolerances of the bone graft and calvarial defect to fabricate a more precise bone graft. Customized characteristics of the bone graft were then used to improve the accuracy of the bone graft. In addition, we confirmed the fitting ability of the 3D-printed graft during implantation of the graft. Our 8-shaped defect model on the rabbit calvarium using a 7.0-mm trephine bur may be a useful CSD model for evaluating 3D-printed graft materials.

The Program Administrator Cost of Saved Energy for Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Billingsley, Megan A.; Hoffman, Ian M.; Stuart, Elizabeth; Schiller, Steven R.; Goldman, Charles A.; LaCommare, Kristina

2014-03-19

End-use energy efficiency is increasingly being relied upon as a resource for meeting electricity and natural gas utility system needs within the United States. There is a direct connection between the maturation of energy efficiency as a resource and the need for consistent, high-quality data and reporting of efficiency program costs and impacts. To support this effort, LBNL initiated the Cost of Saved Energy Project (CSE Project) and created a Demand-Side Management (DSM) Program Impacts Database to provide a resource for policy makers, regulators, and the efficiency industry as a whole. This study is the first technical report of the LBNL CSE Project and provides an overview of the project scope, approach, and initial findings, including: • Providing a proof of concept that the program-level cost and savings data can be collected, organized, and analyzed in a systematic fashion; • Presenting initial program, sector, and portfolio level results for the program administrator CSE for a recent time period (2009-2011); and • Encouraging state and regional entities to establish common reporting definitions and formats that would make the collection and comparison of CSE data more reliable. The LBNL DSM Program Impacts Database includes the program results reported to state regulators by more than 100 program administrators in 31 states, primarily for the years 2009–2011. In total, we have compiled cost and energy savings data on more than 1,700 programs over one or more program-years for a total of more than 4,000 program-years’ worth of data, providing a rich dataset for analyses. We use the information to report costs-per-unit of electricity and natural gas savings for utility customer-funded, end-use energy efficiency programs. The program administrator CSE values are presented at national, state, and regional levels by market sector (e.g., commercial, industrial, residential) and by program type (e.g., residential whole home programs, commercial new

Matching Value Propositions with Varied Customer Needs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Heikka, Eija-Liisa; Frandsen, Thomas; Hsuan, Juliana

2018-01-01

Organizations seek to manage varied customer segments using varied value propositions. The ability of a knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) provider to formulate value propositions into attractive offerings to varied customers becomes a competitive advantage. In this specific business based...... on often highly abstract service offerings, this requires the provider to have a clear overview of its knowledge and resources and how these can be configured to obtain the desired customization of services. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how a KIBS provider can match value propositions...... with varied customer needs utilizing service modularity. To accomplish this purpose, a qualitative multiple case study is organized around 5 projects allowing within-case and cross-case comparisons. Our findings describe how through the configuration of knowledge and resources a sustainable competitive...

Dealing with customers enquiries simultaneously under contingent situation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sujan Piya

2015-09-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a method to quote the due date and the price of incoming orders to multiple customers simultaneously when the contingent orders exist. The proposed method utilizes probabilistic information on contingent orders and incorporates some negotiation theories to generate quotations. Rather than improving the acceptance probability of quotation for single customer, the method improves the overall acceptance probability of quotations being submitted to the multiple customers. This helps increase the total expected contribution of company and acceptance probability of entire new orders rather than increasing these measures only for a single customer. Numerical analysis is conducted to demonstrate the working mechanism of proposed method and its effectiveness in contrast to sequential method of quotation.

Managing service excellence. Internal customer service training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McAnulty, P.C.

1991-01-01

WHO ARE OUR CUSTOMERS? Electric Users, regulators, vendors, suppliers, or our own employees? The answer is ALL exclamation point They are all customers. Regardless if they are external or internal customers, one must focus on quality of service delivery in order to maintain customer satisfaction. The most successful companies are quickly realizing that managing SERVICE EX NCE is our only future. For the next decade, the issue of service quality will exceed the issue of productivity. It is very easy to see that the business behind a utility is serving our electric consumers. However, internal customer service - service excellence to employees inside a company is the foundation for success. This paper describes a training program that is being implemented across Duke Power for employees on internal customer service. How we provide service to each other within a company impacts service quality to our external customers. This training refocuses behaviors and perceptions so to concentrate on quality service delivery to our internal customers - our employees. We all have positive and negative experiences with obtaining quality service by either external organizations or internal employees. Therefore, we start with a common foundation. Whether it be a supplier, vendor, or a station administrative group, we have experienced either excellent or poor customer service. All of us have potential in managing the delivery of excellent customer service. However, many of us may need new perspectives so to add depth with which we view and manage service excellence to our internal customers

Dynamic Pricing Competition with Strategic Customers Under Vertical Product Differentiation

OpenAIRE

Qian Liu; Dan Zhang

2013-01-01

We consider dynamic pricing competition between two firms offering vertically differentiated products to strategic customers who are intertemporal utility maximizers. We show that price skimming arises as the unique pure-strategy Markov perfect equilibrium in the game under a simple condition. Our results highlight the asymmetric effect of strategic customer behavior on quality-differentiated firms. Even though the profit of either firm decreases as customers become more strategic, the low-qu...

Developing an Innovative Customer Relationship Management Model for Better Health Examination Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lyu JrJung

2014-11-01

Full Text Available People emphasize on their own health and wish to know more about their conditions. Chronic diseases now take up to 50 percent of top 10 causes of death. As a result, the health-care industry has emerged and kept thriving. This work adopts an innovative customer-oriented business model since most clients are proactive and spontaneous in taking the “distinguished” health examination programs. We adopt the soft system dynamics methodology (SSDM to develop and to evaluate the steps of introducing customer relationship management model into a case health examination organization. Quantitative results are also presented for a case physical examination center and to assess the improved efficiency. The case study shows that the procedures developed here could provide a better service.

Trade-off decisions in distribution utility management

Science.gov (United States)

Slavickas, Rimas Anthony

As a result of the "unbundling" of traditional monopolistic electricity generation and transmission enterprises into a free-market economy, power distribution utilities are faced with very difficult decisions pertaining to electricity supply options and quality of service to the customers. The management of distribution utilities has become increasingly complex, versatile, and dynamic to the extent that conventional, non-automated management tools are almost useless and obsolete. This thesis presents a novel and unified approach to managing electricity supply options and quality of service to customers. The technique formulates the problem in terms of variables, parameters, and constraints. An advanced Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) optimization formulation is developed together with novel, logical, decision-making algorithms. These tools enable the utility management to optimize various cost components and assess their time-trend impacts, taking into account the intangible issues such as customer perception, customer expectation, social pressures, and public response to service deterioration. The above concepts are further generalized and a Logical Proportion Analysis (LPA) methodology and associated software have been developed. Solutions using numbers are replaced with solutions using words (character strings) which more closely emulate the human decision-making process and advance the art of decision-making in the power utility environment. Using practical distribution utility operation data and customer surveys, the developments outlined in this thesis are successfully applied to several important utility management problems. These involve the evaluation of alternative electricity supply options, the impact of rate structures on utility business, and the decision of whether to continue to purchase from a main grid or generate locally (partially or totally) by building Non-Utility Generation (NUG).

Solving multi-customer FPR model with quality assurance and discontinuous deliveries using a two-phase algebraic approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Yuan-Shyi Peter; Chou, Chung-Li; Chang, Huei-Hsin; Chiu, Singa Wang

2016-01-01

A multi-customer finite production rate (FPR) model with quality assurance and discontinuous delivery policy was investigated in a recent paper (Chiu et al. in J Appl Res Technol 12(1):5-13, 2014) using differential calculus approach. This study employs mathematical modeling along with a two-phase algebraic method to resolve such a specific multi-customer FPR model. As a result, the optimal replenishment lot size and number of shipments can be derived without using the differential calculus. Such a straightforward method may assist practitioners who with insufficient knowledge of calculus in learning and managing the real multi-customer FPR systems more effectively.

A comparative Kano analysis on customer satisfaction based on customer and employment perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sakineh Noorinasab

2012-08-01

Full Text Available These days, there is a tight competition among business units and all production units or service businesses attempt to use different techniques to increase their market shares. In such environment, customer normally says the last word, in fact, customer plays an important role and in many organizations, it is considered as part of their assets. The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid method to detect important criteria using Kano three-dimensional method and prioritize them using analytical hierarchy process. We implement the proposed model of this paper for one of Iranian banks called Bank Melli Iran. The study determines 25 different attributes, categorizes them in three different groups based on Kano model, and ranks them in terms of customers and employees' perspective. The results of the survey indicate that customer and employees mostly have similar views since there are 21 common attributes between them. However, the priorities of these 21 items are often different in terms of two groups of employees and customers.

Developing custom fire behavior fuel models from ecologically complex fuel structures for upper Atlantic Coastal Plain forests.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parresol, Bernard, R.; Scott, Joe, H.; Andreu, Anne; Prichard, Susan; Kurth, Laurie

2012-01-01

Currently geospatial fire behavior analyses are performed with an array of fire behavior modeling systems such as FARSITE, FlamMap, and the Large Fire Simulation System. These systems currently require standard or customized surface fire behavior fuel models as inputs that are often assigned through remote sensing information. The ability to handle hundreds or thousands of measured surface fuelbeds representing the fine scale variation in fire behavior on the landscape is constrained in terms of creating compatible custom fire behavior fuel models. In this study, we demonstrate an objective method for taking ecologically complex fuelbeds from inventory observations and converting those into a set of custom fuel models that can be mapped to the original landscape. We use an original set of 629 fuel inventory plots measured on an 80,000 ha contiguous landscape in the upper Atlantic Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States. From models linking stand conditions to component fuel loads, we impute fuelbeds for over 6000 stands. These imputed fuelbeds were then converted to fire behavior parameters under extreme fuel moisture and wind conditions (97th percentile) using the fuel characteristic classification system (FCCS) to estimate surface fire rate of spread, surface fire flame length, shrub layer reaction intensity (heat load), non-woody layer reaction intensity, woody layer reaction intensity, and litter-lichen-moss layer reaction intensity. We performed hierarchical cluster analysis of the stands based on the values of the fire behavior parameters. The resulting 7 clusters were the basis for the development of 7 custom fire behavior fuel models from the cluster centroids that were calibrated against the FCCS point data for wind and fuel moisture. The latter process resulted in calibration against flame length as it was difficult to obtain a simultaneous calibration against both rate of spread and flame length. The clusters based on FCCS fire behavior

SERVICE QUALITY, CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY OF THE HOTEL INDUSTRY IN UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE): A MEASUREMENT MODEL

OpenAIRE

Hassan Abbas Dost Mohamad; Mohd Shukri Ab Yazid; Ali Khatibi; S. M. Ferdous Azam

2017-01-01

This study aimed at identifying the determining factors of service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards hotel industry in UAE. This study has investigated the different dimensions of service quality that impact customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in UAE hotels. For this research, primary data were used to identify the dimensions of service quality that impact customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The use of primary data enabled the researcher to measure all the di...

Some insights for a relationship marketing model integrating SERVQUAL and customer loyalty in dental clinics

OpenAIRE

Vargas Perez, Ana Maria; Grijalvo Martin, Maria Mercedes; Mercado Idoeta, Carmelo

2012-01-01

The demand of new services, the emergence of new business models, insufficient innovation, underestimation of customer loyalty and reluctance to adopt new management are evidence of the deficiencies and the lack of research about the relations between patients and dental clinics. In this article we propose the structure of a model of Relationship Marketing (RM) in the dental clinic that integrates information from SERVQUAL, Customer Loyalty (CL) and activities of RM and combines the vision of...

Modeling Substrate Utilization, Metabolite Production, and Uranium Immobilization in Shewanella oneidensis Biofilms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ryan S. Renslow

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In this study, we developed a two-dimensional mathematical model to predict substrate utilization and metabolite production rates in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 biofilm in the presence and absence of uranium (U. In our model, lactate and fumarate are used as the electron donor and the electron acceptor, respectively. The model includes the production of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS. The EPS bound to the cell surface and distributed in the biofilm were considered bound EPS (bEPS and loosely associated EPS (laEPS, respectively. COMSOL® Multiphysics finite element analysis software was used to solve the model numerically (model file provided in the Supplementary Material. The input variables of the model were the lactate, fumarate, cell, and EPS concentrations, half saturation constant for fumarate, and diffusion coefficients of the substrates and metabolites. To estimate unknown parameters and calibrate the model, we used a custom designed biofilm reactor placed inside a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR microimaging and spectroscopy system and measured substrate utilization and metabolite production rates. From these data we estimated the yield coefficients, maximum substrate utilization rate, half saturation constant for lactate, stoichiometric ratio of fumarate and acetate to lactate and stoichiometric ratio of succinate to fumarate. These parameters are critical to predicting the activity of biofilms and are not available in the literature. Lastly, the model was used to predict uranium immobilization in S. oneidensis MR-1 biofilms by considering reduction and adsorption processes in the cells and in the EPS. We found that the majority of immobilization was due to cells, and that EPS was less efficient at immobilizing U. Furthermore, most of the immobilization occurred within the top 10 μm of the biofilm. To the best of our knowledge, this research is one of the first biofilm immobilization mathematical models based on experimental

Utility-free heuristic models of two-option choice can mimic predictions of utility-stage models under many conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Piantadosi, Steven T.; Hayden, Benjamin Y.

2015-01-01

Economists often model choices as if decision-makers assign each option a scalar value variable, known as utility, and then select the option with the highest utility. It remains unclear whether as-if utility models describe real mental and neural steps in choice. Although choices alone cannot prove the existence of a utility stage, utility transformations are often taken to provide the most parsimonious or psychologically plausible explanation for choice data. Here, we show that it is possible to mathematically transform a large set of common utility-stage two-option choice models (specifically ones in which dimensions are can be decomposed into additive functions) into a heuristic model (specifically, a dimensional prioritization heuristic) that has no utility computation stage. We then show that under a range of plausible assumptions, both classes of model predict similar neural responses. These results highlight the difficulties in using neuroeconomic data to infer the existence of a value stage in choice. PMID:25914613

Utility-free heuristic models of two-option choice can mimic predictions of utility-stage models under many conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steven T Piantadosi

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Economists often model choices as if decision-makers assign each option a scalar value variable, known as utility, and then select the option with the highest utility. It remains unclear whether as-if utility models describe real mental and neural steps in choice. Although choices alone cannot prove the existence of a utility stage in choice, utility transformations are often taken to provide the most parsimonious or psychologically plausible explanation for choice data. Here, we show that it is possible to mathematically transform a large set of common utility-stage two-option choice models (specifically ones in which dimensions are linearly separable into a psychologically plausible heuristic model (specifically, a dimensional prioritization heuristic that has no utility computation stage. We then show that under a range of plausible assumptions, both classes of model predict similar neural responses. These results highlight the difficulties in using neuroeconomic data to infer the existence of a value stage in choice.

Customer Data Analysis Model using Business Intelligence Tools in Telecommunication Companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monica LIA

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This article presents a customer data analysis model in a telecommunication company and business intelligence tools for data modelling, transforming, data visualization and dynamic reports building . For a mature market, knowing the information inside the data and making forecast for strategic decision become more important in Romanian Market. Business Intelligence tools are used in business organization as support for decision making.

ICPP custom dissolver explosion recovery

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Demmer, R.; Hawk, R.

1992-01-01

This paper discusses the recovery from the February 9, 1991, small scale explosion in a custom processing dissolver at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (ICPP) a Department of Energy facility at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The custom processing facility is a limited production area designed to recover unirradiated uranium fuel. A small amount of the nuclear material received and stored at the ICPP is unique and incompatible with the major head end dissolution processes. Custom processing is a small scale dissolution facility for processing these materials in an economical fashion in the CPP-627 hot chemistry laboratory. Two glass dissolvers were contained in a large walk in hood area. Utilities for dissolution and connections to the major ICPP uranium separation facility were provided. The fuel processing operations during this campaign involved dissolving uranium metal, uranium oxides, and uranium/fissium alloy in nitric acid

Trends in Utility Green Pricing Programs (2003)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, L.; Cardinal, K.

2004-09-01

Utilities first began offering consumers a choice of purchasing electricity generated from renewable energy sources in the early 1990s. Since then, the number of U.S. utilities offering green pricing programs has steadily grown. Today, more than 500 utilities in regulated electricity markets--or about 16% of all utilities nationally--offer their customers green power options. Because some of these utilities offer programs in conjunction with cooperative associations or other public power entities, the number of distinct programs is slightly more than 100. Through these programs, more than 33 million customers spanning 34 states have the ability to purchase renewable energy to meet some portion or all of their electricity needs, or make contributions to support the development of renewable energy resources. Typically, customers must pay a premium above standard electricity rates for this service. This report presents year-end 2003 data on utility green pricing programs, and examines trends in consumer response and program implementation over time. The data provided in this report can be used by utilities as benchmarks by which to gauge the success of their green power programs.

ANTECEDENTS OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tuleu Daniela

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Customer relationship management, as a process to manage customer relationship initiation, maintenance and termination to maximize the value of the relationship portfolio, is an evolving process. In recent years, the development of interactive technologies (social media have revolutionized the interaction between firms and their customers and between customers. The impact of technology on CRM is improving ways of collecting and processing customer information and transforming communication with customers. In the context of the development of social networks, the introduction of social media applications in customer relationship management activities bring important changes in this area. Thus, managers need to pay attention to the interaction management as an important process of CRM and enhance the customer relationship management capabilities. The study propose a conceptual research model of several antecedents of customer relationship managements capabilities and provide the linkage between this antecedents and CRM capabilities. First, following review of existing research literature related to customer relationship management, there are some conceptual clarification on customer relationship management. Second, are presented the working concepts: the adoption of interactive technologies, customer concept, customer empowerment, customer relationship orientation and customer-centric management system. Then, it is proposed the conceptual model and finally are presented conclusions, managerial implications, limitations and research directions. From a theoretical perspective, this paper highlights the importance of marketing actions at the individual customer level and reveal the impact of adoption by companies of interactive technologies so that organizations have the opportunity to engage in conversations with customers and respond in real time the requirements that they launched the online environment. Nowadays, customers feel empowered and play

CUSTOMS POLICY, CUSTOMS BUSINESS, CUSTOMS REGULATION: TO PROBLEM OF CONCEPTION CORRELATIONS

OpenAIRE

A. D. Molokovich; K. N. Shabeka

2010-01-01

Theoretical and methodological comprehension of customs regulation place and role in provision of trade and transport activity under conditions of world integration processes is considered in the paper.The essence of such economic categories as «customs policy», «customs regulation», «customs and tariff regulation», «customs business» is ascertained with the help of justified argumentation, clear conception approaches.

Structural equation modelling of determinants of customer satisfaction of mobile network providers: Case of Kolkata, India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shibashish Chakraborty

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The Indian market of mobile network providers is growing rapidly. India is the second largest market of mobile network providers in the world and there is intense competition among existing players. In such a competitive market, customer satisfaction becomes a key issue. The objective of this paper is to develop a customer satisfaction model of mobile network providers in Kolkata. The results indicate that generic requirements (an aggregation of output quality and perceived value, flexibility, and price are the determinants of customer satisfaction. This study offers insights for mobile network providers to understand the determinants of customer satisfaction.

Retrieval of radiology reports citing critical findings with disease-specific customization.

Science.gov (United States)

Lacson, Ronilda; Sugarbaker, Nathanael; Prevedello, Luciano M; Ivan, Ip; Mar, Wendy; Andriole, Katherine P; Khorasani, Ramin

2012-01-01

Communication of critical results from diagnostic procedures between caregivers is a Joint Commission national patient safety goal. Evaluating critical result communication often requires manual analysis of voluminous data, especially when reviewing unstructured textual results of radiologic findings. Information retrieval (IR) tools can facilitate this process by enabling automated retrieval of radiology reports that cite critical imaging findings. However, IR tools that have been developed for one disease or imaging modality often need substantial reconfiguration before they can be utilized for another disease entity. THIS PAPER: 1) describes the process of customizing two Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval/Extraction applications - an open-source toolkit, A Nearly New Information Extraction system (ANNIE); and an application developed in-house, Information for Searching Content with an Ontology-Utilizing Toolkit (iSCOUT) - to illustrate the varying levels of customization required for different disease entities and; 2) evaluates each application's performance in identifying and retrieving radiology reports citing critical imaging findings for three distinct diseases, pulmonary nodule, pneumothorax, and pulmonary embolus. Both applications can be utilized for retrieval. iSCOUT and ANNIE had precision values between 0.90-0.98 and recall values between 0.79 and 0.94. ANNIE had consistently higher precision but required more customization. Understanding the customizations involved in utilizing NLP applications for various diseases will enable users to select the most suitable tool for specific tasks.

Customer Clustering Based on Customer Purchasing Sequence Data

OpenAIRE

Yen-Chung Liu; Yen-Liang Chen

2017-01-01

Customer clustering has become a priority for enterprises because of the importance of customer relationship management. Customer clustering can improve understanding of the composition and characteristics of customers, thereby enabling the creation of appropriate marketing strategies for each customer group. Previously, different customer clustering approaches have been proposed according to data type, namely customer profile data, customer value data, customer transaction data, and customer...

An assessment Model for Customer Relationship Management Process in Iranian Private-Commercial Banks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tahmoures Hasangholi Pour

2012-03-01

Full Text Available According to several reports, in spite of huge investment on customer relationship management (CRM, risk of implementing such projects is high. One of failure factors is having no method to assess CRM success comprehensively. Nowadays, classic financial methods are common ways for assessing marketing and CRM initiatives. But, the mentioned models are unsuitable to assess investments like CRM that we expect to have intangible, indirect and strategic benefits. So, we need a process-oriented approach to assess all tangible and intangible factors of CRM process and complete existing models. In this paper, using a qualitative approach and grounded theory, a comprehensive and process-oriented CRM assessment model will be provided that considers all factors of customer relationship management in private-commercial banks of Iran. Finally, based on analysis of developed model, some suggestions will be offered for banking managers and future researchers.

Utility green pricing programs: a statistical analysis of program effectiveness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ryan, W.; Scott, O.; Lori, B.; Blair, S.

2005-01-01

Utility green pricing programs represent one way in which consumers can voluntarily support the development of renewable energy. The design features and effectiveness of these programs varies considerably. Based on a survey of utility program managers in the United States, this article provides insight into which program features might help maximize both customer participation in green pricing programs and the amount of renewable energy purchased by customers in those programs. We find that program length has a substantial impact on customer participation and purchases; to achieve higher levels of success, utilities will need to remain committed to their product offering for some time. Our findings also suggest that utilities should consider higher renewable energy purchase thresholds for residential customers in order to maximize renewable energy sales. Smaller utilities are found to be more successful than larger utilities, and we find some evidence that providing private benefits to nonresidential participants can enhance success. Interestingly, we find little evidence that the cost of the green pricing product greatly impacts customer participation and renewable energy sales, at least over the narrow range of premiums embedded in our data set, and for the initial set of green power purchasers. (author)

Enhancing User Customization through Novel Software Architecture for Utility Scale Solar Siting Software

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brant Peery; Sam Alessi; Randy Lee; Leng Vang; Scott Brown; David Solan; Dan Ames

2014-06-01

There is a need for a spatial decision support application that allows users to create customized metrics for comparing proposed locations of a new solar installation. This document discusses how PVMapper was designed to overcome the customization problem through the development of loosely coupled spatial and decision components in a JavaScript plugin architecture. This allows the user to easily add functionality and data to the system. The paper also explains how PVMapper provides the user with a dynamic and customizable decision tool that enables them to visually modify the formulas that are used in the decision algorithms that convert data to comparable metrics. The technologies that make up the presentation and calculation software stack are outlined. This document also explains the architecture that allows the tool to grow through custom plugins created by the software users. Some discussion is given on the difficulties encountered while designing the system.

Customer Satisfaction in Internal Customer Service : Case: Abloy Oy Internal Customer Service

OpenAIRE

Turunen, Susanna

2011-01-01

ABSTRACT Turunen, Susanna Marita 2011. Customer Satisfaction in Internal Customer Service. Case: Abloy Oy Internal Customer Service. Master’s thesis. Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences. Business and Culture. Pages 73. Appendix 1. This thesis discusses and studies service quality and customer satisfaction in internal customer service. The main objective is to find out what the service quality level in the internal customer service at Abloy Oy is and whether there exists a diffe...

Hualapai Tribal Utility Development Project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hualapai Tribal Nation

2008-05-25

The first phase of the Hualapai Tribal Utility Development Project (Project) studied the feasibility of establishing a tribally operated utility to provide electric service to tribal customers at Grand Canyon West (see objective 1 below). The project was successful in completing the analysis of the energy production from the solar power systems at Grand Canyon West and developing a financial model, based on rates to be charged to Grand Canyon West customers connected to the solar systems, that would provide sufficient revenue for a Tribal Utility Authority to operate and maintain those systems. The objective to establish a central power grid over which the TUA would have authority and responsibility had to be modified because the construction schedule of GCW facilities, specifically the new air terminal, did not match up with the construction schedule for the solar power system. Therefore, two distributed systems were constructed instead of one central system with a high voltage distribution network. The Hualapai Tribal Council has not taken the action necessary to establish the Tribal Utility Authority that could be responsible for the electric service at GCW. The creation of a Tribal Utility Authority (TUA) was the subject of the second objective of the project. The second phase of the project examined the feasibility and strategy for establishing a tribal utility to serve the remainder of the Hualapai Reservation and the feasibility of including wind energy from a tribal wind generator in the energy resource portfolio of the tribal utility (see objective 2 below). It is currently unknown when the Tribal Council will consider the implementation of the results of the study. Objective 1 - Develop the basic organizational structure and operational strategy for a tribally controlled utility to operate at the Tribe’s tourism enterprise district, Grand Canyon West. Coordinate the development of the Tribal Utility structure with the development of the Grand Canyon

Web Based Customized Design

OpenAIRE

Moi, Morten Benestad

2013-01-01

This thesis studies the methods needed to create a web based application to remotely customize a CAD model. This includes customizing a CAD model by using a graphical user interface to be able to remotely control the inputs to- and outputs from the model in NX, and to get the result sent back to the user. Using CAD systems such as NX requires intensive training, is often a slow process and gives a lot of room for errors. An intuitive, simple user interface will eliminate the need for CAD trai...

The impact of the customer relationship management on organizational productivity, customer trust and satisfaction by using the structural equation model: A study in the Iranian hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Yaghoubi, Maryam; Asgari, Hamed; Javadi, Marzieh

2017-01-01

One of the challenges in the fiercely competitive space of health organizations is responding to customers and building trust and satisfaction in them in the shortest time, with best quality and highest productivity. Hence the aim of this study is to survey the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) on organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust in selected hospitals of Isfahan (in Iran). This study is a correlation descriptive research. Study population was the nurses in selected hospitals of Isfahan and the sampling has been conducted using stratified random method. Data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire of CRM and its effects (organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust) which its validity and reliability has been confirmed by researchers. Structural equation method was used to determine the impact of variables. Data analysis method was structural equation modeling and the software used was SPSS version 16 (IBM, SPSS, 2007 Microsoft Corp., Bristol, UK) and AMOS version 18 (IBM, SPSS, 2010 Microsoft Corp, Bristol, UK). Among the dimensions of CRM, diversification had the highest impact (0.83) and customer acquisition had the lowest (0.57) CRM, had the lowest impact on productivity (0.59) and the highest effect on customer satisfaction (0.83). For the implementation of CRM, it is necessary that the studied hospitals improve strategies of acquiring information about new customers, attracting new customers and keeping them and communication with patients outside the hospital and improve the system of measuring patient satisfaction and loyalty.

DSM and electric utility competitiveness: An Illinois perspective

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jackson, P.W.

1994-12-31

A predominant theme in the current electric utility industry literature is that competitive forces have emerged and may become more prominent. The wholesale bulk power market is alreadly competitive, as non-utility energy service providers already have had a significant impact on that market; this trend was accelerated by the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Although competition at the retail level is much less pervasive, electric utility customers increasingly have greater choice in selecting energy services. These choices may include, depending on the customer, the ability to self-generate, switch fuels, move to a new location, or rely more heavily on demand-side management as a means of controlling electric energy use. This paper explores the subject of how demand-side management (DSM) programs, which are often developed by a utility to satisfy resource requirements as a part of its least-cost planning process, can affect the utility`s ability to compete in the energy services marketplace. In this context, the term `DSM` is used in this paper to refer to those demand-side services and programs which provide resources to the utility`s system. Depending on one`s perspective, DSM programs (so defined) can be viewed either as an enhancement to the competitive position of a utility by enabling it to provide its customers with a broader menu of energy services, simultaneously satisfying the objectives of the utility as well as those of the customers, or as a detractor to a utility`s ability to compete. In the latter case, the concern is with respect to the potential for adverse rate impacts on customers who are not participants in DSM programs. The paper consists of an identification of the pros and cons of DSM as a competitive strategy, the tradeoff which can occur between the cost impacts and rate impacts of DSM, and an examination of alternative strategies for maximizing the utilization of DSM both as a resource and as a competitive strategy.

Take Five for Customer Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura J. Ax-Fultz

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Businesses leverage excellent customer service to improve profitability. Although not profit-driven, libraries should leverage excellent customer service to achieve their unique missions. Evaluating and improving customer service practices will help a library determine if it is successfully serving its customers. The library should review three areas to improve customer service: the physical space of the library, how library employees work with library policies, and the communication skills of the library staff. By using the Take Five model, the library can make immediate, no-cost changes or plan for future improvements by taking just five minutes, every day, to assess specific areas. Over a few weeks or months, these small changes will result in better customer service.

Long-term forecasts of regional, customer and use-specific energy demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schwarz, Juerg

1999-11-01

In the future the Swiss electricity market will have to contend with changes stemming from market liberalization. The need for instruments to analyze and predict market shares of electricity is greater than ever; tools are also greatly needed to help managers and workers prepare for new beginnings and to reorient customers. The development and application of such an instrument are the object of the present thesis. A computer program produced within the context of this work can, based on an adapted bottom-up model, be used to analyze and predict the energy demand in the supply area of a medium-sized electric utility. Elektra Birseck Muenchenstein was included in the investigation as a representative medium-sized electric utility, and it provided the basis for a supply area. Current energy demand was depicted with a bottom-up approach and different scenarios of future development were calculated using a prognosis horizon of 30 years. For the market segmentation all consumer sectors had to be considered in detail. In addition, 'regionality', 'substitution' and 'customer proximity' factors had to be illustrated in the model, i.e. the regional development in the supply area, the substitution of energy sources -above all natural gas -and the detailed view of large, individual customers. The choice of a bottom-up approach created a demand for a large quantity of data, not all of which were available or could be produced. An additional crucial capability of the computer simulation was the comparison of assumptions and results of the prognoses. The users needed to be able to consider multiple future eventualities if they were to play out different scenarios to the end. Fulfilling these partly divergent criteria in the structural definition of the energy demand model was one of the large challenges of this work. The result of the dissertation is a differentiated prognosis instrument for the supply area of an electric utility. The structure of the suggested solution is

Investigating the Impact of Customer Relationship Management Practices of E-Commerce on Online Customer's Web Site Satisfaction: A Model-Building Approach

OpenAIRE

Su-Fang Lee; Wen-Jang ("Kenny") Jih; Shyh-Rong Fang

2006-01-01

This study addresses the effect of customer relationship management (CRM) practices on online customers’ satisfaction with their experience in interacting with the company Web sites. Recognizing the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship with customers, companies are actively seeking ways to enhance the customer value of their offerings through relationship marketing. Since effective managing of customer relationships essentially involves managing customer information flow, Intern...

Explanation the factors affecting Customer Satisfaction in relationship CRM

OpenAIRE

MORADI ALIABADI, Bahareh; GOLMORADI, Ali; PARVIZY, Narges

2015-01-01

Abstract. In today's world of communication with the customer is the center of attention. In the center of this system is customer service and customer satisfaction Profitability for banks and financial institutions leads. The purpose of this study was therefore to introduce the system model of customer satisfaction, customer relationship can be established. The associated variables with customer satisfaction in the CRM are examined In this study.This study considers a conceptual model that i...

The Effect of Innovation Factors to Customer Loyalty by Structural Equation Model

OpenAIRE

M. Dachyar; Fatkhurrohman

2011-01-01

Innovation is being view from four areas of innovation, product, service, technology, and marketing. Whereas customer loyalty is composed of customer expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, corporate image, customer satisfaction, customer trust/confidence, customer commitment, customer complaint, and customer loyalty. This study aimed to investigate the influence of innovation factors to customer loyalty to GSM in the telecom companies where use of products and s...

Customized products and cloud service information system development research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hung Chien-Wen

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study presents a cloud service customized product information system to enable businesses to provide customized product marketing on the Internet to meet consumer demand for customized products. The cloud service of the information system development strategic framework proposed in this study contains three elements: (1 e-commerce services, (2 promotion type modules, and (3 cloud services customized promotional products. In this study, a mining cloud information system to detect customer behavior is proposed. The association rules from relational database design are utilized to mine consumer behavior to generate cross-selling proposals for customer products and marketing for a retailing mall in Taiwan. The study is composed of several parts, as follows. A market segment and application of association rules in data exploration techniques (Association Rule Mining and sequence-like exploration (Sequential Pattern Mining, efficient analysis of customers, consumer behavior, identification of candidates for promotional products, and using cloud service delivery and evaluation of targets to evaluate candidates for promotional products for production. However, in addition to cloud service customized promotional products, the quantity of promotional products sales varies for different customers. We strive to achieve increased customer loyalty and profits through the use of active cloud service customized promotional products.

Determinants of customer satisfaction with hospitals: a managerial model.

Science.gov (United States)

Andaleeb, S S

1998-01-01

States that rapid changes in the environment have exerted significant pressures on hospitals to incorporate patient satisfaction in their strategic stance and quest for market share and long-term viability. This study proposes and tests a five-factor model that explains considerable variation in customer satisfaction with hospitals. These factors include communication with patients, competence of the staff, their demeanour, quality of the facilities, and perceived costs; they also represent strategic concepts that managers can address in their bid to remain competitive. A probability sample was selected and a multiple regression model used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that all five variables were significant in the model and explained 62 per cent of the variation in the dependent variable. Managerial implications of the proposed model are discussed.

Distributed energy resources in practice: A case study analysis and validation of LBNL's customer adoption model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bailey, Owen; Creighton, Charles; Firestone, Ryan; Marnay, Chris; Stadler, Michael

2003-02-01

This report describes a Berkeley Lab effort to model the economics and operation of small-scale (<500 kW) on-site electricity generators based on real-world installations at several example customer sites. This work builds upon the previous development of the Distributed Energy Resource Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM), a tool designed to find the optimal combination of installed equipment, and idealized operating schedule, that would minimize the site's energy bills, given performance and cost data on available DER technologies, utility tariffs, and site electrical and thermal loads over a historic test period, usually a recent year. This study offered the first opportunity to apply DER-CAM in a real-world setting and evaluate its modeling results. DER-CAM has three possible applications: first, it can be used to guide choices of equipment at specific sites, or provide general solutions for example sites and propose good choices for sites with similar circumstances; second, it can additionally provide the basis for the operations of installed on-site generation; and third, it can be used to assess the market potential of technologies by anticipating which kinds of customers might find various technologies attractive. A list of approximately 90 DER candidate sites was compiled and each site's DER characteristics and their willingness to volunteer information was assessed, producing detailed information on about 15 sites of which five sites were analyzed in depth. The five sites were not intended to provide a random sample, rather they were chosen to provide some diversity of business activity, geography, and technology. More importantly, they were chosen in the hope of finding examples of true business decisions made based on somewhat sophisticated analyses, and pilot or demonstration projects were avoided. Information on the benefits and pitfalls of implementing a DER system was also presented from an additional ten sites including agriculture

INFLUENCE OF CUSTOMER VALUES AND SELF-IMAGE CONGRUITY ON CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR-BASED CRM PERFORMANCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mandy Loh

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the key dimensions of customer value (functional value, emotional value, social value, and perceived sacrifice and self-image congruity on customer-behavior based CRM performance. The study also attempts to investigate on the effect of key dimensions of customer value and self-image congruity on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. The research model for this study was adopts an integrated framework from a previous study, and adds new element into it. This study has chosen to examine the framework in the retail industry, specifically hypermarket in Malaysia, where the adoption of CRM tools is increasing incrementally. The study target on the Generation Y who believed will be the future driver of retail industry. The findings show that perceived sacrifice appears to be a critical customer perceived value in influencing the customer behavior-based CRM performance and customer satisfaction. This study show that brand loyalty would directly influence the customer behavior-based CRM performance. Perceived sacrifice and brand loyalty should be focused when trying to improve the performance of CRM.

Application of the Health Belief Model to customers' use of menu labels in restaurants.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeong, Jin-Yi; Ham, Sunny

2018-04-01

Some countries require the provision of menu labels on restaurant menus to fight the increasing prevalence of obesity and related chronic diseases. This study views customers' use of menu labels as a preventive health behavior and applies the Health Belief Model (HBM) with the aim of determining the health belief factors that influence customers' use of menu labels. A self-administered survey was distributed for data collection. Responses were collected from 335 restaurant customers who experienced menu labels in restaurants within three months prior to the survey. The results of a structural equation model showed that all the HBM variables (perceived threats, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers of using menu labels) positively affected the customers' use of menu labels. Perceived threats were influenced by cues to action and cues to action had an indirect influence on menu label use through perceived threats. In conclusion, health beliefs were good predictors of menu label use on restaurant menus. This study validated the application of the HBM to menu labeling in restaurants, and its findings could offer guidelines for the industry and government in developing strategies to expand the use of menu labels among the public. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Portfolio-Scale Optimization of Customer Energy Efficiency Incentive and Marketing: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-13-535

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brackney, Larry J. [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2016-02-17

North East utility National Grid (NGrid) is developing a portfolio-scale application of OpenStudio designed to optimize incentive and marketing expenditures for their energy efficiency (EE) programs. NGrid wishes to leverage a combination of geographic information systems (GIS), public records, customer data, and content from the Building Component Library (BCL) to form a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) input file that is consumed by an OpenStudio-based expert system for automated model generation. A baseline model for each customer building will be automatically tuned using electricity and gas consumption data, and a set of energy conservation measures (ECMs) associated with each NGrid incentive program will be applied to the model. The simulated energy performance and return on investment (ROI) will be compared with customer hurdle rates and available incentives to A) optimize the incentive required to overcome the customer hurdle rate and B) determine if marketing activity associated with the specific ECM is warranted for that particular customer. Repeated across their portfolio, this process will enable NGrid to substantially optimize their marketing and incentive expenditures, targeting those customers that will likely adopt and benefit from specific EE programs.

Customer Value Controlling ¨C Combining Different Value Perspectives

OpenAIRE

Andreas Kramer; Thomas Burgartz

2015-01-01

The article begins by presenting a model for the structuring of customer data which can be used to demonstrate the value of data in different forms of aggregation. Since Customer Value plays a crucial role in this model the term is examined more closely. As part of a value-based customer relationship management critical parameters are customer benefits and customer profitability. Both perspectives are included in the term Customer Value. A segmentation approach is shown which integrates the k...

Marketing assets: Relating brand equity and customer equity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaime Romero

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Brand equity and customer equity are inextricably linked. Some authors propose that marketing activities build these intangible assets simultaneously. In contrast, others suggest that brand equity is an antecedent of customer equity. In this research, we aim to shed light about the relationship between brand equity and customer equity, by empirically testing these two alternative explanations. Design/methodology/approach: We propose four research models that reflect these two alternatives explanations regarding the link between brand equity and customer equity. In order to estimate these models we employ Structural Equations Modelling. We measure model variables using data collected through a survey to marketing managers of services companies that operate in Spain. We compare these four research models in terms of explanatory power and goodness of fit. Findings: Our results indicate that the models that correspond to the simultaneity approach have a higher explanatory power and goodness of fit than the models that suggest that brand equity is an antecedent of customer equity, thus supporting that these intangible assets are built by marketing activities at the same time. Research limitations/implications: Our results recommend caution when interpreting previous research about the effects of brand (customer equity, as they might indeed correspond to customer (brand management. Similarly, future research focusing on customer and brand management need to take into account both managerial areas in their studies. Practical implications: From a practitioners’ point of view, our findings suggest adopting a brand-customer portfolio approach to enhance company profitability. Similarly, we derive implications for firm valuation processes, which incorporate brand equity and customer equity in their calculations. Originality/value: We empirically study the relationship between brand equity and customer equity, while previous research has analyzed

Toward Customized Care

Science.gov (United States)

Minvielle, Etienne

2018-01-01

Patients want their personal needs to be taken into account. Accordingly, the management of care has long involved some degree of personalization. In recent times, patients’ wishes have become more pressing in a moving context. As the population ages, the number of patients requiring sophisticated combinations of longterm care is rising. Moreover, we are witnessing previously unvoiced demands, preferences and expectations (eg, demand for information about treatment, for care complying with religious practices, or for choice of appointment dates). In view of the escalating costs and the concerns about quality of care, the time has now come to rethink healthcare delivery. Part of this reorganization can be related to customization: what is needed is a customized business model that is effective and sustainable. Such business model exists in different service sectors, the customization being defined as the development of tailored services to meet consumers’ diverse and changing needs at near mass production prices. Therefore, its application to the healthcare sector needs to be seriously considered. PMID:29524957

Customer trust as mediator in the creation of customer relationship intention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dimyati Mohamad

2018-03-01

Full Text Available As in all service industries, banks need to be able to provide their customers with personalized services in order to ensure that they build and maintain long-term relationships which are mutually beneficial. As such, banks must adopt a relational marketing approach based on effective communication and the building of trust with the current customers instead of focusing on acquiring new customers. The current research provides insights into how banks can build trust and maintain their relations with existing customers by testing several predictors of customer trust and customer relationship intention. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine economic content, resource content and social content as the predictors of trust and relationship intention, and trust as a predictor of relationship intention. In addition, this study also analyzes the role of trust in mediating among economic content, resource content, and social content as a predictor of relationship intention of state owned bank customers in East Java. The sample of the study is formed of 120 customers of three state-owned banks from East Java. The research variables consist of three exogenous variables: economic content, resource content, and social content. The endogenous variables are trust and relationship intention. The data was collected using a questionnaire with multiple items measured using Likert scales. The model was analyzed using SEM with AMOS version 18.0. The result shows that economic content, resource content and social content are positive and significant predictors of trust and relationship intention. The role of economic content, resource content, social content as direct predictors is higher than the mediating role of trust of state owned bank customers.

Newfoundland Power 2003 annual report : connected to customers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

This annual report provides a corporate profile and financial information from Newfoundland Power Inc. It also includes a review of its operations for 2003 and a summary of how the electric utility performed in terms of power generation, transmission and marketing. The utility serves 222,000 customers and operates on integrated generation, transmission and distribution system throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. Results for 2003 include strong financial performance, enhanced customer service, employee excellence, safety milestones, improved system reliability and environmental diligence. Earnings were improved to $29.5 million, up from 28.8 million in 2002. The improved earnings were due to increased energy sales of 2.5 per cent in the residential sector, and lower depreciation. This report summarized the company's energy resource activities and presented an operations review as well as consolidated financial statements and common share information. This included the utility's assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses and cash flows. Revenue and expenditure statements were summarized by source. tabs., figs

The impact of the customer relationship management on organizational productivity, customer trust and satisfaction by using the structural equation model: A study in the Iranian hospitals

Science.gov (United States)

Yaghoubi, Maryam; Asgari, Hamed; Javadi, Marzieh

2017-01-01

Context: One of the challenges in the fiercely competitive space of health organizations is responding to customers and building trust and satisfaction in them in the shortest time, with best quality and highest productivity. Hence the aim of this study is to survey the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) on organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust in selected hospitals of Isfahan (in Iran). Materials and Methods: This study is a correlation descriptive research. Study population was the nurses in selected hospitals of Isfahan and the sampling has been conducted using stratified random method. Data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire of CRM and its effects (organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust) which its validity and reliability has been confirmed by researchers. Structural equation method was used to determine the impact of variables. Data analysis method was structural equation modeling and the software used was SPSS version 16 (IBM, SPSS, 2007 Microsoft Corp., Bristol, UK) and AMOS version 18 (IBM, SPSS, 2010 Microsoft Corp, Bristol, UK). Results: Among the dimensions of CRM, diversification had the highest impact (0.83) and customer acquisition had the lowest (0.57) CRM, had the lowest impact on productivity (0.59) and the highest effect on customer satisfaction (0.83). Conclusions: For the implementation of CRM, it is necessary that the studied hospitals improve strategies of acquiring information about new customers, attracting new customers and keeping them and communication with patients outside the hospital and improve the system of measuring patient satisfaction and loyalty. PMID:28546971

Impact of Customer Relationship Management on Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention and Customer Profitability for Hotelier Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra-Dinora Orantes-Jiménez

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Since the entrance of strategies oriented to marketing relational in Hotelier Sector, the traditional way of travel agents and other representatives arranging hospitality services for hotel and travel reservations has changed. The strategies oriented to customer relationship management are a relatively new area of specialty loyalty marketing in the hotel and hotelier sector, with advancements being made constantly. The use of this type of strategy can allow hoteliers or companies to tailor special guest programs, services and promotions based on hotel guest preferences. The hotel can use the data collected in a program to identify the needs of particular customers across hotel chains to be able to use marketing that can be targeted at specific groups of people. It also gives hoteliers the opportunity to evaluate frequent guest programs, personalize their services and perform trend analysis. A program based in marketing relational is typically run by hotels and companies to collect guest information and transaction data for use and examining to allow hoteliers to see target groups that should be marketed too. Based on these transactions hotels are able to create and manage guest loyalty programs and reward schemes. This research approach is to appraise the impact of customer relationship management on customer profitability as mediated by customer loyalty and customer retention within the hotelier sector of Mexico, and specifically for those hoteliers classified like of three stars. A sample of 100 hotels three stars was interviewed as respondents in this study. The objective of the study was to find the impact relationship between effective customer relationship implementation, customer loyalty, and customer retention and customer profitability. The findings of the study add value to hotels three stars in Mexico, and provide some invaluable statistical results essential for hotel managers and owners to successfully enhance customer loyalty

Evaluating the Release, Delivery, and Deployment Processes of Eight Large Product Software Vendors applying the Customer Configuration Update Model

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jansen, S.R.L.; Brinkkemper, S.

2006-01-01

For software vendors the processes of release, delivery, and deployment to customers are inherently complex. However, software vendors can greatly improve their product quality and quality of service by applying a model that focuses on customer interaction if such a model were available. This

The Influence Of Customer Handling On Brand Image In Building Customer Loyalty

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ryan Kurniawan

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Complaint handling influences brand image which will influence customer loyalty in the future. This research is aimed to find out how the complaint handling is capable to influence against the brand image in building the customer loyalty of Indomaret Minimarket with the study case of Indomaret Minimarket. This research also aims to find out how the complaint handling is conducted by Indomaret Minimarket the brand image of service on Indomaret Minimarket as well as the customer loyalty of Indomaret Minimarket. This research using questionnaire as an instrument in collecting the data. The analysis type of this research is descriptive analysis and causal. The sample used as many as a 165 respondents with purposive sampling techniques. This research uses 33 indicators that will be counted with analysis technique SEM Structural Equation Modelling. The result of this research is that the complaint handling conducted by Indomaret Minimarket has been good but the aspect of speed in complaint handling is considered as not good. Besides the brand image and loyalty have been good enough. The customer loyalty is influenced by the complaint handling and the brand image by 32.7. The complaint handling has a significant influence against the customer satisfaction but the complaint handling does not influence against the customer loyalty. The brand image significantly influences against the customer loyalty. Then complaint handling influential not directly to customers trough loyalty of customer satisfaction. In addition the necessary integrated system standardization compensation and to rejuvenate issue at regular intervals to improve complaint handling that can give the effect to customer loyalty through brand image.

A social model based on customers' profiles for analyzing the churning process in the mobile market of data plans

Science.gov (United States)

Postigo-Boix, Marcos; Melús-Moreno, José L.

2018-04-01

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) present wireless services of the same kind in identical zones, clients select the service taking into account any element they consider relevant. Churning hits on the design of the network and the method to assign prices by MNOs, and of course their earnings. Therefore, MNOs try to reduce churn detecting potential churners before they leave the service. Our approach to churn prediction considers each customer individually. Previous research shows that members of the social circle of a subscriber may influence churn. Thus, many scenarios that describe social relations, and in which churning processes could be expected, set an emerging challenge with practical implications. This paper uses the Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) technique to model customers. The model's parameters include demographic and psychographic features as well as usage profiles according to their social behavior considering their customers' profiles. Our model modifies and extends an existing real social network generator algorithm that considers customer's profiles and homophily considerations to create connections. We show that using our approach, groups of customers with greater tendency to churn due to the influence of their social networks can be identified better.

Transforming Multidisciplinary Customer Requirements to Product Design Specifications

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Xiao-Jie; Ding, Guo-Fu; Qin, Sheng-Feng; Li, Rong; Yan, Kai-Yin; Xiao, Shou-Ne; Yang, Guang-Wu

2017-09-01

With the increasing of complexity of complex mechatronic products, it is necessary to involve multidisciplinary design teams, thus, the traditional customer requirements modeling for a single discipline team becomes difficult to be applied in a multidisciplinary team and project since team members with various disciplinary backgrounds may have different interpretations of the customers' requirements. A new synthesized multidisciplinary customer requirements modeling method is provided for obtaining and describing the common understanding of customer requirements (CRs) and more importantly transferring them into a detailed and accurate product design specifications (PDS) to interact with different team members effectively. A case study of designing a high speed train verifies the rationality and feasibility of the proposed multidisciplinary requirement modeling method for complex mechatronic product development. This proposed research offersthe instruction to realize the customer-driven personalized customization of complex mechatronic product.

Impact of information and communications technologies on residental customer energy services

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Goldman, C.; Kempton, W.; Eide, A.; Iyer, M. [and others

1996-10-01

This study analyzes the potential impact of information and communications technologies on utility delivery of residential customer energy services. Many utilities are conducting trials which test energy-related and non-energy services using advanced communications systems.

Electric utilities and the demand for natural gas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Uri, N D; Atkinson, S

1976-03-01

The scarcity of natural gas has given rise to a series of priorities of deliveries based on end use and drafted by the Federal Power Commission. The U.S. Supreme Court, on June 7, 1972, held that the Commission has jurisdiction over curtailments in the service of gas in interstate commerce to both resale and direct industrial customers. This decision reversed a Fifth Circuit Court ruling that protected direct industrial customers from curtailments. The FPC priority curtailments are classed from 1 to 9, for which electric utilities are concentrated in classes 4 to 9. As weather conditions become more severe, not only do the residential and commercial consumers demand more electrical energy, they also demand more natural gas. The result is that there is less natural gas available for electric utilities to use for generation so they change to an alternative fuel. A demand model for the short term for natural gas for electric utilities is given; primary factors involve the price of natural gas, the prices of substitute fuels, and the demand for electrical energy by the various consumer classes. (MCW)

Web Mining of Hotel Customer Survey Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Richard S. Segall

2008-12-01

Full Text Available This paper provides an extensive literature review and list of references on the background of web mining as applied specifically to hotel customer survey data. This research applies the techniques of web mining to actual text of written comments for hotel customers using Megaputer PolyAnalyst®. Web mining functionalities utilized include those such as clustering, link analysis, key word and phrase extraction, taxonomy, and dimension matrices. This paper provides screen shots of the web mining applications using Megaputer PolyAnalyst®. Conclusions and future directions of the research are presented.

When captive customers bear the risk

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Michaels, R.J.

1993-01-01

Before open access, long-term contracts between gas producers, pipelines, and local distribution companies (LDCs) were the rule. Since then, spot trading has dominated the gas market. Spot prices govern short-term transactions and often determine adjustments in longer-term contracts. Experts have repeatedly predicted a return to long-term fixed-price (LTFP) contracts. (open-quotes Fixedclose quotes means unrelated to spot prices, but not necessarily frozen.) They have perceived spot dealing as a response to temporary chaos, or as the consequence of a open-quotes bubbleclose quotes of deliverable gas that would soon vanish. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff's analysis of Order 636 anticipates that the order will foster long-term contracts. But as the dust settles, the reign of spot gas continues. LTFP gas contracts certainly appear superior to spot trades. In readily, LTFP contracts are inferior at almost every turn. Paradoxically, they are riskier than spot transactions. If LTFP contracts were worthwhile, most large gas buyers would use them. Instead, those buyers purchase spot gas and hedge it with futures and options. Electric utilities, nonutility generators, and LDCs are virtually the only users of LTFP contracts. Unlike other gas buyers, utilities can shift risk onto their customers through automatic adjustments in their regulated rates. If ratepayers were not captives, they would not bear the added risk of LTFP contracts without compensation. LTFP contracts are a thing of the past, a security blanket for utilities that is paid for by their customers. If regulators do not put an end to LTFP contracts, competition will. Customers with choices will not hold still for LTFP pass-throughs, as has become evident in LDC gas bypass

CUSTOMER EQUITY:MAKING MARKETING STRATEGY FINANCIALLY ACCOUNTABLE

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Ashwin ARAVINDAKSHAN; Roland T. RUST; Katherine N. LEMON; Valerie A. ZEITHAML

2004-01-01

The article presents an overview of the literature on customer equity and how customer equity provides an opportunity for marketers to make marketing strategy financially accountable.Traditionally, Return on Investment (ROI) models have been used to evaluate the financial expenditures required by the strategies as well as the financial returns gained by them. However in addition to requiring lengthy longitudinal data, these models also have the disadvantage of not evaluating the effect of the strategies on a firm's customer equity. The dominance of customer-centered thinking over product-centered thinking calls for a shift from product-based strategies to customer-based strategies. Hence, it is important to evaluate a firm's marketing strategies in terms of the drivers of its customer equity. The article summarizes a unified strategic framework that enables competing marketing strategy options to be traded off on the basis of projected financial return, which is operationalized as the change in a firm's customer equity relative to the incremental expenditure necessary to produce the change.

Design to learn: customizing services when the future matters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan Ariely

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Internet-based customization tools can be used to design service encounters that maximize customers' utility in the present or explore their tastes to provide more value in the future, where these two goals conflict with each other. Maximizing expected customer satisfaction in the present leads to slow rates of learning that may limit the ability to provide quality in the future. An emphasis on learning can lead to unsatisfied customers that will not only forego purchasing in the current period, but, more seriously, never return if they lose trust in the service provider's ability to meet their needs. This paper describes service design policies that balance the objectives of learning and selling by characterizing customer lifetime value as a function of knowledge. The analysis of the customization problem as a dynamic program yields three results. The first result is the characterization of customization policies that quantify the value of knowledge so as to adequately balance the expected revenue of present and future interactions. The second result is an analysis of the impact of operational decisions on loyalty, learning, and profitability over time. Finally, the quantification of the value of knowing the customer provides a connection between customer acquisition and retention policies, thus enhancing the current understanding of the mechanisms connecting service customization, value creation, and customer lifetime value.

Modeling and Application of Customer Lifetime Value in Online Retail

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pavel Jasek

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This article provides an empirical statistical analysis and discussion of the predictive abilities of selected customer lifetime value (CLV models that could be used in online shopping within e-commerce business settings. The comparison of CLV predictive abilities, using selected evaluation metrics, is made on selected CLV models: Extended Pareto/NBD model (EP/NBD, Markov chain model and Status Quo model. The article uses six online store datasets with annual revenues in the order of tens of millions of euros for the comparison. The EP/NBD model has outperformed other selected models in a majority of evaluation metrics and can be considered good and stable for non-contractual relations in online shopping. The implications for the deployment of selected CLV models in practice, as well as suggestions for future research, are also discussed.

Markets: green utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wood, Elisa

2006-01-01

Publicly owned utilities have consistently led the United States in the rate of customer participation in green power programmes. The US has about 2000 community and state-owned utilities, which serve 43 million customers and account for about 16.6% of kilowatt-hour sales to consumers. In all, public power is responsible for about 10% of the nation's installed electric capacity. Investor owned utilities account for 39%, with the remainder of the nation's power mostly from independent power generators. Although IOUs have almost four times as much electric capacity as public power, they edge out public power by only a small margin when it comes to renewable capacity. IOUs are responsible for 24,577.5 MW of renewable capacity, compared to the 21,338 MW installed by public power. The reasons discussed by the author range from small town advantage to clean and cheap power. (Author)

Pengaruh Customer Relationship Management (Crm) Terhadap Customer Satisfaction Dan Customer Loyalty Pada Pelanggan Matahari Department Store

OpenAIRE

Ham, Meyske

2016-01-01

This study was conducted to determine the effect Benefits of Customer Relationship Management and Customer satisfation to Customer Loyalty in Customers Matahari Department Store. Customer relationship management (CRM) is part of a marketing strategy to get satisfaction and increase customer loyalty. CRM and customer satisfaction can encourage customer loyalty where customers do not easily switch to other companies. The population is all customers Matahari Department Store, and the sample are ...

Trends in transmission, distribution, and administration costs for U.S. investor-owned electric utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fares, Robert L.; King, Carey W.

2017-01-01

This paper analyzes the cost of transmission, distribution, and administration for U.S. investor-owned electric utilities. We analyze data reported to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from 1994 to 2014 using linear regression to understand how the number of customers in a utility's territory, annual peak demand, and annual energy sales affect annual TD&A spending. Then, we use Edison Electric Institute data for 1960 to 1992 to show trends in TD&A spending between 1960 and 2014. We find that the number of customers in a utility's territory is the single best predictor for annual TD&A costs. Between 1994 and 2014, the average cost per customer was $119/Customer-Year for transmission, $291/Customer-Year for distribution, and $333/Customer-Year for utility administration. Total TD&A costs per customer have been approximately $700–$800/Customer-Year since 1960, but the cost per kWh of energy sold was significantly higher in the 1960s because the average customer used less than half as much energy annually versus 2014. Thus, TD&A costs per kWh are likely to increase if kWh energy sales decline in the future unless cost recovery is transitioned to a mechanism not based solely on kWh sales. - Highlights: • U.S. investor-owned electric utility delivery costs from 1960? 2014 are investigated. • Transmission, distribution, and utility administrative costs are analyzed separately. • The number of utility customers is the best predictor for annual delivery costs. • Delivery costs per kWh are likely to increase if kWh sales decrease in the future.

A study of customer commitment through the use of the conversion model in the South African motor vehicle industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nic Terblanche

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Consumer markets have become increasingly competitive. Numerous measures to gauge and predict loyalty and commitment have been developed to assist management in this respect. The marketing literature contains many examples illustrating that longer relationships achieve customer retention, and have been rewarded with a considerable increase in customer net present value. Customer retention is undoubtedly a major contributor to profitability in the long term. Research shows that the most successful measures for achieving customer retention are customer delight, customer satisfaction and customer commitment. This study makes a closer exploration of customer commitment, as measured by the Conversion Model, in the South African motor vehicle industry. The findings highlight the commitment segments of the most popular motor vehicle brands in South Africa, as well the typical marketing strategies for managing the different commitment segments.

DSM and electric utility competitiveness: An Illinois perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jackson, P.W.

1994-01-01

A predominant theme in the current electric utility industry literature is that competitive forces have emerged and may become more prominent. The wholesale bulk power market is alreadly competitive, as non-utility energy service providers already have had a significant impact on that market; this trend was accelerated by the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Although competition at the retail level is much less pervasive, electric utility customers increasingly have greater choice in selecting energy services. These choices may include, depending on the customer, the ability to self-generate, switch fuels, move to a new location, or rely more heavily on demand-side management as a means of controlling electric energy use. This paper explores the subject of how demand-side management (DSM) programs, which are often developed by a utility to satisfy resource requirements as a part of its least-cost planning process, can affect the utility's ability to compete in the energy services marketplace. In this context, the term 'DSM' is used in this paper to refer to those demand-side services and programs which provide resources to the utility's system. Depending on one's perspective, DSM programs (so defined) can be viewed either as an enhancement to the competitive position of a utility by enabling it to provide its customers with a broader menu of energy services, simultaneously satisfying the objectives of the utility as well as those of the customers, or as a detractor to a utility's ability to compete. In the latter case, the concern is with respect to the potential for adverse rate impacts on customers who are not participants in DSM programs. The paper consists of an identification of the pros and cons of DSM as a competitive strategy, the tradeoff which can occur between the cost impacts and rate impacts of DSM, and an examination of alternative strategies for maximizing the utilization of DSM both as a resource and as a competitive strategy

Full 3-D OCT-based pseudophakic custom computer eye model

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, M.; Pérez-Merino, P.; Martinez-Enriquez, E.; Velasco-Ocana, M.; Marcos, S.

2016-01-01

We compared measured wave aberrations in pseudophakic eyes implanted with aspheric intraocular lenses (IOLs) with simulated aberrations from numerical ray tracing on customized computer eye models, built using quantitative 3-D OCT-based patient-specific ocular geometry. Experimental and simulated aberrations show high correlation (R = 0.93; poptical geometrical and surgically-related factors to image quality, and are an excellent tool for characterizing and improving cataract surgery. PMID:27231608

A Hierarchical multi-input and output Bi-GRU Model for Sentiment Analysis on Customer Reviews

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Liujie; Zhou, Yanquan; Duan, Xiuyu; Chen, Ruiqi

2018-03-01

Multi-label sentiment classification on customer reviews is a practical challenging task in Natural Language Processing. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical multi-input and output model based bi-directional recurrent neural network, which both considers the semantic and lexical information of emotional expression. Our model applies two independent Bi-GRU layer to generate part of speech and sentence representation. Then the lexical information is considered via attention over output of softmax activation on part of speech representation. In addition, we combine probability of auxiliary labels as feature with hidden layer to capturing crucial correlation between output labels. The experimental result shows that our model is computationally efficient and achieves breakthrough improvements on customer reviews dataset.

Data-Driven Optimization of Incentive-based Demand Response System with Uncertain Responses of Customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jimyung Kang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Demand response is nowadays considered as another type of generator, beyond just a simple peak reduction mechanism. A demand response service provider (DRSP can, through its subcontracts with many energy customers, virtually generate electricity with actual load reduction. However, in this type of virtual generator, the amount of load reduction includes inevitable uncertainty, because it consists of a very large number of independent energy customers. While they may reduce energy today, they might not tomorrow. In this circumstance, a DSRP must choose a proper set of these uncertain customers to achieve the exact preferred amount of load curtailment. In this paper, the customer selection problem for a service provider that consists of uncertain responses of customers is defined and solved. The uncertainty of energy reduction is fully considered in the formulation with data-driven probability distribution modeling and stochastic programming technique. The proposed optimization method that utilizes only the observed load data provides a realistic and applicable solution to a demand response system. The performance of the proposed optimization is verified with real demand response event data in Korea, and the results show increased and stabilized performance from the service provider’s perspective.

Developing Custom Fire Behavior Fuel Models for Mediterranean Wildland-Urban Interfaces in Southern Italy

Science.gov (United States)

Elia, Mario; Lafortezza, Raffaele; Lovreglio, Raffaella; Sanesi, Giovanni

2015-09-01

The dramatic increase of fire hazard in wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) has required more detailed fuel management programs to preserve ecosystem functions and human settlements. Designing effective fuel treatment strategies allows to achieve goals such as resilient landscapes, fire-adapted communities, and ecosystem response. Therefore, obtaining background information on forest fuel parameters and fuel accumulation patterns has become an important first step in planning fuel management interventions. Site-specific fuel inventory data enhance the accuracy of fuel management planning and help forest managers in fuel management decision-making. We have customized four fuel models for WUIs in southern Italy, starting from forest classes of land-cover use and adopting a hierarchical clustering approach. Furthermore, we provide a prediction of the potential fire behavior of our customized fuel models using FlamMap 5 under different weather conditions. The results suggest that fuel model IIIP (Mediterranean maquis) has the most severe fire potential for the 95th percentile weather conditions and the least severe potential fire behavior for the 85th percentile weather conditions. This study shows that it is possible to create customized fuel models directly from fuel inventory data. This achievement has broad implications for land managers, particularly forest managers of the Mediterranean landscape, an ecosystem that is susceptible not only to wildfires but also to the increasing human population and man-made infrastructures.

Developing Custom Fire Behavior Fuel Models for Mediterranean Wildland-Urban Interfaces in Southern Italy.

Science.gov (United States)

Elia, Mario; Lafortezza, Raffaele; Lovreglio, Raffaella; Sanesi, Giovanni

2015-09-01

The dramatic increase of fire hazard in wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) has required more detailed fuel management programs to preserve ecosystem functions and human settlements. Designing effective fuel treatment strategies allows to achieve goals such as resilient landscapes, fire-adapted communities, and ecosystem response. Therefore, obtaining background information on forest fuel parameters and fuel accumulation patterns has become an important first step in planning fuel management interventions. Site-specific fuel inventory data enhance the accuracy of fuel management planning and help forest managers in fuel management decision-making. We have customized four fuel models for WUIs in southern Italy, starting from forest classes of land-cover use and adopting a hierarchical clustering approach. Furthermore, we provide a prediction of the potential fire behavior of our customized fuel models using FlamMap 5 under different weather conditions. The results suggest that fuel model IIIP (Mediterranean maquis) has the most severe fire potential for the 95th percentile weather conditions and the least severe potential fire behavior for the 85th percentile weather conditions. This study shows that it is possible to create customized fuel models directly from fuel inventory data. This achievement has broad implications for land managers, particularly forest managers of the Mediterranean landscape, an ecosystem that is susceptible not only to wildfires but also to the increasing human population and man-made infrastructures.

Sustainable Water Infrastructure Asset Management: A Gap Analysis of Customer and Service Provider Perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sangjong Han

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The ultimate goal of urban water infrastructure asset management may be sustainable water supply with satisfaction for customers. In this work, we attempted to evaluate the gaps between the perspectives of customers and service providers in Korea’s water infrastructure asset management. To evaluate the customers’ perspective, a hierarchical questionnaire survey was conducted to estimate the weights of influence for six customer values and their attributes on Korean water utility management. To evaluate the service providers’ perspective, an AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process analysis was performed to estimate the weights of influence for the customer values and their PIs (performance indicators. The gap analysis results show that customers place higher value on customer service satisfaction (emotion and information than do the service providers (managers, whereas the managers place more value on affordability than do the customers. The findings from this work imply that improving customer service is effective in satisfying the desirable water LOS (level of service for customers. Recommendations have also been provided for administrators and engineers to develop integrated decision-making systems that can reflect customer needs regarding the improvement of their water infrastructure asset management. The findings from this work may be helpful for the Korean government and water supply utilities in improving the sustainability of their water infrastructure asset management.

THE IMPACTS OF PHILANTHROPY RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY TOWARD CUSTOMER PURCHASE BEHAVIOR AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kurniawati Chrisjatmiko

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of philanthropy responsibility and ethical responsibility towards customer purchase behavior and customer loyalty on fast food restaurants. The research was conducted by using quantitative research design and hypothetical testing to explore philanthropic responsibility, ethical responsibility, customer purchase behavior, and customer loyalty variables. Samples were taken from 186 respondents of employee population in Jakarta. Structural equation modeling was used in order to test the proposed hypotheses. Research result showed the positive and significant impact of philanthropic responsibility towards customer purchase behavior. On contrary, there was no positive ethical responsibility impact found towards customer purchase behavior. These findings are supported by the fact that the majority of consumers purchased fast food base on impulsive buying and not driven by the fast food restaurants ethically responsible behavior. However, the research does show a positive and significant impact of customer purchase behavior on customer loyalty. Further research recommendation should be taken from more respondents in a broader population area. Companies are suggested to approach a strategic and relevant caused-related marketing and caused promotions in relation to philanthropy responsibility to increase customer purchase behavior.

Rank dependent expected utility models of tax evasion.

OpenAIRE

Erling Eide

2001-01-01

In this paper the rank-dependent expected utility theory is substituted for the expected utility theory in models of tax evasion. It is demonstrated that the comparative statics results of the expected utility, portfolio choice model of tax evasion carry over to the more general rank dependent expected utility model.

The Relationship between Customer Knowledge Management and Performance of Agricultural Product Innovation

OpenAIRE

Hu, Jia-jia

2012-01-01

This paper takes an overview of the CKM and the performance of agricultural product innovation from contents of agricultural product innovation and customer knowledge management (CKM), the relation between CKM and agricultural product innovation. On the basis of the overview, it builds the theoretical framework of CKM and agricultural product innovation. It points out that enterprises can satisfy demands of customers through acquisition, share, utilization and innovation of customer knowledge...

Customer Innovation Process Leadership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lindgren, Peter; Jørgensen, Jacob Høj; Goduscheit, René Chester

2007-01-01

Innovation leadership has traditionally been focused on leading the companies' product development fast, cost effectively and with an optimal performance driven by technological inventions or by customers´ needs. To improve the efficiency of the product development process focus has been on diffe......Innovation leadership has traditionally been focused on leading the companies' product development fast, cost effectively and with an optimal performance driven by technological inventions or by customers´ needs. To improve the efficiency of the product development process focus has been...... on different types of organisational setup to the product development model and process. The globalization and enhanced competitive markets are however changing the innovation game and the challenge to innovation leadership Excellent product development innovation and leadership seems not any longer to enough...... another outlook to future innovation leadership - Customer Innovation Process Leadership - CIP-leadership. CIP-leadership moves the company's innovation process closer to the customer innovation process and discusses how companies can be involved and innovate in customers' future needs and lead...

Utilizing a programmatic focus on energy efficiency and customer feedback to improve the effectiveness of demand side management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smith, S.; Tharp, A.

2006-01-01

A project to encourage effective demand side management (DSM) programs through price-responsive load management was presented. The project was conducted through literature searches, surveys of utility programs and interviews with experts. National security, environmental awareness and economic factors were identified as the primary drivers for DSM. A overview of DSM strategies included details of: price responsive programs; power buyback; direct load control; and conservation-based rebates. Target sectors for DSM programs were divided into 4 sectors: (1) residential; (2) agricultural; (3) commercial/industrial; and (4) institutional. A customer decision cycle for DSM was presented, and various programs were evaluated. A comparison between DR and energy efficiency programs in the United States suggested that an increased focus on energy efficiency will benefit DR programs. However, perception of risk due to pricing exposure and the potential for loss of comfort are significant barriers to effective DSM. Studies have shown that DSM is most effective when participants receive direct feedback on consumption. Simple mechanisms for alerting participants of peak periods were recommended, as well as disaggregation tools to highlight areas of high energy usage and spotlight corrective measures. National and regional coordination of DSM activities was also recommended. It was concluded that DSM programs are successful when both customers and suppliers have an equal stake in their success. refs., tabs., figs

Shouldn’t customers control customized product development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smets, L.P.M.; Langerak, F.; Rijsdijk, S.A.

2013-01-01

Nowadays, customized product development (CPD) is increasingly prevalent in business-to-business settings, which has motivated manufacturers into development approaches wherein the customer plays an active role. When the customer is merely viewed as a passive receiver of the customized product, the

Understanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lemon, Katherine N.; Verhoef, Peter C.

2016-01-01

Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms. Customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature. These changes require firms to integrate multiple business

Strategies for commercializing customer thermal-energy storage. [64 references

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nelson, S.H.

1976-12-01

This report presents strategies for commercializing customer thermal storage. Four storage techniques are evaluated: space heating, air conditioning, hot-water heating, and interruptible hot-water heating. The storage systems involved store off-peak electric energy for thermal applications during peak load hours. Analyses of both storage techniques and principal parties affected by storage indicate four barriers: the absence of (1) commercially available air conditioning storage devices, (2) appropriate rates, (3) information on both rates and devices, and (4) widespread utility support. Development of appropriate rates is the key to commercialization. The criteria used to evaluate rate types are: maximum combined utility and customer benefits, ease of commercialization, and practical feasibility. Four rate types--demand charges, time-of-use rates, and two forms of load management rates (a monthly credit and an off-peak discount)--plus the possibility of utility ownership are considered. The best rate types for each storage option are: for hot-water heating, a monthly credit for allowing utility interruptions or an off-peak price discount for storage; for space heating, an off-peak discount contingent upon meeting utility requirements; and for air conditioning, an off-peak discount plus monthly credit.

Customer choice? A perspective from a representative for the small volume consumer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wachowich, J.A.

2002-01-01

The whole idea behind Alberta's decision to deregulate its' electric power industry was to provide more choice to consumers. The author, a representative of residential utility customers in utility hearings as well as in the deregulation of electric industry restructuring process, presents his views about choice and the small consumer who is eligible for the regulated rate option tariff (RROT). There are about 1 million of such customers who are free to exercise choice at any time and leave the RROT provider for commodity service from a retailer. There are two tiers within the RROT which is of significance, because these two tiers promote the real need for customer choice to be active in the electric power industry. The author cautioned that if there is no viable level of retail electric market development by January 2004 or January 2006, there will not be any workable customer choice for consumers coming from RROT. The author also described the experience of those customers that were not RROT eligible from late 2000 to early 2001. Experience from other industries such as the telecom and natural gas industry, provide a comparative analysis of whether customer choice works. The author concludes that it does not work for the small volume customer and suggests that perhaps stable rates and reliable service would be more appealing for consumers

Customer-to-customer roles and impacts in service encounters

OpenAIRE

Lee, Linda

2016-01-01

This thesis investigates customer-to-customer roles and impacts in the context of service encounters. This topic is studied from two angles: customer interactions during group service encounters and customer perceptions post service encounters. The first angle is a focus on group service encounters that addresses the lack of research on customer-to-customer interactions that occur in customer-to-customer interaction-intensive contexts. These are contexts where the interactions between custome...

Membangun Customer Loyalty Nasabah Bank melalui Customer Satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Sumarto, Sumarto

2007-01-01

In the relation between bank and its customer, the bank should to capable to fulfill need and satisfy through services and create the value to the customer. So in the compete situation, to give customer satisfaction is main duty of bank in order that the customer loyal permanently. The customer satisfaction is primary cause for building customer loyalty. More and more loyal customer to the bank, that's indicate the service superiority of its bank. Base description above this research purpose...

Customs control of goods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mentor Gashi

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Customs control, is regulated by law in different countries. Different countries define through the law, the control of goods.. Main purpose of this paper is to analyze two types of customs controls, and their effect in reducing avoidance of duty or tax evasion which may be caused by the import of goods of certain companies. For this reason we researched which model is implemented in developing countries and what results were reached through questionnaires. In this sense the next research question, consists in defining the moment of customs control pre or post-clearance control of goods.

National survey provides average power quality profiles for different customer groups

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hughes, B.; Chan, J.

1996-01-01

A three year survey, beginning in 1991, was conducted by the Canadian Electrical Association to study the levels of power quality that exist in Canada, and to determine ways to increase utility expertise in making power quality measurements. Twenty-two utilities across Canada were involved, with a total of 550 sites being monitored, including residential and commercial customers. Power disturbances, power outages and power quality were recorded for each site. To create a group average power quality plot, the transient disturbance activity for each site was normalized to a per channel, per month basis and then divided into a grid. Results showed that the average power quality provided by Canadian utilities was very good. Almost all the electrical disturbance within a customer premises were created and stayed within those premises. Disturbances were generally beyond utility control. Utilities could, however, reduce the amount of time the steady-state voltage exceeds the CSA normal voltage upper limit. 5 figs

Utilities for high performance dispersion model PHYSIC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamazawa, Hiromi

1992-09-01

The description and usage of the utilities for the dispersion calculation model PHYSIC were summarized. The model was developed in the study of developing high performance SPEEDI with the purpose of introducing meteorological forecast function into the environmental emergency response system. The procedure of PHYSIC calculation consists of three steps; preparation of relevant files, creation and submission of JCL, and graphic output of results. A user can carry out the above procedure with the help of the Geographical Data Processing Utility, the Model Control Utility, and the Graphic Output Utility. (author)

Comparing clustering models in bank customers: Based on Fuzzy relational clustering approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ayad Hendalianpour

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Clustering is absolutely useful information to explore data structures and has been employed in many places. It organizes a set of objects into similar groups called clusters, and the objects within one cluster are both highly similar and dissimilar with the objects in other clusters. The K-mean, C-mean, Fuzzy C-mean and Kernel K-mean algorithms are the most popular clustering algorithms for their easy implementation and fast work, but in some cases we cannot use these algorithms. Regarding this, in this paper, a hybrid model for customer clustering is presented that is applicable in five banks of Fars Province, Shiraz, Iran. In this way, the fuzzy relation among customers is defined by using their features described in linguistic and quantitative variables. As follows, the customers of banks are grouped according to K-mean, C-mean, Fuzzy C-mean and Kernel K-mean algorithms and the proposed Fuzzy Relation Clustering (FRC algorithm. The aim of this paper is to show how to choose the best clustering algorithms based on density-based clustering and present a new clustering algorithm for both crisp and fuzzy variables. Finally, we apply the proposed approach to five datasets of customer's segmentation in banks. The result of the FCR shows the accuracy and high performance of FRC compared other clustering methods.

E-Commerce for utilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Malicky, M. [Metzler and Associates, Deerfield, IL (United States)

1999-07-01

The use of E-Commerce by energy utility and service companies was discussed. E-Commerce was described as being all communication via the web including Internet, Intranet and Extranet. E-Commerce communication includes the exchange of information, data, money services, products, ideas, conversations, knowledge, inventory and events. E-Commerce can be applied to electric and gas utilities to enhance energy marketing, delivery, retail energy, energy services, retail services and customer satisfaction. This means of communication is quickly becoming an essential part of customer care strategy. It reduces costs and improves performance. It was forecasted that E-Commerce will more than double from 1998 to 2001. 15 refs.

The mismanagement of customer loyalty.

Science.gov (United States)

Reinartz, Werner; Kumar, V

2002-07-01

Who wouldn't want loyal customers? Surely they should cost less to serve, they'd be willing to pay more than other customers, and they'd actively market your company by word of mouth, right? Maybe not. Careful study of the relationship between customer loyalty and profits plumbed from 16,000 customers in four companies' databases tells a different story. The authors found no evidence to support any of these claims. What they did find was that the link between customers and profitability was more complicated because customers fall into four groups, not two. Simply put: Not all loyal customers are profitable, and not all profitable customers are loyal. Traditional tools for segmenting customers do a poor job of identifying that latter group, causing companies to chase expensively after initially profitable customers who hold little promise of future profits. The authors suggest an alternative approach, based on well-established "event-history modeling" techniques, that more accurately predicts future buying probabilities. Armed with such a tool, marketers can correctly identify which customers belong in which category and market accordingly. The challenge in managing customers who are profitable but disloyal--the "butterflies"--is to milk them for as much as you can while they're buying from you. A softly-softly approach is more appropriate for the profitable customers who are likely to stay loyal--your "true friends." As for highly loyal but not very profitable customers--the "barnacles"--you need to find out if they have the potential to spend more than they currently do. And, of course, for the "strangers"--those who generate no loyalty and no profits--the answer is simple: Identify early and don't invest anything.

The impact of customer-specific marketing expenses on customer retention and customer profitability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Triest, S.; Bun, M.J.G.; van Raaij, E.M.; Vernooij, M.J.A.

2009-01-01

We study the effects of customer-specific marketing expenses on customer retention and customer profitability in a business-to-business setting. Using data from a company providing hygiene services, we look at the impact of a hitherto unstudied type of expense targeted at individual customer

Multi-Dimensional Customer Data Analysis in Online Auctions

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LAO Guoling; XIONG Kuan; QIN Zheng

2007-01-01

In this paper, we designed a customer-centered data warehouse system with five subjects: listing, bidding, transaction,accounts, and customer contact based on the business process of online auction companies. For each subject, we analyzed its fact indexes and dimensions. Then take transaction subject as example,analyzed the data warehouse model in detail, and got the multi-dimensional analysis structure of transaction subject. At last, using data mining to do customer segmentation, we divided customers into four types: impulse customer, prudent customer, potential customer, and ordinary customer. By the result of multi-dimensional customer data analysis, online auction companies can do more target marketing and increase customer loyalty.

WisDOT statewide customer satisfaction survey : [project brief].

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-01

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) is a major public agency with numerous customers utilizing a variety of services and programs to support the entire statewide multimodal transportation system. The department also houses the Divisio...

The Customer Relationship Management in Terms of Business Practice in Slovakia

Science.gov (United States)

Urdziková, Jana; Jakábová, Martina; Saniuk, Sebastian

2012-12-01

The aim of the article is to present the results of the research on focus on the customer in relation to the use of customer relationship management in selected business subjects in Slovakia. The main goal of the research is the mapping of current state to ensure the principle of customer orientation and utilizing of CRM in organizations and industrial enterprises in Slovakia. This is the mapping of the current situation of that problem in practical conditions and determines potential opportunities for improvement.

Strategy for incumbent wireline operator: customers' provision of broadband wireless access

Science.gov (United States)

Khan, Naveed Ahmed; Kan, Kaili; Tareen, Abdul Wahid

2011-10-01

The phenomenal growth in mobile market during last decade has left incumbent wireline operators with very low fixed line customer base. The incumbent wireline operators are losing their market dominant position and wireline resources are lying underutilized. This paper proposed a cost effective strategy for incumbent wireline operators for customers' provision of broadband wireless access. The strategy will make wireline networks more value added and customer base will increase. The revenue will enhance and wireline resources will be utilized more efficiently.

Process Modelling of Rapid Manufacturing Based Mass Customisation System for Fabrication of Custom Foot Orthoses: Review Paper

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saleh Jumani

2013-04-01

Full Text Available The need for custom-made devices, rehabilitation aids and treatments is explicit in the medical sector. Applications of rapid manufacturing techniques based on additive fabrication processes combined with medical digitising technologies can generate high quality solutions in situations where the need for custom-made devices and rehabilitation aids and low-lead times are very important factors. Foot orthoses are medical devices applied in the treatment of biomechanical foot disorders, foot injuries and foot diseases including rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. The significant challenge in the treatment of foot related diseases is progressing pathological deterioration in the affected sites of the foot which requires quick provision of the orthoses. A process model is developed using the IDEF0 modelling technique in which a rapid manufacturing approach is integrated in the design and fabrication process of custom foot orthoses. The process model will be used in the development of rapid manufacturing based design and fabrication system for mass customisation of foot orthoses. The developed system is aimed at mass scale production of custom foot orthoses with the advantages of reduced cost, reduced lead-time and improved product in terms of increased fit, consistency and accuracy in the final product.

Ontology for customer centric digital services and analytics

Science.gov (United States)

Keat, Ng Wai; Shahrir, Mohammad Shazri

2017-11-01

In computer science research, ontologies are commonly utilised to create a unified abstract across many rich and different fields. In this paper, we apply the concept to the customer centric domain of digital services analytics and present an analytics solution ontology. The essence is based from traditional Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), which then was abstracted out to cover wider areas on customer centric digital services. The ontology we developed covers both static aspects (customer identifiers) and dynamic aspects (customer's temporal interactions). The structure of the customer scape is modeled with classes that represent different types of customer touch points, ranging from digital and digital-stamps which represent physical analogies. The dynamic aspects of customer centric digital service are modeled with a set of classes, with the importance is represented in different associations involving establishment and termination of the target interaction. The realized ontology can be used in development of frameworks for customer centric applications, and for specification of common data format used by cooperating digital service applications.

The impact of customer-specific marketing expenses on customer retention and customer profitability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Triest, S.; van Raaij, E.M.; Bun, M.; Vernooij, M.

2007-01-01

We study the effects of customer-specific marketing expenses on customer retention and cus-tomer profitability in a business-to-business setting. Using data from a company providing hygiene services, we look at the impact of a type of expenses targeted at individual customer relationships: the

THE EFFECT OF BANK IMAGE AND TRUST ON LOYALITY MEDIATED BY CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sumadi Sumadi

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of the bank’s image and trust on customer satisfaction, as well as the effect of the image of the bank, trust, and satisfaction on customer loyalty. The study used sample of 100 people who were taken by purposive sampling technique. This research utilized multiple linear regression analysis and path analysis. Based on the hypothesis test, the results show that the image of the bank was significantly has positive effect on customer satisfaction, but trust has no significant effect on customer satisfaction. In addition, the bank’s image has no significant effect on customer loyalty. Moreover, trust and customer satisfaction significantly have positive effect on customer loyalty. Mediation test shows that customer satisfaction mediates the effect of the bank’s image on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction does not mediate trust on customer loyalty. Info

A data-driven approach to reverse engineering customer engagement models: towards functional constructs.

Science.gov (United States)

de Vries, Natalie Jane; Carlson, Jamie; Moscato, Pablo

2014-01-01

Online consumer behavior in general and online customer engagement with brands in particular, has become a major focus of research activity fuelled by the exponential increase of interactive functions of the internet and social media platforms and applications. Current research in this area is mostly hypothesis-driven and much debate about the concept of Customer Engagement and its related constructs remains existent in the literature. In this paper, we aim to propose a novel methodology for reverse engineering a consumer behavior model for online customer engagement, based on a computational and data-driven perspective. This methodology could be generalized and prove useful for future research in the fields of consumer behaviors using questionnaire data or studies investigating other types of human behaviors. The method we propose contains five main stages; symbolic regression analysis, graph building, community detection, evaluation of results and finally, investigation of directed cycles and common feedback loops. The 'communities' of questionnaire items that emerge from our community detection method form possible 'functional constructs' inferred from data rather than assumed from literature and theory. Our results show consistent partitioning of questionnaire items into such 'functional constructs' suggesting the method proposed here could be adopted as a new data-driven way of human behavior modeling.

A data-driven approach to reverse engineering customer engagement models: towards functional constructs.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalie Jane de Vries

Full Text Available Online consumer behavior in general and online customer engagement with brands in particular, has become a major focus of research activity fuelled by the exponential increase of interactive functions of the internet and social media platforms and applications. Current research in this area is mostly hypothesis-driven and much debate about the concept of Customer Engagement and its related constructs remains existent in the literature. In this paper, we aim to propose a novel methodology for reverse engineering a consumer behavior model for online customer engagement, based on a computational and data-driven perspective. This methodology could be generalized and prove useful for future research in the fields of consumer behaviors using questionnaire data or studies investigating other types of human behaviors. The method we propose contains five main stages; symbolic regression analysis, graph building, community detection, evaluation of results and finally, investigation of directed cycles and common feedback loops. The 'communities' of questionnaire items that emerge from our community detection method form possible 'functional constructs' inferred from data rather than assumed from literature and theory. Our results show consistent partitioning of questionnaire items into such 'functional constructs' suggesting the method proposed here could be adopted as a new data-driven way of human behavior modeling.

INFLUENCE OF SERVICE QUALITY AND FARE TOWARD CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND ITS IMPACT ON CUSTOMER LOYALTY OF EXPRESS TAXI IN JAKARTA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Rizan

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to: to examine empirically the effect of service quality to customer satisfaction on Express taxi, to examine empirically the effect of fare to customer satisfaction on Express taxi, to examine empirically the effect of customer satisfaction to customer loyalty on Express taxi, to examine empirically the effect of service quality to customer loyalty on Express taxi, and to examine empirically the effect of fare to customer loyalty on Express taxi. Data collection using survey methods. Sample of this study are 200 respondents who have using services of Express taxi more than two times in last three months. Data analysis using SPSS version 23 and SEM (Structural Equation Modeling LISREL version 8.7. Results of hypothesis testing showed: service quality have positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction, fare have positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction have positive and significant effect on customer loyalty, service quality have positive and not significant effect to on customer loyalty. fare have positive and significant effect to on customer loyalty. Rated fit model with value of RMSEA 0.043, value of RMR 0.043, value of CMIN/DF 1.88, value of NFI 0.96, value of NNFI 0.98, and value of CFI 0.98. The results of this research beneficial to transportation company, especially Express taxi in Jakarta, to create better strategy in improving customer loyalty.

Basic Features of Customer Satisfaction with Train Schedules

Science.gov (United States)

Murakoshi, Akiko; Kunimatsu, Taketoshi; Saito, Ayano

This paper aims to reveal the fundamental features of customer satisfaction with train schedules, which is one of the most basic services provided by a railway company. A customer satisfaction survey of passengers who frequently utilize three lines in the metropolitan area was conducted; we obtained the following findings: (a) out of nine factors to evaluate a train schedule from a passenger's viewpoint, the four most important ones are the frequency of trains running, punctuality, congestion rate, and time distance; (b) the ride-frequency influences the degree of satisfaction with train schedules in a particular line; and (c) it is important to set a numeric goal for the level of customer satisfaction by grasping the relationship between the transport service and a passenger's satisfaction with that service. The difference between customer satisfaction and passenger disutility is also discussed. The findings are expected to help conduct customer satisfaction surveys and also to form the basis for establishing a method by which to evaluate a train schedule from passengers' satisfaction ratings.

Revenue-Sharing Contract Models for Logistics Service Supply Chains with Mass Customization Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Weihua Liu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The revenue-sharing contract is one of the most important supply chain coordination contracts; it has been applied in various supply chains. However, studies related to service supply chains with mass customization (MC are lacking. Considering the equity of benefit distribution between the members of service supply chains, in this paper, we designed two revenue-sharing contracts. The first contract for the maximum equity of a single logistics service integrator (LSI and single functional logistics service provider (FLSP in a two-echelon logistics service supply chain was designed by introducing the fair entropy function (“one to one” model. Furthermore, the method is extended to a more complex supply chain, which consists of a single LSI and multiple FLSPs. A new contract was designed not only for considering the equity of an LSI and each FLSP but also for the equity between each FLSP (“one to N” model. The “one to one” model in three-echelon LSSC is also provided. The result exemplifies that, whether in the “one to one” model or “one to N” model, there exists a best interval of customized level when the revenue-sharing coefficient reaches its maximum.

Effect of Customer Satisfaction on Company Performance

OpenAIRE

Petr Suchánek; Maria Králová

2015-01-01

The subject of this article is customer satisfaction and its impact on company performance through satisfaction with its products, including a comparison with the competition. Research was conducted in search of factors which affect customer satisfaction on the one hand and the performance of the company on the other hand. We constructed a model explaining what specific factors (affecting customer satisfaction) have an impact on the performance of a company. This model can help management to ...

Assessing the antecedents of customer loyalty on healthcare insurance products: Service quality; perceived value embedded model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fadi Abdelmuniem Abdelfattah

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This research aim to investigate the influence of service quality attributes towards customers’ loyalty on health insurance products. In addition, this research also tested the mediation role of perceived value in between service quality and customers’ loyalty on health insurance products. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the literature review, this research developed a conceptual model of customers loyalty embedded with service quality and perceived value. The study surveyed 342 healthcare insurance customers. Apart from assessing the reliability and validity of the constructs through confirmatory factor analysis, this research also used structural equation modelling (SEM approach to test the proposed hypothesis. Findings: The results from the inferential statistics revealed that the healthcare insurance customers are highly influenced by service quality followed by the perceived value in reaching their loyalty towards a particular health insurance service provider. Research limitations/implications: The sample for this study is based on health insurance customers only and it is suggested that future studies enlarge the scope to include others type of customers of different insurance products. Practical implications: In order to encourage the customers to more loyal towards their service providers, this research will add value for the mangers to understand the items of service quality and considering the perceived value of the target customers in order to optimize their loyalty. As whole, the outcome of this research will assist managers for better understanding of the customers’ loyalty antecedents under the perspective of healthcare insurance products. Originality/value: This paper has tried to provide a comprehensive understanding about customers’ loyalty under the perspective of service quality and perceived values context in the Malaysian health care insurance industry. Since there was a lack of such research in

A Methodology for Estimating Large-Customer Demand Response MarketPotential

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Goldman, Charles; Hopper, Nicole; Bharvirkar, Ranjit; Neenan,Bernie; Cappers,Peter

2007-08-01

Demand response (DR) is increasingly recognized as an essential ingredient to well-functioning electricity markets. DR market potential studies can answer questions about the amount of DR available in a given area and from which market segments. Several recent DR market potential studies have been conducted, most adapting techniques used to estimate energy-efficiency (EE) potential. In this scoping study, we: reviewed and categorized seven recent DR market potential studies; recommended a methodology for estimating DR market potential for large, non-residential utility customers that uses price elasticities to account for behavior and prices; compiled participation rates and elasticity values from six DR options offered to large customers in recent years, and demonstrated our recommended methodology with large customer market potential scenarios at an illustrative Northeastern utility. We observe that EE and DR have several important differences that argue for an elasticity approach for large-customer DR options that rely on customer-initiated response to prices, rather than the engineering approaches typical of EE potential studies. Base-case estimates suggest that offering DR options to large, non-residential customers results in 1-3% reductions in their class peak demand in response to prices or incentive payments of $500/MWh. Participation rates (i.e., enrollment in voluntary DR programs or acceptance of default hourly pricing) have the greatest influence on DR impacts of all factors studied, yet are the least well understood. Elasticity refinements to reflect the impact of enabling technologies and response at high prices provide more accurate market potential estimates, particularly when arc elasticities (rather than substitution elasticities) are estimated.

An Exploratory Model of the Relationships between Empowerment, Job Involvement, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and Customer Orientation in the Hospitality Industry

OpenAIRE

Jun, Jaekyoon

1998-01-01

The concept of customer orientation is becoming increasingly more important to managers, especially in service industries. Given the premise of the study that a customer-oriented employee has a critical role in enhancing service quality, little research has investigated the antecedents of the customer orientation construct. The objective of this study was to develop a theoretical model of customer orientation, and to test the hypothesized relationships between customer orientation and its ant...

An investigation on loyalty formation model in e-banking customers: A case study of banking industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mahmood Reza Esmaeili

2013-03-01

Full Text Available E-banking plays an important role on increasing customer satisfaction and helps industry grow faster. Most banks try to retain their customers by introducing more electronic services to facilitate banking transactions. Creating loyalty through providing better banking services is a new area of research. In fact, e-loyalty can be directly impacted by e-satisfaction, e-trust, and indirectly influenced by e-services, perceived value, reputation, and habit. Therefore, the present paper deals with designing and explanation of loyalty formation model in e-banking. The preliminary results indicate that “satisfaction” is the most influential component affecting customer loyalty formation with an 87% diagnose coefficient. In addition, trust formation in customers may impact loyalty in an electronic environment with a 70% diagnose coefficient. Moreover, the most important factors impacting customer satisfaction include “reputation” “perceived value,” “service quality,” and “habit” with relative effects coefficients of 44%, 32%, 29%, and 26%, respectively. Finally, “reputation,” “service quality,” “habit” and “perceived value” have been the most important factors influencing customer trust with influence coefficients of 37%, 32%, 31%, and 24%, respectively.

Effects of Customer Engagement Behavior

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Katarzyna Żyminkowska

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Aim/purpose - Research addressing the customer engagement behavior (CEB has rapidly developed in the marketing discipline, contributing to the knowledge on network organization. However, insights into the specific outcomes of CEB remain largely nebulous. Few comprehensive conceptual frameworks of CEB effects exists in the literature to-date. The empirical verification of CEB outcomes, particularly at the firm level, is still missing. Design/methodology/approach - In this article we first provide an overview of the CEB conceptualizations and its effects. Next we develop the CEB firm-level performance outcomes framework. Finally we explore CEB process, forms and outcomes in Stanley Black & Decker, applying qualitative methodological approach (case research incl. participant observation. Findings - We propose the logically arranged CEB effects in the conceptual model integrated with marketing metrics which are related to the recent advances in customer equity and customer asset management. Research implications/limitations - In empirical research we focused on the CEB effects related to one type of customer behaviors, i.e. Stanley Black& Decker customers' involvement in the product development and innovation which is a limitation in obtain-ing the comprehensive empirical picture of all CEB forms and its outcomes. Further empirical research (incl. quantitative one is necessary to verify our conceptual model. Originality/value/contribution - Our model of firm-level performance effects of CEB extends existing proposals and contributes to the knowledge on effective CEB management process in network organizations.

King customer forever: Customer satisfaction and beyond

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Myuers James

2004-01-01

Full Text Available "King Customer!" So proclaimed the front cover of Business Week in a 1989 issue. At about the same time, "Rediscovering the Customer" was the title of a series of company vignettes in Fortune magazine. And a Wall Street Journal article asked, "For Customers, More Than Lip Service?" Combined, these three prestigious business publications reflected a new era in business firms perceptions of their customers and the role they should play in the formulation of company strategies and priorities. Had the "Era of the Customer" finally arrived in American business? .

Analisis Pengaruh E-Service Quality terhadap Customer Satisfaction yang Berdampak pada Customer Loyalty PT Bayu Buana Travel Tbk

OpenAIRE

Jonathan, Hansel

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of e-service quality on customer satisfaction and its impact on customer loyalty of PT Bayu Buana Travel, Tbk. With non-probability technique (census), questionnaires were collected and used in data processing using Structural Equation Modeling with WarpPLS program and Importance Performance Analysis methods. Based on this research, it was found that e-service quality has an influence on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has an i...

All new custom path photo book creation

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Wiley; Muzzolini, Russ

2012-03-01

In this paper, we present an all new custom path to allow consumers to have full control to their photos and the format of their books, while providing them with guidance to make their creation fast and easy. The users can choose to fully automate the initial creation, and then customize every page. The system manage many design themes along with numerous design elements, such as layouts, backgrounds, embellishments and pattern bands. The users can also utilize photos from multiple sources including their computers, Shutterfly accounts, Shutterfly Share sites and Facebook. The users can also use a photo as background, add, move and resize photos and text - putting what they want where they want instead of being confined to templates. The new path allows users to add embellishments anywhere in the book, and the high-performance platform can support up to 1,000 photos per book and up to 25 pictures per page. The path offers either Smart Autofill or Storyboard features allowing customers to populate their books with photos so they can add captions and customize the pages.

The Image of Financial Institution as Islamic Bank In Mediation Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty in Purwokerto.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chandra Warsito

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The paper aims to determine the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction, service quality, customer satisfaction and image on customer loyalty, quality of service to the company’s image, to determine the image of financial institutions in mediating the relationship variable quality of service and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty. The samples used were 110 customers and methods of analysis used is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM test results find no significant effect of service quality on customer satisfaction; quality of service loyalty; customer satisfaction on customer loyalty; quality of service to the image of the company; customer satisfaction with the company’s image; and the image of the company loyalty; Image of financial institutions PT. BPRS BAS can be used as a variable relationship mediation variable service quality and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty.DOI: 10.15408/aiq.v7i2.1699

Effects of e-banking on growth of customer base in kenyan banks

OpenAIRE

Okibo, Bichanga Walter; Wario, Ali Yattani

2014-01-01

The study highlights the effects of E-banking services on growth of customer base in Kenyan banks for over the last five years. It addresses issues that affect effective utilization of E-banking facilities by customers. The study generally investigates how lack of technological know-how, illiteracy, unreliability, and transaction limits has hindered growth of on-line customer base in Kenyan banks. E-banking provides enormous benefits to consumers in terms of time saving and cost of transactio...

Analisis & Perumusan Fitur Aplikasi Sms-marketing Berdasarkan Customer Relationship Management Model

OpenAIRE

Wijaya, Sidiq Wahyu Surya; Laksito, Arif Dwi

2015-01-01

The growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (UMKM) in Indonesia is very rapid. However, in terms of Customer Relationship Management, it is still few of UMKM which actually implement it. In fact, it can ensure that all customers have/use a mobile phone, either a normal mobile phone or smartphone, which should be used for the purposes of customer relationship management (Customer Relationship Management). One of these is the use of SMS (Short Message Services) technplogy. Therefore, in ...

How to strengthen customer loyalty, using customer segmentation?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MELNIC Elena Lidia

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Do you provide exceptional customer service?”, “Is the customer service in your company extraordinary?” “How to convert satis fied customers into loyal customers?” - are the most frequent questions of today’s managers and have driven the research on this article to getting the answer to a highly important marketing topic “How to strengthen customer loyalty using customer segmentation?”. Anyone who has bought a product or a service has probably suffered at least once from a company’s apparent indifference to what should be its first concern: the customer experiences. If this is the case, the company is in a wrong direction, since loyalty is the most powerful tool in today competitive market. To strengthen the bonds with these high-profit customers, innovative companies are deploying enterprise-wide strategies built on consumer segmentation.

Nuclear reactors in de-regulated markets: Integration between providers and customers?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Girard, Philippe

2006-01-01

The deregulation of electricity markets has in most cases coincided with the end of state monopolies, where financial risks were borne by customers/citizens. Today, despite an economic advantage, nuclear power development faces two main problems: public acceptance and reticence of investors (banks, utilities shareholders). The development of electricity markets provides different financial instruments in order to hedge financial risks, but it is currently difficult to fix forward contracts for more than three to four years, and this period is insufficient for the financing of a nuclear reactor. A solution could be the evolution of nuclear providers into nuclear operators selling electricity (MWh) rather than selling nuclear capacity (MW), nuclear fuel and services. In this case, their customers would be utilities and big customers aiming to hedge a part of their supplies with long-term contracts or stakes in nuclear reactors without some nuclear constraints. (author)

When fellow customers behave badly: Witness reactions to employee mistreatment by customers.

Science.gov (United States)

Hershcovis, M Sandy; Bhatnagar, Namita

2017-11-01

In 3 experiments, we examined how customers react after witnessing a fellow customer mistreat an employee. Drawing on the deontic model of justice, we argue that customer mistreatment of employees leads witnesses (i.e., other customers) to leave larger tips, engage in supportive employee-directed behaviors, and evaluate employees more positively (Studies 1 and 2). We also theorize that witnesses develop less positive treatment intentions and more negative retaliatory intentions toward perpetrators, with anger and empathy acting as parallel mediators of our perpetrator- and target-directed outcomes, respectively. In Study 1, we conducted a field experiment that examined real customers' target-directed reactions to witnessed mistreatment in the context of a fast-food restaurant. In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 findings in an online vignette experiment, and extended it by examining more severe mistreatment and perpetrator-directed responses. In Study 3, we demonstrated that employees who respond to mistreatment uncivilly are significantly less likely to receive the positive outcomes found in Studies 1 and 2 than those who respond neutrally. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE TOURISM THROUGH CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ispas Roxana

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In tourism, hotels play an important role and contribute to the economic growth in cities and other places endowed with attractions which are universally recognized. Two elements are essential in the tourism industry system: product quality and human resources. In terms of quality of the hotel services, that is the one that allows to the tourist enterprise to own a competitive advantage, gain competitive differentiation and reputation among customers by achieving a high degree of customer satisfaction. Hotel customer satisfaction would be impossible if the hotel management does not perform periodic evaluations on customer satisfaction and quality, which are the focus of this paper. Therefore, this paper focuses on customer satisfaction measured by the SERVQUAL model.

Effect of Customer Satisfaction on Company Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petr Suchánek

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The subject of this article is customer satisfaction and its impact on company performance through satisfaction with its products, including a comparison with the competition. Research was conducted in search of factors which affect customer satisfaction on the one hand and the performance of the company on the other hand. We constructed a model explaining what specific factors (affecting customer satisfaction have an impact on the performance of a company. This model can help management to better run the business and achieve higher performance. The article is based on research that focused on companies in the food industry in Czech Republic and on their customers. First, we found the financial performance of surveyed companies (based on indicators ROA, ROE and assets turnover and on this basis they have been divided on companies efficient and inefficient. Furthermore factors were identified (based on previous research of authors that have an impact on customer satisfaction (among these factors include product quality, customer requirements for product, comparison with competitive products, etc.. With the use of non-parametric statistical methods, logistic regression and discriminant analysis was analyzed, what factors affecting customer satisfaction also affect business performance.

Weathering the competition through cooperation at customer service level; Erfolgreich im Wettbewerb durch Kooperation im Kundenservice

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Quante, Katrin [VISOS GmbH, Moers (Germany)

2012-01-15

Rising customer churn rates in the wake of stiffening competition are aggravating the cost pressure on energy supply companies. More and more energy suppliers are seeking cooperations as a means of countering the growing cost pressure, rapidity of change and growing complexity of their workflows. Especially small and medium-sized utilities see this as an appropriate means of holding their own against large energy suppliers. In other branches of industry inter-company cooperations at the economic or technical level are already established practice. Recent project experiences have shown that such cooperation models can be transferred with equal success to the energy sector at customer service level.

"Teaching Case": Who Renews? Who Leaves? Identifying Customer Churn in a Telecom Company Using Big Data Techniques

Science.gov (United States)

Asamoah, Daniel A.; Sharda, Ramesh; Kalgotra, Pankush; Ott, Mark

2016-01-01

Within the context of the telecom industry, this teaching case is an active learning analytics exercise to help students build hands-on expertise on how to utilize Big Data to solve a business problem. Particularly, the case utilizes an analytics method to help develop a customer retention strategy to mitigate against an increasing customer churn…

Analisis Pengaruh E-Service Quality terhadap Customer Satisfaction yang Berdampak pada Customer Loyalty PT Bayu Buana Travel Tbk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hansel Jonathan

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of e-service quality on customer satisfaction and its impact on customer loyalty of PT Bayu Buana Travel, Tbk. With non-probability technique (census, questionnaires were collected and used in data processing using Structural Equation Modeling with WarpPLS program and Importance Performance Analysis methods. Based on this research, it was found that e-service quality has an influence on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has an influence on customer loyalty, e-service quality has an influence on customer loyalty, and e-service quality and customer satisfaction has an influence on customer loyalty. The e-service quality attributes, such as the website providing accurate information, the website having a good reputation, all online payment be confirmed, the website easy to use, and the products/services on the website delivered according to the time, need to be improved and enhanced.

A fuzzy model for exploiting customer requirements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zahra Javadirad

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, Quality function deployment (QFD is one of the total quality management tools, where customers’ views and requirements are perceived and using various techniques improves the production requirements and operations. The QFD department, after identification and analysis of the competitors, takes customers’ feedbacks to meet the customers’ demands for the products compared with the competitors. In this study, a comprehensive model for assessing the importance of the customer requirements in the products or services for an organization is proposed. The proposed study uses linguistic variables, as a more comprehensive approach, to increase the precision of the expression evaluations. The importance of these requirements specifies the strengths and weaknesses of the organization in meeting the requirements relative to competitors. The results of these experiments show that the proposed method performs better than the other methods.

Linking Resource-Based Strategies to Customer-Focused Performance for Professional Services: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ming-Lu Wu

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This paper links professional service firms’ resource-based strategies to their customer-focused performance for formulating service quality improvement priorities. The research applies the structural equation modelling approach to survey data from Hong Kong construction consultants to test some hypotheses. The study validates the various measures of firms’ resource-based strategies and customer-focused performance and bridges the gaps in firms’ organizational learning, core competences and customer-focused performance mediated by their strategic flexibility. The research results have practical implications for professional service firms to deploy resources appropriately to first enhance different competences and then improve customerfocused performance using their different competences.

The Impact of Customer Relationship Management to Customer Loyalty Through Customer Satisfaction in Cabal Dining Manado

OpenAIRE

Pandowo, Merinda; Pangemanan, Sifrid S.; Wattilete, Randy

2013-01-01

Customer relationship management is the one influencing customer loyalty, but to get customer loyalty we should know how to make customer satisfaction. This research is purposed to analyze the impact of customer relationship management to customer loyalty through customer satisfaction in Cabal Dining Manado. This research used the Path analysis as the method of this research. Population in this research is mainly in this research is people in Manado. The sample of this research is 100 respond...

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS OF MERCHANDISING TO MANAGE THE CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR

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L. Paschuk

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The major problems and perspectives of international experience utilization as element of marketing mix to manage the customer behavior, major forms of trade were defined and approaches to merchandising tools application.

A model of customer loyalty in the retail banking market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hadi Hajiyan

2016-04-01

Full Text Available During the past two decades, there has been growing trend in Iranian banking industry due to change in banking regulations. Private sector has grown rapidly and there have been several new banks on the market, which has created very competitive market. Therefore, customer loyalty is the key factor for running a successful banking business and customer relationship management (CRM appears to be important for the success in this industry. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between CRM and customer loyalty in one of the oldest Iranian banks named Bank Melli Iran. The proposed study prepares a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among some regular customers of this bank. The preliminary results of this survey have indicated that consumer’s gender, age and educational background had no meaningful impact on quality of services. In other words, people with different personal characteristics expect the same quality of services from banking industry and there is a positive and meaningful relationship between quality of services and customer loyalty.

Early warning system for potential churners among mortgage customers

Science.gov (United States)

Irpan, Hamidah Muhd; Aidid, Sharifah Sakinah Syed Hassan; Mohmad, Sarahiza; Ibrahim, Noorazilah

2014-07-01

Retaining existing customer is a major task for many companies because cost to acquire new customers is higher than retaining existing customers. For mortgage business in Bank X, customer relationship management plays a big role to understand their customers' profile and churners so that suitable action can be done to retain their potential churners. Objectives of this study are (1) understanding their customers' profile and churners, (2) modeling potential churners using neural network model and (3) to deploy the model to identify potential churners. Data was divided into two parts: sampling (67,470 cases) and scoring (4,488 cases). Analysis was done using SAS Enterprise Miner. Dependent variable is churner/non churner while independent variables are balance and amount of loan, interest rate offered installment amount, loan performance, months in arrear, vintage, tenure, age, race and gender. Potential churners were identified as Malays, followed by Indian, other races and Chinese. Nonperforming loan and male customers tend to churn compared to performing loan and female customers. Younger customers with small loan amount, balance and monthly instalment, higher interest rate, have many months in arrears, longer vintage and tenure have higher tendency to churn from Bank X. Hence, Bank X should focus on the potential churners for their campaign to minimize the expenses of retaining existing customers by doing an effective campaign with high successful rate.