Faculty of Business Seminar Series / Umut Konuş

Title: The Effects Of Volume and Valence of Communication, Service and Earned Touchpoints on Behavior and Satisfaction: An Attribution Based on Mobile Real-Time Tracking Data

Abstract :

This study investigates the effect of the volume and valence of instant communication, service and earned touchpoint encounters on customer behavior and satisfaction over time by using real-time experience tracking methodology through mobile devices, in banking, healthcare and telecommunication industries. Furthermore, we also investigate the interactions between volume and valence of different touchpoints and customer characteristics along customer journey.

Previous studies on touchpoints experiences consider one or two types of touchpoints, mostly by focusing only on the volume or valence of the touchpoint experiences and not on both metrics together. Furthermore, past research mostly did not capture the affective (instant) emotional responses to touchpoint experiences and instead mostly used retrospective surveys to capture attitudinal components or merely focused on the behavior and ignored the affective emotional response (valence) to these encounters. The studies that investigate the effects of both measures only consider the influences of earned touchpoints. This is a relevant and noteworthy gap since many researchers and managers today are eager to understand which touchpoints matter more/the most in different situations to drive purchases and enhance customer satisfaction.

In our research we fill this gap by using a real-time tracking approach where customers report their touchpoint encounters in real-time through mobile devices during a 4 weeks tracking period. We analyze multiple types of touchpoints (service, communication and earned touchpoints) and metrics (volume, valence recency-touchpoint sequence and customer characteristics) in multiple categories: banking, healthcare and telecommunication.

Venue: Meeting Room 345, AB2