96805 - MICRO-MARKETING AND CRM

Learning outcomes

The purpose of the course is to make participants understand and appreciate the relative strengths and weaknesses of a variety of customer satisfaction and customer value measurement approaches and instruments available today. At the end of the course the student is familiar with, and is able to choose among, strategies and tactics aimed to optimize the quality of the relationships between the company and the actual and/or potential customer base, improving customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and, finally, company’s profitability. At the end of this course participants are able to: - Understand the meaning of (and the relations between) customer satisfaction, CRM and loyalty - Apply relevant concepts of business analysis to marketing problems, with specific emphasis on CRM decisions (Customer Lifetime Value estimation, customer satisfaction measurement and related managerial implications) - Be familiar with different types of real world customer-level data, and able to apply advanced statistical techniques to those data. - Manage and analyze customers related data through modern Customer Relationship Management software

Course contents

In mature and highly competitive markets the concept of customer satisfaction as a fundamental precursor of loyalty, profitability and customer value plays a central role in the implementation of successful business models. While finding new customers is vital, it is important to realize that retaining current customers is much less expensive than to finding new customers. It is therefore no surprise that a great deal of attention has been recently brought to the issue of designing and establishing formal systems able to bring the “voice of the customer” into the business/marketing decision-making processes. The purpose of the course is to make participants understand and appreciate the relative strengths and weaknesses of a variety of customer value and customer satisfaction measurement approaches and instruments available today. A key element in this process is measuring customer satisfaction through market research. As such, the course will focus on the understanding and the actual implementation of the customer satisfaction measurement practices currently employed in business environment. The links existing between Customer Satisfaction scores, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) instruments and Customer Profitability results will be explored in depth, in order to create an understanding of how companies, service organizations and retail banks translate CS measurement in actual commercial strategies and decisions.

At the end of this course participants will be able to:

• Understand the meaning of (and the relations between) customer satisfaction, CRM, Customer Value Management and loyalty

• Evaluate the main techniques available to measure customer satisfaction and Customer Value Management

• Design customer satisfaction measurement processes

• Recognize how customer satisfaction impacts profitability

• Identify the main issues involved in customer satisfaction (and dissatisfaction) management

Readings/Bibliography

A reading package will be made available by the instructor at the beginning of the course

The reading package is differentiated between attending and non-attending student. The non-attending students package will include additional readings to compensate for the missed CS survey project work.

Teaching methods

The course teaching methods includes cases discussions, desk analyses of customer satisfaction data sets and group project work to allow participants to apply to real settings the concepts and techniques that have been analysed during the course.

The group project work consist of the design, implementation and final presentation of a professional grade marketing research related to the measurement of the customer satisfaction of a convenience sample (about 200 subjects) of customers of a service company chosen by groups' members.

The groups are composed of 4-6 students and are generated thru proportional stratified random sampling. Strata are formed based on students' native language (Italian vs not Italian) and undergraduate background (statistics vs not statistics).

Assessment methods

Attending students:

Final written exam (exam duration: 50 min) plus assessment of team-based project works .

Marks are intended on a numerical grade scale (0 to 30), being 18 to 30 the passing grade range. As for the grading policy, the course evaluation is made of 60% group project work (CS custom survey) and 40% final individual written (in the first and second call) or oral (in the following calls) examination.

 

Non-Attending students

Final individual written/oral examination.

Marks are intended on a numerical grade scale (0 to 30), being 18 to 30 the passing grade range. As for the grading policy, the course evaluation is made of 100% final individual written/oral examination.

 

The development of the group project work (maximum 6 members per group, minimum 4) allows students to apply all the knowledge acquired during the course. The objective of the project—consistent with the course's placement in the second year of the Master’s program—is to acquire (and demonstrate) operational skills in designing and conducting a professional-level research study on the topic of service quality evaluation.

The project involves several stages: defining the research subject, analyzing information needs, conducting a literature review, carrying out the exploratory phase of the research (including in-depth interviews and focus groups), developing an appropriate measurement tool (questionnaire), defining a sampling plan, collecting data, and, of course, analyzing the data using multiple methods (traditional multivariate analysis and structural equation modeling). The final deliverable also includes a professionally structured PowerPoint presentation.

The project work is graded according to the following scale:

• 28–30 with honors: correct, thorough, and sufficiently complex project demonstrating full mastery of the course topics and consistent execution skills, with at most minimal inaccuracies

• 24–27: project not entirely correct and/or incomplete, but showing a good level of understanding of the course content and solid execution skills

• 18–23: project with significant methodological errors or major analytical weaknesses, yet showing just sufficient execution ability

• 0–17: project inadequate in terms of methodology and data analysis

The group grade is subject to peer evaluation, where each group member evaluates their peers based on both their factual contributions and idea generation throughout the project. If a student's peer evaluation score is more than 10% below the group average, their individual grade will be reduced by the same percentage, up to a maximum penalty of 20%.

 

The purpose of the written/oral exam is to assess the student’s ability to apply their knowledge and make logical and deductive connections. The written/oral examination will consist of open-ended questions and/or short analytical exercises concerning the topics discussed during the course. The grading criteria are as follows:

• Comprehensive preparation on all course topics, with the ability to independently conduct critical analysis and make connections, full command of terminology, and strong argumentation and self-reflection skills → 30–30 with honors

• Preparation on a wide range of course topics, with the ability to make independent critical assessments and good command of specific terminology → 25–29

• Preparation on a limited number of topics, with independent analytical ability limited to procedural issues; correct language use → 20–24

• Preparation on a very limited number of course topics, with analytical skills emerging only with the instructor’s assistance; overall correct language use → 18–19

• Preparation inadequate in terms of topics knowledge and critical analysis → 0–17

Non-attending students or attending students dissatisfied with their project work grade may, of course, take the full written/oral exam during the regular exam sessions.

 

Teaching tools

Slides, PC, statistical and IT tools

Office hours

See the website of Gian Luca Marzocchi