This course focuses on building relationships between an organization and its customers.  Students will explore methods of identifying customer needs, expectations, and satisfaction.  Buyer behavior theory will be applied to the measurement of customer satisfaction congruent with current industry practice.  Emphasis will be placed on the collection, analysis and measurement of internal and external data for use in developing effective business strategies.  Prerequisites:  MBA Core

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. Understand customer needs and preferences.
2. Appreciate the importance of internal customer satisfaction
3. Measure internal and external customer satisfaction
4. Interpret, analyze, and apply customer data.
5. Determine the value of an external customer
6. Develop effective customer management for the new economy.

REQUIRED READING:
Anton, John (1996)  Customer Relationship Management:  Making hard Decisions with Soft Numbers, Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, Inc.

Supplementary Readings and Cases:  Available from the Instructor
 
 
 

2. PARTICIPATION & DISCUSSION.
Time will be allocated during class periods to the discussion of current thought/issues.  Students are expected to be prepared to discuss assigned articles and cases in class.

3. RELEVANCE OF THE COURSE
What is the relevance of this course to you or the organization for which you work?  Considering your occupation and occupational aspirations, be prepared to comment on at least one ‘take away’ idea or concept from each class.

4. WRITTEN CASE ANALYSIS
Three cases are assigned throughout the semester.  Students are required to prepare written solutions to at least two of the cases.  The lowest grade will be dropped for students who prepare all three.  However, students are expected to be prepared to discuss all three cases in class.  All written case analyses are due in class on the due date.  No late cases will be accepted for any reason.   (Feb. 19, Mar 5, Apr. 23)

4. EXAMS
There will be one  mid-term exam.  The exam will focus on your mastery of the material in the texts and the assigned readings.  The exam is a take-home due March 26 but will accept e-mailed exams until March 30.  Note:  Please request a reply indicating receipt of the exam.  No reply means I did not receive your email.

5. TERM PROJECT
Students, working teams of  3 or 4 will develop a customer management strategy for a business or non-profit organization.

COURSE GRADE
 Class participation               15%
Cases analyses                     20%
 Mid-term exam                   15%
 Term project                       50%
     Written paper                  40%
     Oral                               10%

This course is conducted in accordance with the academic policies and procedures outlined in The Source.  Students are encouraged to look a The Source for policies on academic honesty, and student conduct.

Disability GuidelinesIf you have been diagnosed with a disability and you require reasonable accommodations, you must make an appointment with the Director of Student Services at 768-4260.  Documentation must be presented so that you may be referred to the appropriate office for these accommodations.  All information is kept strictly confidential.
 

PART I:   Select a business or not-for-profit organization for which you can easily identify the customers. (so that you can survey approximately 100).   Identify the points of customer contact/channels(ie. Telephone, internet, point-of-service [purchase], post-purchase, etc. where problems are likely to occur.  Identify the ‘satisfaction drivers’ by:
1.  Conducting qualitative inquiry to identify potential problems– key informant interviews, customer interviews, complaint data, etc.
2. Present a summary of the results of qualitative inquiries on March 12.
3. Develop a customer satisfaction survey based on the findings of your qualitative inquiries.  The survey should be no longer than 3 pages and include:
· Questions about satisfaction with attributes of the satisfaction drivers
· An overall satisfaction question (5 pt. Scale)
· How often customers use/buy the service or product.
· How much they spend on the product/service.  (to calculate the lifetime value)
4. Pretest the survey in class on April 2.
5. Submit written report on April 2  in which you:
· Briefly describe (identify) the focal organization.
· Explain why you chose this organization.
· Identify the points of customer contact/channels, satisfaction drivers, and business processes involved (validation for your survey design).
· Present results of the qualitative inquiry.
· Describe the survey (ie. What questions relate to points of contact, satisfaction drivers, business processes that need improvement)  Justify each question.
· Present one table showing which items query on the satisfaction drivers.
· A copy of the completed survey.
· Note:  This will become the Introduction section in your final report.
6  Failure to submit Part I on the due date will result in –10% of the project grade.

Part II:  Conduct the customer satisfaction survey (100 responses)  Data will be analyzed using SPSS for Windows.Ò Students will enter the data on an Excel 4.0 file and submit the file  on or before April 16.  Data analysis will be conducted by the instructor’s GA.  Results of the analysis will be returned to students on April 16.  Based on the results, develop a plan of action to improve customers and justify the plan to top management.  The second part of the project includes:
1. The results of the survey – identification of areas needing improvement.
· Descriptive results of what was learned from the data. – use frequency results on all questions.
2. Customer satisfaction indices developed from the survey results.
3. A plan of action to improve satisfaction and retention.
4. A justification to top management including the costs of the action plan and benefits of customer retention (lifetime value of a customer).
5. Show how the plan of action fits the strategic orientation of the firm/organization.
6. Present the results in class on May 9.
7. After each part of the term project, students will evaluate the performance/contribution of team members; grades will be adjusted accordingly.

Note:  Case analyses are to be typewritten and stapled.  The final term project should be submitted as a formal professional report.  It should be bound and contain:  A title page, executive summary, table of contents, and appendices (tabled results of the data analysis and copy of the survey).

Date                      Topic
Jan. 29                 Introduction and Overview:  Managing customer interfaces in the new economy.
 
                            Nunes, Paul, Diane Wilson and Ajit Kambil (2000)  “The all-in-one  market.”  HBR May-June 2000.
                            Werbach, Kevin (2000)  “Syndication:  The emerging model for business in the internet era.”  HBR  May-June 2000.
 
Feb. 5                  Economics of Customer Satisfaction:  The Value of Loyal Customers
                            Due:  Information sheets on the back of the syllabus.

                            Brown, Stanley A.  (2000)  Customer Relationship Management.  Overview, Ch 1 Putting CRM to Work:  The Rise of  the Relationship
                           Anderson, Henrik and Per D. Jacobsen (2000)  “Creating Loyalty”  Its strategic importance in your customer strategy.  In Stanley A. Brown, Managing Customer Relationships Ch. 4, 55-64.
                            Grant, Alan W.H. and Leonard Schlesinger (199)  “Realize your customers’ full profit potential.” HBR September-October 60-77.
  “The Value of a Satisfied Customer”

Feb. 12                 Managing Internal customers to satisfy external customers

                            Heskett, James L, Thomas O. Jones, Gary W. Loveman, W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger (1994)  “Putting the service-profit chain to work.”  HBR March-April 26-36.
                            Ricci, Anthony J., Steven P. Kirn, and Richard T. Quinn (1998) “The employee-customer-profit chain at Sears.”  HBR     January-February 82-98.
                            In class simulation

Feb. 19                 Who are my customers?  What motivates them?
                             Case due:  A measure of delight:  The pursuit of quality at AT&T universal card services (A).
                            Crutin, Robert (1984) “Foundations of Behavioral Economics”
                            Anderson, James C. and James A. Narus (1998)  “Business marketing:  Understand what customers value.  HBR              November-December 82-98.
                            Dalrimple (1998)“Customer Analysis” (Ch. 3)  Marketing Management

Feb. 26                 Customer Relationship Management for Satisfied Customers
                              Jones, Thomas O. and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. (1995)  “Why satisfied customers defect.”  HBR  November-December 88-99.
                             Hart, Christopher W.L. James L. Heskett, and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. (1990)  “The profitable Art of service recovery.”  HBR  July-August, 58-66.
                             Bhoti, Ch. 3:  Why Companies Don’t Satisfy Their Customers

Mar. 5                  Measuring Satisfaction:  Qualitative Measures
                             Case due:  Club Med A

                            Anton, Ch.1:  Customer Relationship Management
                            Anton, Ch. 2:  Management Requires Measurement
                            Anton, Ch. 3:  Qualitative Measurement Methods
                             Anton, Case 3:  Introducing the Teletary pp. 153-158

Mar. 12                 Measuring Satisfaction:  Quantitative Measures:  Survey Design
                              Due:  Qualitative Data Collected – present summary in class

                              Anton, Ch. 4:  Quantitative Measurement Methods
                              Anton, Ch. 6:  Customer Relationship Survey Design
                              Bhoti, Ch. 10:  Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty

Mar. 19                  SPRING BREAK---NO CLASS

Mar. 26                  Group Meetings with Instructor (schedule during class time)
                              Due:  email draft of survey to instructor by Mar. 25 (midnight)
 
                                Mid-term exam due; email exams accepted until Mar 30.
 
Apr. 2                      Pre-test surveys in class --- begin data collection
                                Part 1 of project due

Apr. 9                      Indices of Customer Satisfaction for product/service improvement Coding Surveys

                                Anton, Ch. 5:  Calculating Relationship Indices
                                 Anton, Ch. 7: Statistical Analysis of Customer Surveys
                                 Anton, Ch. 9:  Using Customer Relationship Survey Results
 

Apr. 16                 Concepts of Data Modeling and Data Management
                              Excel Data File due in class along with data analysis plan

                              Anton, Ch.  7  Statistical Analysis of Customer Surveys
                              Brown, Stanley A.  (2000)  Customer Relationship Management Ch2.  “The Need for a Market-Intelligent Enterprise (MIE)”
                              SPSS (n.d.) “Building profitable customer relationships with data mining.”  SPSS White Paper – executive briefing.
 
 
 

Apr. 23               Analyzing and Interpreting the Data
                           Due:  Case—Xerox Customer Management Program
                           Bring Data Analysis Results to Class
                          Anton, Case 5:  The Perceived Dynamics of Service Quality

Apr. 30                 Continuous Improvement

                             Finkelman, Daniel P. (1991)  “Crossing the ‘zone of indifference’” Marketing Management, vol 2 (3) 22-31.
                             Bhote, Ch. 12 Continuous Improvement
                             Pine, B. Joesph II, Don Peppers, and Martha Rogers (1995) “Do you want to keep your customers forever?”  HBR                  March-April    36-47.

May 7                      Strategic Implications – CRM in the 21st Century
 
                            Tracey, Michael and Fred Wiersema (1992).  “Customer intimacy and other value disciplines.”  HBR  January-February.
                            Porter, Michael E. (1996)  “What is strategy?”  HBR November-December

May 9                  Student presentations
                            Due:  Complete Project – a formal presentation (bound & professional copy to be submitted).
 
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