Measuring the efficiency of customer satisfaction and loyalty for mobile phone brands with DEA

The concept of customer satisfaction and loyalty (CS&L) has attracted much attention in recent years. A key motivation for the fast growing emphasis on CS&L can be attributed to the fact that higher customer satisfaction and loyalty can lead to stronger competitive position resulting in larger market share and profitability. Using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, in this study we analyzed and compared CS&L efficiency for mobile phone brands in an emerging telecommunication market, Turkey. The constructs of European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model are treated and used as input and output indicators of our DEA model. Drawing on the perceptual responses of 251 mobile phone users, the DEA models reveal that from the top six mobile phone brands in Turkey, Nokia features as the most efficient brand followed by LG and Sonny Ericsson in terms of CS&L efficiency, while Motorola, Samsung and Panasonic rank as the least efficient brands.

[1]  Abraham Charnes,et al.  Measuring the efficiency of decision making units , 1978 .

[2]  Boaz Golany,et al.  Evaluation of deregulated airline networks using data envelopment analysis combined with principal component analysis with an application to Western Europe , 2001, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[3]  C. Fornell,et al.  The American Customer Satisfaction Index: Nature, Purpose, and Findings , 1996 .

[4]  B. Golany,et al.  Using rank statistics for determining programmatic efficiency differences in data envelopment analysis , 1996 .

[5]  Wade D. Cook,et al.  Qualitative Data in Dea , 2011 .

[6]  Kallol Kumar Bagchi,et al.  The impact of price decreases on telephone and cell phone diffusion , 2008, Inf. Manag..

[7]  Shari Lawrence,et al.  The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on the Efficiency of the U.S. Banking Industry: Further Evidence , 2008 .

[8]  Steven A. Taylor,et al.  Measuring Service Quality: A Reexamination and Extension , 1992 .

[9]  Srinivas Talluri,et al.  Faster, better, cheaper: A study of NPD project efficiency and performance tradeoffs , 2006 .

[10]  Joe Zhu,et al.  Imprecise data envelopment analysis (IDEA): A review and improvement with an application , 2003, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[11]  F. F. Reichheld,et al.  Zero defections: quality comes to services. , 1990, Harvard business review.

[12]  W. J. Conover,et al.  Practical Nonparametric Statistics , 1972 .

[13]  R. Narasimhan,et al.  Exploring flexibility and execution competencies of manufacturing firms , 2004 .

[14]  A. Gustafsson,et al.  The Evolution and Future of National Customer Satisfaction Index Models , 2001 .

[15]  A. Charnes,et al.  Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis , 1984 .

[16]  Ali Turkyilmaz,et al.  Development of a customer satisfaction index model: An application to the Turkish mobile phone sector , 2007, Ind. Manag. Data Syst..

[17]  Wei-Wen Wu,et al.  Evaluating the influence of E-marketing on hotel performance by DEA and grey entropy , 2011, Expert Syst. Appl..

[18]  Hao-Chen Huang,et al.  Rating the relative efficiency of financial holding companies in an emerging economy: A multiple DEA approach , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[19]  F. M. Andrews Construct Validity and Error Components of Survey Measures: A Structural Modeling Approach , 1984 .

[20]  Emmanuel Thanassoulis,et al.  DEA and its use in the regulation of water companies , 2000, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[21]  Claes Fornell,et al.  A Model for Customer Complaint Management , 1988 .

[22]  N. Avkiran Developing foreign bank efficiency models for DEA grounded in finance theory , 2006 .

[23]  Hean Tat Keh,et al.  Retail productivity and scale economies at the firm level: a DEA approach , 2003 .

[24]  Roberto Gilioli Rotondaro,et al.  Defining the customer's expectations in e-business , 2002, Ind. Manag. Data Syst..

[25]  K. Glaister,et al.  Measuring strategic decision making efficiency in different country contexts: a comparison of British and Turkish firms , 2010 .

[26]  F. Webster The Changing Role of Marketing in the Corporation , 1992 .

[27]  Alan Dick,et al.  Customer loyalty: Toward an integrated conceptual framework , 1994 .

[28]  Ayla Ozhan Dedeoglu The Symbolic Use of Mobile Telephone Among Turkish Consumers , 2004 .

[29]  Lawrence M. Seiford,et al.  Data envelopment analysis (DEA) - Thirty years on , 2009, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[30]  Richard S. Barr,et al.  A process for evaluating retail store efficiency: a restricted DEA approach , 1998 .

[31]  Hean Tat Keh Measuring retailer performance: Towards an understanding of productivity , 2000 .

[32]  Wagner A. Kamakura,et al.  Measuring Market Efficiency and Welfare Loss , 1988 .

[33]  Naveen Donthu,et al.  Benchmarking marketing productivity using data envelopment analysis , 2005 .

[34]  Boaz Golany,et al.  Including principal component weights to improve discrimination in data envelopment analysis , 2002, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[35]  Michel Tenenhaus,et al.  PLS path modeling , 2005, Comput. Stat. Data Anal..

[36]  K. Srinivasan,et al.  Controlling for Observed and Unobserved Managerial Skills in Determining First-Mover Market Share Advantages , 1996 .

[37]  David M. Szymanski,et al.  Customer satisfaction: A meta-analysis of the empirical evidence , 2001 .

[38]  H. Sherman,et al.  Managing Bank Productivity Using Data Envelopment Analysis DEA , 1995 .

[39]  Guo H. Huang,et al.  Petroleum-contaminated groundwater remediation systems design: A data envelopment analysis based approach , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[40]  Gülçin Büyüközkan,et al.  Using a multi-criteria decision making approach to evaluate mobile phone alternatives , 2007, Comput. Stand. Interfaces.

[41]  C. Fornell,et al.  Customer Satisfaction, Market Share, and Profitability: Findings from Sweden , 1994 .

[42]  Angappa Gunasekaran,et al.  An efficiency comparison of supply chain management and information systems practices: a study of Turkish and Bulgarian small- and medium-sized enterprises in food products and beverages , 2010 .

[43]  D. B. Learner,et al.  Management Science and Marketing Management , 1985 .

[44]  William W. Cooper,et al.  Handbook on data envelopment analysis , 2011 .

[45]  Christian N. Madu,et al.  The relative efficiency of quality management practices: A comparison study on American-, Japanese-, and Taiwanese-owned firms in Taiwan , 2004 .

[46]  Liang Liang,et al.  DEA game cross-efficiency approach to Olympic rankings , 2009 .

[47]  M. F. Fuller,et al.  Practical Nonparametric Statistics; Nonparametric Statistical Inference , 1973 .

[48]  A. Soteriou,et al.  An internal customer service quality data envelopment analysis model for bank branches , 1997 .

[49]  Tien-Hsiang Chang,et al.  Did your efforts really win customers' satisfaction? , 2003, Ind. Manag. Data Syst..

[50]  John C. Narver,et al.  The Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability , 1990 .

[51]  A. Athanassopoulos Service quality and operating efficiency synergies for management control in the provision of financial services: Evidence from Greek bank branches , 1997 .

[52]  S. Koh,et al.  A casual analysis of the impact of information systems and supply chain management practices on operational performance : evidence from manufacturing SMEs in Turkey , 2009 .

[53]  R. Oliver,et al.  An Empirical Test of the Consequences of Behavior-and Outcome-Based Sales Control Systems , 1994 .

[54]  Chia-Chi Lee Analysis of overall technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency in the medium-sized audit firms , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[55]  Yusuf Ziya Özcan,et al.  Research Note: A Need or a Status Symbol? , 2003 .

[56]  Hung-Tso Lin Efficiency measurement and ranking of the tutorial system using IDEA , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[57]  Moshe Davidow,et al.  The Effects of Organizational Complaint Responses on Consumer Satisfaction, Word of Mouth Activity and Repurchase Intentions , 1998 .

[58]  William W. Cooper,et al.  Chance Constrained Dea , 2004 .

[59]  A. Hirschman,et al.  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States , 1970 .

[60]  C. Fornell A National Customer Satisfaction Barometer: The Swedish Experience: , 1992 .

[61]  Gülhayat Gölbaşı-Şimşek,et al.  Türkiye’de cep telefonu cihazı pazarında marka sadakati için bir model denemesi (A model of brand loyalty in Turkish cellular phone market) , 2009 .

[62]  Kas Kalba,et al.  The Adoption of Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets: Global Diffusion and the Rural Challenge , 2008 .

[63]  M. Farrell The Measurement of Productive Efficiency , 1957 .

[64]  Sangjae Lee,et al.  Efficiency analysis of controls in EDI applications , 2005, Inf. Manag..

[65]  T. Sueyoshi,et al.  A use of a nonparametric statistic for DEA frontier shift: the Kruskal and Wallis rank test , 2001 .

[66]  Tyrone T. Lin,et al.  Application of DEA in analyzing a bank's operating performance , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[67]  R. Oliver,et al.  The Dimensionality of Consumption Emotion Patterns and Consumer Satisfaction , 1991 .

[68]  Jayashree Mahajan,et al.  A data envelopment analytic model for assessing the relative efficiency of the selling function , 1991 .

[69]  J. J. Cronin,et al.  Assessing the effects of quality, value, and customer satisfaction on consumer behavioral intentions in service environments , 2000 .

[70]  R. A. Groeneveld,et al.  Practical Nonparametric Statistics (2nd ed). , 1981 .

[71]  T. Andreassen,et al.  The Effect of Corporate Image in the Formation of Customer Loyalty , 1998 .

[72]  Naveen Donthu,et al.  Retail productivity assessment using data envelopment analysis , 1998 .

[73]  K. Kristensen,et al.  Customer satisfaction measurement at Post Denmark: Results of application of the European Customer Satisfaction Index Methodology , 2000 .