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Customer Loyalty & Relationship Management
Linkage Analysis Case Studies
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Linkage Analysis Case Studies
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Burke research findings help industrial supplies client align internal processes with customer needs
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Project Type: Linkage Analysis
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Business Situation:
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A supplier of industrial packing materials wanted to identify specific internal processes that would lead to improved customer perceptions of experiences with the supplier. The client also sought validation that these improvements in customer perceptions lead to more favorable customer behaviors, such as higher share allocation to the supplier. This industrial supplier chose Burke because of its extensive business-to-business research experience, its systematic approach to Linkage Analysis, and superior analytical consultation and modeling.
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Research Objectives:
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- Establish the link between relevant process metrics, i.e. delivery reliability, credit amount, and product defect rate and customer perceptions of their experience with the industrial supplier
- Quantify the financial benefit for every point improvement in customer perceptions of various touch-points, as well as increases in overall customer loyalty to the supplier
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Method:
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- An assessment phase to identify potential relationships between internal customer metrics and customer feedback on supplier performance
- An inventory of resources needed, including identification of individuals who could provide the relevant data
- A subsequent quantitative modeling analysis phase to establish the links between internal activities, customer perceptions of supplier performance, and business activity of the customers.
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Outcome:
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Findings of the research provided the supplier with valuable decision support to align their internal processes with the needs of their customers. The analysis identified key internal metrics that have the most favorable impact on overall customer loyalty. For instance, the ability to customize the supply to meet the customer’s specific order quantity requests was observed to be a key driver of overall customer loyalty. Also, improvements in customer loyalty were found to create greater customer willingness to pay a premium price, which resulted in higher profit for the industrial supplier.
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Burke research supports client call center metrics linkage to overall loyalty
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Project Type: Linkage Analysis
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Business Situation:
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A major technology company was interested in identifying the link between customer support representative metrics, internal process measures, and the favorability of the customer experience in a call center environment. Understanding the relationship between these variables would allow the firm to identify key internal activities that could produce superior customer experiences when they contact the call center.
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Research Objectives:
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- Examine the relationship between customer support rep metrics (i.e. their engagement levels) and internal process capabilities (i.e. first-time-fix capability)
- Identify key customer support rep and internal process metrics that drive the favorability of customer experience as measured through survey research
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Method:
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- A Linkage Assessment phase to identify and describe available data streams containing customer support rep metrics, internal process measures, as well as survey-based customer feedback measuring the quality of their support experience
- A detailed discussion on the desired level at which these analyses should be performed, recognizing the need to preserve the confidentiality of individual customer support rep metric data, such as their engagement scores
- Subsequent quantitative modeling to establish the linkages between customer support metrics, internal process measures, and customer evaluation of the call center experience
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Outcome:
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For this technology company, Burke effectively combined the art and science of Linkage Analysis to link different data streams and provide a customer-centric decision support tool for managing the firm’s call center operations. The analysis clearly showed that customer support reps with higher engagement levels were more capable of delivering superior internal process outcomes such as first-time fix. Improved internal processes in turn were drivers of favorable customer experience. Together, these analyses helped the client organization prioritize alternate customer-centric initiatives that could optimize customers’ call center experience, thereby increasing their overall loyalty to the firm.
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Burke research maximizes customer relationship value for financial services firm
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Project Type: Linkage Analysis
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Business Situation:
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A major international financial services firm wanted to demonstrate the link between customer attitudes toward their credit card, customers’ credit card activity, and their overall business activity with the parent firm issuing these credit cards. More specifically, this company wanted to know if more favorable attitudes toward the credit card lead to an expanded portfolio of products acquired by the customer from the parent financial services company issuing these credit cards. This financial services organization commissioned Burke for its robust and customizable research process.
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Research Objectives:
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- Examine the linkage between customer attitudes toward their credit cards (measured through survey research) and their credit card activity
- Determine the relationship between customer attitudes toward their credit card and their overall attitudes toward the parent financial services organization issuing the cards
- Establish the effect of customers’ attitudes toward their credit cards on customers’ overall business activity with the parent organization
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Method:
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- A Linkage Assessment phase to identify data available on customer attitudes toward the credit card as well as toward the parent organization, and data sets containing individual customer business activity with the firm
- Detailed discussions on ways to link all these data together into one seamless model
- A subsequent quantitative analysis phase to quantify the linkages between customer attitudes and customer behaviors of interest to the parent company
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Outcome:
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For this firm, Burke identified a set of customer-centric strategies and tactics that, when implemented, maximized the value of each individual customer relationship. The analysis showed that past experiences with the credit card, as well as specific card features, affect customer loyalty toward their credit card, and therefore card usage. Further, for customers who start their relationship with the firm through the credit card, greater customer loyalty to the card leads to an expansion of a customer’s overall relationship with the firm; these customers sign up for more and broader types of products offered by the firm. The portfolio expansion ultimately leads to greater income and margin that customers contribute to the profitability of the firm.
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Partnership with Burke creates stronger understanding of relationship between medical diagnostic equipment company customer attitudes and behaviors
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Project Type: Linkage Analysis
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Business Situation:
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A major medical diagnostic equipment company was interested in understanding the relationship between customer attitudes and customer behavior, in particular whether customers who report more favorable attitudes toward the company also direct more business to the firm. This pharmaceutical client partnered with Burke because of its knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry, and its experience designing Linkage Analysis to interpret customer attitudes in tandem with subsequent customer behavior.
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Research Objectives:
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- Examine the linkage between customer attitudes as tracked in customer loyalty measurement programs and customer behaviors stored in the company’s customer databases
- Identify the key components of customer attitudes that are the strongest drivers of customer behaviors
- Identify specific behavioral elements that are most affected by customer attitudes
- Prioritize alternate improvement initiatives that have the highest impact on customer attitudes and consequently on customer behavior toward the firm
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Method:
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- Linkage Assessment to identify available customer attitudinal and behavioral data, and the feasibility of conducting Linkage Analysis
- For multiple customer locations serviced by the firm, quantitative modeling analysis to quantify the linkages between customer attitudes and customer behavior
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Outcome:
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The analysis clearly showed that customers with more favorable attitudes toward the company gave a greater share of their medical diagnostic equipment business to the firm. Moreover, the analysis helped the client prioritize alternate customer-centric initiatives that could improve customer perception, and therefore the client’s share of business with these customers.
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Burke research provides key customer loyalty and attitude findings for retail client
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Project Type: Linkage Analysis
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Business Situation:
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A leading, regional retailer collected volumes of data on the financial performance of their retail outlets, feedback on customers’ in-store experiences at these outlets, customer purchase activity at the stores, and extensive store-level data (e.g., age of store). However, these data streams existed in disparate data sets in different database structures. The retailer wanted to bring these data together into one overall decision-support framework to leverage them in improving the financial performance of their outlets through appropriate employee and customer-centric initiatives. This retailer sought partnership with Burke because of our ability to bring together multiple sources of data into a comprehensive framework that can allow the firm to draw relationships among them, and then focus on employee and customer-centric strategies that can have a substantial impact on the overall financial performance of the firm.
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Research Objectives:
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- Through Blueprinting, create an inventory of employee, process, customer, and financial data tracked at the individual store level
- Identify individual store departments with maximum potential for improving customer loyalty and increasing in-store purchases
- Estimate the lag between improved customer loyalty and increased in-store buying
- Examine the direction of the relationship between employee engagement and customer loyalty measures at the individual store level
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Method:
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- Linkage Assessment to discuss the process for integrating these multiple measures into one comprehensive framework, including identification of individuals most knowledgeable about relevant data streams
- Iterative multivariate modeling to establish the linkages between relevant employee, process, customer, and financial measures at the store level
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Outcome:
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The analysis provided very compelling and face-valid findings. The overall model provided empirical evidence that more engaged employees are more capable of delivering processes that foster higher customer loyalty. Customer loyalty was also observed to be driven by the age of the store. Higher customer loyalty was in turn observed to lead to larger basket size for the customers in terms of both – the number of items, as well as dollar spends. Also, favorable customer attitudes were observed to result in an almost immediate higher in-store buying activity by the customers.
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Burke research shows impact of customer loyalty for retail banking firm
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Project Type: Linkage Analysis
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Business Situation:
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A major retail bank needed to understand the linkages between customer attitudes and customer behavior for high net worth customers. In the past, management at the bank had been frustrated by minimal improvements in customer loyalty scores for these individuals, and had questioned the results of its customer loyalty measurement program that purportedly measured the attitudes of the high net worth customers. Burke was chosen for this engagement because of its extensive experience translating customer feedback to business implications for senior management in the financial services sector. Burke’s knowledge of the financial services industry minimized the resource requirements for the client organization in terms of project management and communication of results and recommendations.
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Research Objectives:
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- Among high net worth customers, determine whether there was a link between customer perceptions of the retail bank and the nature and amount of business activity with the bank
- Quantify the magnitude of any linkages to estimate potential bottom-line benefits associated with small increments in loyalty among high net-worth customers
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Method:
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- Linkage Assessment to identify high net worth customers, and isolate their attitudinal as well as business activity data with the bank’s databases
- Thorough review of past research conducted by the bank on these high net worth customers
- Multivariate modeling analysis phase to establish the linkages between customer attitudes and resultant customer behavior for high net-worth customers
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Outcome:
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The analysis revealed two key findings. First, data for high net worth customers clearly supported the fact that these customers have higher expectations of service performance from the retail bank, presumably because these individuals recognize their contribution to the bottom-line of the bank. These higher expectations can make it more difficult to increase loyalty through service improvements. Second, the analyses provided compelling evidence that even small increases in the customer loyalty scores of high net worth customers can result in substantial improvements in the financial performance of the bank because of the significant resources possessed by these individuals. This latter finding allowed bank management to recognize that even small loyalty score increments, as measured by the measurement program, can have a very tangible and meaningful impact on the financial performance of the bank.
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