Australasian Marketing Journal

The impact of the internet on inter-firm relationships has received little attention in the academic literature. This theory building research develops a conceptual framework about internet-facilitated relationships based on the literature and research findings from convergent interviews. The convergent interviews were conducted with CEOs and/or marketing managers of 10 Australian service companies. Results show that the internet does not appear to hinder inter-firm relationships as the internet is not being used at the expense of more traditional and personal forms of communication and has little impact on the level of trust in internet exchange partners and the dependence they have on one another at this relatively early stage of adoption. Rather, internet use is thought to be linked with improved business performance and satisfaction with the exchange partner's performance. The findings of this research add to the body of marketing knowledge and provide guidelines for managers to more effectively use the internet in managing their relationships with other businesses.

Increasingly contemporary theorists argue that the emergence of electronic markets and associated systems have enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness by which a marketer can establish, develop and maintain customer relationships. Notwithstanding, evidence suggests that this enthusiasm may need to be tempered by acknowledging that, for a sizeable group of customers, technology-enabled service delivery may lead to less than satisfactory experiences that ultimately impact upon the ability to develop relationships of mutual benefit. This paper explores issues associated with trust, reliability and a felt need for personal contact which impact upon an individual's capacity and willingness to use technology-enabled service delivery. Clearly providers must recognise that a production driven ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to electronically enhanced service delivery may have negative implications for an organisation's customer relationship management program. Managerial implications and a proposed research agenda are discussed.

Services possess a number of well-known characteristics that differentiate them from goods. Previous research indicates that goods and services marketers may adopt different advertising strategies, presumably in order to overcome or exploit these differences in the nature of service products. 352 Australian television commercials for goods and services were content analysed to determine whether the advertising strategies for goods and services were, in fact, different. Each commercial was categorised according to two classification schemes. The study found that goods and services marketers did appear to adopt different advertising strategies. However, mixed results emerged in terms of predictions based on previous overseas research. Several possible explanations for these findings are offered.

Knowing how to handle angry customers following a service failure is an important aspect of a service provider's work role. This paper presents a conceptual framework to help marketing academics and managers better understand: (1) how customer anger is provoked by a service failure; and (2) how customer anger may be reduced through using specific service recovery attempts by service providers. Specifically, we propose a two-phase conceptual model incorporating pre-service recovery (Phase 1) and service recovery (Phase 2). We argue that in Phase 1, an external cause produces anger and that cognitive appraisal is undertaken specifically in terms of: (a) goal relevance; (b) goal incongruence; and (c) ego-involvement – and this moderates the intensity of anger experienced by the customer. In Phase 2, we argue that customer anger can be reduced if the service provider undertakes the following: (a) listening; (b) engaging in blame displacement; and (c) providing an apology to the customer.

This research used an e-mail from mock Chinese consumers to investigate how Australian educational institutions use e-mail for overseas marketing and customer service. Less than two out of three of the 212 institutions sampled replied to a simple e-mail asking about fees and entry requirements. Even less institutions answered the questions promptly, politely, personally, professionally and promotionally. Despite e-mail's widespread use, these results highlight implementation issues with this new marketing and customer service tool.

The study gives institutions benchmarks and insights for improving e-mail marketing and online customer service. Academically, this paper supports past organisational research that size and industry sector relate to adopting innovations, suggests new metrics for measuring Internet adoption and proposes future research agendas.