Evaluating Internet Information Search Channels Using Hybrid MCDM Technique

Abstract

Abstract. The evolution of technology has fragmented the market which has resulted in media proliferation. The frequent emergence of various media channels have enabled marketers and agencies to devise alternative methods to engage with consumers. The major challenge for marketers is to be informed about consumer preferences by identifying where the online consumers prefer to search pre-purchase information about the products to maximize the benefits of marketing. This study highlights methodology for group decision support for selecting an appropriate marketing channel using multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) based on context specific requirements. Firstly the influencing factors of consumer information search have been identified through literature review. Further we have used hybrid MCDM technique for ranking different alternatives. The fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for group decision making has been used to identify relative importance of consumer search factors and TOPSIS has been used to evaluate different marketing channels. The approach is illustrated through case study.

Measuring and improving customer retention at authorised automobile workshops after free services

“…For prediction of future behaviour, customer retention is a strong indicator of behaviour intention with a plethora of research findings available in current literature (Lam and Hsu, 2006;Park et al, 2006;Haverila, 2011;Wang and Tzeng, 2012;Liu et al, 2013;Nilashi and Ibrahim;Khatwani et al, 2014;Chiang, 2016;Rekik et al, 2016;Kumar and Dash, 2017;Cui et al, 2017). Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are used to predict customer retention in different fields (Wei et al, 2010;Zolfani et al, 2012;Zolfani et al, 2013).…”

“…Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are used to predict customer retention in different fields (Wei et al, 2010;Zolfani et al, 2012;Zolfani et al, 2013). In existing literature, these methods have been widely employed because of their inherent capabilities and potential to handle various criteria to select the best alternative(s) (Park et al, 2006;Wei et al, 2010;Khatwani et al, 2014;Aghdaie and Alimardani, 2015;Kumar and Dash, 2016c). The unique feature of these methods is that if we have a different unit of measurement for our selected criteria, we can deal with those criteria (Gal et al, 2013;Aghdaie and Tafreshi, 2017).…”

“…A retained consumer not only helps companies in promoting new products but can also promote workshop services by word of mouth (Haverila, 2011;Wang and Tzeng, 2012;Nilashi and Ibrahim, 2014). It is accepted that a happy customer attracts many new customers, whereas an unhappy customer deters at least ten prospective customers (Liu et al, 2013;Khatwani et al, 2014;Khatwani et al, 2014;Chiang, 2016). Hence it is important for every company to ensure timely servicing of vehicles for satisfactory performance of the product (Cherubini et al, 2015;Levesque and Boeck, 2017).…”

“…Therefore, it is important for automobile companies to find out the customer retention factors associated with authorised workshops where customers come to get preventive maintenance services of their vehicle. Much research literature is available regarding customer retention (Wang and Tzeng, 2012;Liu et al, 2013;Khatwani et al, 2014;Chiang, 2016;Rekik et al, 2016;Kumar and Dash, 2017), but no work has been done related to measuring and improving customer retention at authorized automobile workshops after free services. This study is an attempt to fill this literature gap.…”

Benefits and Pitfalls in Utilization of the Internet by Elderly People

“…The following work might focus an analyzing the gained data from another perspective, for example, based on the methodology of [17].…”