Creating Customer Value: The Path to Sustainable Competitive Advantage

This text argues that the key success factor for every business - manufacturing, service, or retail - is the ability to maximise customer value, product quality alone is not enough. Customers must be integrated throughout a firm's decision making process. It discusses the three imperatives of customer value that every company must master to build and retain loyal customers: product quality, service quality, and value based pricing. This is intended a resource for middle managers, senior managers, and trainers in any corporation whose goal is to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Complacency: Success Sows The Insidious Seeds of Failure; Complacency Is the Enemy; Complacency in Business Schools; Complacency in Business; Complacency at Xerox; Complacency is More of a Problem Than Ever; Consumers and Customers; Technology; Globalization; Summary; Application Ideas ; Chapter 2: The Customer Value Triad: Product Quality Alone is not enough; The Customer Value Triad; Product Quality and Service Quality are Inseparable to the Customer; The Five Basic Customer Value Lessons; Lesson One, Lesson Two, Lesson Three, Lesson Four, Lesson Five; Brands and Value; Economic Darwinism; Survival of the Fittest; Summary; Application Ideas; Chapter 3: The Quality Imperative: Creating Value Through Product Quality; The Average Firm; Strategic Reasons to Pursue Total Quality; Six Sigma Quality; Quality Pays; Customer-driven Quality; The Evolution to Total Quality; Quality Leaders; GAO Report; Employee Relations; Operating Performance; Customer Satisfaction; Financial Performance; Other Evidence; PIMS Study; Two-Factor Model of Product Quality; Summary; The Motorola Story; The Globe Metallurgical Story; The Zytec Corporation Story; The Graniterock Company Story; Application Ideas; Chapter 4: The Service Imperative: Creating Value Through Service quality; Types of Services; Presale Services; Transaction Services; Postsale Services; Services as a Competitive Advantage; Two-Factor Model of Service Quality; Unique Characteristics of Services; Intangibility; Heterogeneity; Perishability; Inseparability of Production and Consumption; Customer's Evaluative Criteria for Services; Service Quality Model; Gap1, Gap 2, Gap 3, Gap 4, Gap 5; Using the Serv-Qual Model; Summary; Application Ideas; Chapter 5: Value-based Pricing; Defining Customer Value; Expected Benefits; Search Attributes; Experience-based Attributes; Credence-based Attributes; Expected Sacrifice; Transaction Costs; Life Cycle Costs; Risk; Value Profiles; Reference Points; Zone of Indifference; Zone of Acceptability; A Value-Based Pricing Model; Contextual Factors; Search, Experience, and Credence Attributes; Product and Service Quality, Expected Benefits; Reference, Actual, and Reasonable Prices; Perceived Expected Sacrifice; Expected Customer Value; Willingness to Buy; Channel Issues; Competitive Response; Summary; Application Ideas; Reference; Chapter 6 The high cost of low value: Direct Costs; Customer Service Department; Returns; Warranties and Guarantees; Acquisition Costs; Indirect Costs; Word-of-Mouth Referrals; Lost Innovations; Customer Retention; Summary; Application Ideas; Chapter 7: A Customer Satisfaction Program: The scorecard that meaures delivered customer value; Ten Basic Rules of Customer Satisfaction; Rule 1: Involve Top Management; Rule 2: Know the Customers; Rule 3: Let the Customer Define What Attributes Are Important; Rule 4: Know the Customers' Requirements, Expections, Wants; Rule 5: Know the Relative Importance of Customer's Decision.