Netnography: as a Market Research Tool
Four Notes to Keep in Mind
Understanding customers is vital to business sustainability and growth.
- Due to rapid advancements, especially in information technology, the context in which service is delivered, experienced and evaluated is changing.
Reference: Ostrom, A.L., Parasuraman, A., Bowen, D.E., Patrício, L. and Voss, C.A. (2015), “Service research priorities in a rapidly changing context”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 18 №2, pp. 127–159.
This creates large masses of information about customers activities and experiences.
Reference:
Berthon, P., Pitt, L., Kietzmann, J. and McCarthy, I.P. (2015), “CGIP: managing consumer- generated intellectual property”, California Management Review, Vol. 57 №4, pp. 43–62.
Wuenderlich, N.V., Heinonen, K., Ostrom, A.L., Patrício, L., Sousa, R., Voss, C. and Lemmink, G.A.M. (2015), “Futurizing smart service: implications for service researchers and managers”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 29 Nos 6/7, pp. 442–447.
Much of this information is publicly available and presents new opportunities for more personalized, higher quality service.
Reference:
Rust, R.T. and Huang, M.H. (2014), “The service revolution and the transformation of marketing science”, Marketing Science, Vol. 33 №2, pp. 206–221.
Collecting and analyzing such extensive data, however, is one of the main challenges in today’s service marketing research and practice.
Reference:
Aksoy, L. (2013), “How do you measure what you can’t define? The current state of loyalty measurement and management”, Journal of Service Management, Vol. 24 №4, pp. 365–381.
Baron, S. and Russell-Bennett, R. (2016), “Editorial: the changing nature of data”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 30 №7, pp. 673–675.
