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Tourism industry is a profitable resource for countries and considered one of the main sources of income and job creation for economic development. Among the various types of tourism, medical tourism and its subsets are of great significance owing to their capabilities and competitive advantages. In this regard, the purpose of this research is to provide a framework to categorize customers based on the Zeithaml pyramid and then identify and provide strategies to create loyalty and attract customers of this industry.

This study proposed a framework for medical tourists' satisfaction and loyalty. First, by studying the literature and data gathering from Yazd (one of the cities of Iran), the effective factors on the loyalty and attraction of medical tourists were identified. These factors have been prioritized for the medical tourists who are in the platinum category by the Pareto technique and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. Next, the strategies provided by experts for loyalty and attraction of medical tourists were examined. Finally, the house of quality (HOQ) as the first matrix in quality functional deployment (QFD) was used to provide operational strategies for medical tourism satisfaction. The statistical population of this research consists of medical tourists, academic experts and active physicians of medical tourism in Yazd, one of the cities of Iran.

The study results indicate the importance of “hospital reputation” in medical tourists' satisfaction. Also, “achieving international standards”, “periodic customer satisfaction assessment” and “paying attention to social responsibilities” are recognized as the most important strategies to achieve the loyalty of the most profitable group of customers, namely platinum.

This study covers both theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, this study developed a new framework for medical tourists' satisfaction by the Zeithaml matrix, TOPSIS, Pareto technique and QFD method. Furthermore, practically this study helps practitioners of medical tourism in medical tourists' satisfaction and loyalty.

In this study, in addition to identifying the effective factors on the loyalty and attracting medical tourists, a new framework was developed for medical tourists' satisfaction by segmentation the tourism by the Zeithaml matrix and providing operational strategies by the QFD technique.

The purpose of this article is to examine the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) proposition, where private companies can both be profitable and help alleviate poverty by attending low‐income consumers.

The literature on BOP was reviewed and some key elements of the BOP approach were proposed and examined.

There is no agreement in the literature about the potential benefits of the BOP approach for both private companies and low‐income consumers. However, further research on characterizing the BOP segment and finding the appropriate business model for attending the BOP can provide some answers to this issue.

The article provides some guidelines to managers as to how they need to adapt their marketing strategies to sell to the BOP market, and what type of partnerships they need to build in order to succeed.

The article presents a thorough analysis of the key elements involved in the BOP initiative: companies' motivations, characterization of the BOP consumers, and the business model to attend the BOP.

The aim of the paper is to show how intelligence emanating from customer profitability analysis (CPA) can help improve strategic marketing planning. Insights into the profitability of individual customers, as well as the distribution of profitability across the customer base, can lead to better decisions in the areas of managing costs and revenues, managing risks and strategic market positioning.

The concept and process of CPA are first explained. The heart of the paper then discusses how the outcomes permit novel analyses related to costs and revenues, risk, and strategic positioning. Finally, the paper explains what is needed to make the shift from retrospective CPA to prospective CPA.

CPA delivers two types of insights: the degree of profitability for each individual customer, and the distribution of profitability among customers within the customer base. Profitability data at the level of the individual customer support better decision making about service levels, marketing investments and pricing strategies. The profitability distribution curve yields information about the vulnerability of future cash flows from customers. Further, DPA data permit segmentation and targeting on the basis of profitability and the development of different value propositions for different profitability segments.

Shareholder value is created through cash flows from customers. CPA uncovers where these cash flows are generated. Armed with customer profitability data, marketers can really develop and implement value‐driven differentiated customer service strategies.

While quite a number of published papers have discussed the technicalities of calculating customer profitability, this paper adds to the literature an overview of how the outcomes of such calculations can help planners make better decisions, to increase the magnitude of cash flows from customers and/or reduce the volatility and vulnerability of such cash flows.

Smiles displayed at varying intensities by service providers may result in different social judgments by customers, affecting decision-making. This study investigates the joint effect of customers' sense of power (low vs. high) and service providers' smile intensity (slight vs. broad) on their warmth and competence perceptions in service encounters.

The authors conducted four experiments based on the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) of social judgments and the agentic-communal model of power, and assessed the impact of perceived power and smile intensity in different service encounter contexts.

The interaction effect of customers' sense of power (low vs. high) and service providers' smile intensity (slight vs. broad) influences customers' social judgments (warmth perceptions vs. competence perceptions). A service provider who displays a broad smile is more likely to be perceived as warmer by customers with a low sense of power, but less competent by those with a high sense of power. Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that the combined effect of customers' sense of power and service providers' smile intensity on customers' subjective well-being and purchase intentions might be attributed to their social judgments.

This study reveals the intrinsic mechanism behind the interaction effect between smile intensity and sense of power affecting customers' purchase intentions and subjective well-being, namely, warmth/competence perceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to present a strategic framework to managing online loyalty.

The paper integrates concepts including a range of recently published (1993‐2006) theoretical works in consumer loyalty and ongoing case developments in internet practice.

Provides information and action approaches to consumer marketers that may increase the success providing want satisfying market offerings. Outlines the costs and benefits of some online customer loyalty building practices. By integrating the literature supporting lifetime customer value with the literature concerned with generating online customer relationships, it provides a pathway to profitable relationships. It also exposes the unintended problems that some online customer loyalty initiatives may create.

The theoretical concepts that form the foundation of the paper appear to have a significant application to consumer marketing but have not been tested empirically.

Uncovers a previously unreported strategy for generating profitable online customer loyalty.

This paper describes the nature and application of customer value tiers to an important marketing process. It offers the potential of increasing marketing success by allowing firms to maximize the value of their scarce service resources by serving profitable customers.

Asserts that the essential role of Customer Satisfaction Measurement (CSM) is not simply a research activity, but a key management tool. Suggests the Quality Integration Framework as one attempt to blend the components of external, perceived quality (upper pyramid) with a hierarchy of organisational elements pertaining to the company′s internal quality (lower pyramid). Proposes that total quality can exist only when the two pyramids are closely aligned. Considers the external and internal quality and discusses some implications of the Framework. Concludes that CSM is a strategic tool which progressive companies will treat as an integral element of the firm′s total quality management.

Building and maintaining service quality is one means of retaining customers and thus establishing competitive advantage in the casino industry. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between casino service quality, player segments and customer loyalty in an Asian casino.

The research involves the conduct of focus group interviews with different segments of gamblers.

The interview findings indicate that players at different segments have distinct perceptions of service quality. Operationalising service quality into five dimensions, this study has shown that various dimensions of service quality have differing effects on customer loyalty, and the level of loyalty varies across different segments.

It is insufficient to view service quality as the customer's judgement about an entity's overall excellence or superiority as has been defined in the services literature. Differing perceptions and attitudes arise with customers of different segments and are resultant from the variety of service encounters that a customer experiences. To obtain positive customer perceptions towards the organisation's service quality, it is advisable to manage each service encounter closely and to develop service encounters nuanced to the expectations of different segments.

This is the first study to incorporate customer pyramid segmentation approach into the analysis of the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty. It provides insights into the relationship between service quality, customer segments and customer loyalty through interviewing casino customers of different segments based on customers' services preferences and the card segmentation system employed by the survey casino

This study aims to develop a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) management, by revisiting three older services marketing models: the servuction model, the services marketing triangle and the services marketing pyramid.

Noting the lack of theoretical frameworks of CCI management, this study adopts a problematization approach to identify foundational services marketing models, question their underlying assumptions, develop an alternative conceptual framework and evaluate its adequacy for CCI management, on the basis of a systematic literature review and content analyses.

By revisiting the assumptions underlying three relevant models in the light of the present-day, technology-infused service environment, this study proposes a four-triangle CCI management framework encompassing four specific modes of CCI management: managerial decisions by the firm; frontline employees; the design of the physical environment; and technology. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the triadic relationships involving the focal customer, other customers and the four modes of CCI management. Building on these findings, this study concludes with an extensive research agenda.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first scholarly effort in services marketing literature to provide a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of CCI management. With its basis in foundational models, the new framework is well-suited to address future challenges to service marketplaces too.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the superiority of comparative evaluation or relative attitudinal measurement approach in which the respondent evaluates one object with direct comparison with other objects. The study uses comparative and non-comparative approaches to examine the effects of service quality, value, and customer satisfaction on attitudinal loyalty in a service setting.

The study uses the data collected from the survey of 300 customers of two large Indian banks.

The results provide partial support to the superiority of the comparative evaluation over non-comparative evaluation. Additionally, results indicate that service quality positively affects customer value, and both service quality and customer value have a direct positive effect on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction drives attitudinal loyalty which in turn leads to customers’ willingness to pay more.

In the study, two banks were used for comparative evaluation. Since consumers’ consideration set can consist of more than two alternatives, future studies can include more than two objects.

Non-comparative measurements do not always adequately explain customer loyalty and superior performance of firms. This could potentially lead to misinterpretations of effects of service quality improvement programs and thus sub-optimal management decisions. Managers should use comparative evaluation approach for measuring marketing variables wherever possible.

Although the use of comparative evaluation is suggested in the literature (Dick and Basu, 1994), extant research has not systematically examined its superiority over non-comparative evaluation. This study empirically tests the comparative evaluation approach against the non-comparative approach by examining a comprehensive model involving the interrelationships among service quality, value, customer satisfaction, and their impact on attitudinal loyalty and willingness to pay more.

This paper aims to examine customer experience value orchestrated by non-banks' financial touchpoints to understand how they enhance the financial inclusion of low-income consumers.

Two independent but related studies were conducted using qualitative comparative analyses (QCA) research design with semi-structured interviews to compare and contrast customer experience value at two rural locations in Southern Africa. The interview transcripts were analysed using ATLAS.ti, which is a powerful operating system for analysing qualitative data.

The results indicate that non-banks in the two countries design financial services that include functional, economic, humanic, social and mechanic customer experience value dimensions.

The data for this study was collected from financial services customers of retailers and mobile phone network operators in only one research setting in each country. Further research could extend the comparative context for qualitative studies across similar markets. Other limitations are discussed in the paper.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by highlighting the salient and germane dimensions and components found to be important in understanding financial inclusion using customer experience value. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that incorporates customer experience value dimensions in understanding the financial inclusion of low-income consumers at the base of the social and economic pyramid in emerging markets.