The Strategic Importance of Customer Value

Atlantic Marketing Journal Atlantic Marketing Journal

Volume 2 Number 1 Article 5

April 2013

The Strategic Importance of Customer Value The Strategic Importance of Customer Value

Donovan A. McFarlane

Keller Graduate School of Management, DeVry University

, [email protected]

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The Strategic Importance of Customer Value The Strategic Importance of Customer Value

Cover Page Footnote Cover Page Footnote

The author would like to dedicate this paper to Dr. Art Weinstein, Professor and Chair of Marketing at the

H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University.

This article is available in Atlantic Marketing Journal: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/amj/vol2/iss1/5

ISSN: 2165-3879 (print), 2165-3887 (electronic)

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 2013)

The Strategic Importance of

Customer Value

Donovan A. McFarlane, DeVry University

don_anthoni@yahoo.com

Abstract - This paper examines the importance of customer value as a strategic

approach to doing business in the 21

century hypercompetitive marketplace

and marketspace. It explores the customer value theory of Professor Art

Weinstein as a valid conceptual framework for strategically positioning an

organization through market orientation to design and deliver superior customer

value for competitive advantage. Citing examples, the author argues that

customers are not simply just buyers of goods and services, but must be seen as

strategic business partners. Furthermore, the author examines the role that

customer service and value creation play in the development of competitive

advantage and market positions by examining the differences between market

driving and market driven companies relative to the customer value concept and

theory. Two important frameworks proposed by Weinstein are used to

communicate the strategic importance of customer value: the CVF and the SQIP

models.

Key Words - customer value (CV), delivering superior customer value, SQIP

approach, service, quality, image, price, customer value funnel (CVF), key

success factors (KSFs), customercentric, value driven management (VDM), value

over time (VOT).

Relevance to Marketing Educators/Researchers, and/or Practitioners -

This paper is important for educators, researchers, and practitioners because it

underscores a need for a shift in perspective, focus, and practice in value theory

in the 21

century where competitive advantage is no longer based simply

having or possessing the factors of production. This shift is one where customers

are seen as co-creators of value and where meeting and exceeding customer

demands create market driving and market driven opportunities for success!

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Introduction

In today’s economy businesses are playing on a leveled field where technology,

product uniqueness, special features, and the ability to secure exclusive

contracts are no longer barriers to competition. The birth of the information-

based and service-led economy (Johnson and Weinstein, 2004; Laudon and

Laudon, 2004) has created equality on many levels where most companies are

now able to access and disseminate knowledge and information across their

functional departments and platforms as key resources to level competition.

Business intelligence is no longer a unique possession that companies can use to

stay ahead of their competitors because trends analyses concerning markets and

economies are widely available to any company so desiring to conduct a

macroenvironmental analysis in understanding their value drivers. Today’s

companies, both small and large, private and public, understand fully that they

are operating in a global environment where their practices and strategies must

respond and react to both controllable and uncontrollable changes shaping their

survival and success. As a result, business and corporate level functions have

become wholly integrated across companies and departments are no longer

separated by functional activities, but organizations act as integrated systems in

an endeavor to survive change and maximize both people and physical resources

in an effort to increase efficiency and improve effectiveness at all levels. Thus,

companies are no longer unique in their strategic approaches and plans for

increasing the distribution, purchasing, and consumption of their products and

services.

According to McFarlane and Britt (2007), the marketing environment of

today has changed dramatically, and companies must effectively devise

strategies for responding to, and dealing with this change, while ensuring

maximum customer value and satisfaction. Key success factors (KSFs) are no

longer unique to any company. All businesses today must have a certain and

minimum degree of financial well-being, innovation, quality, value, image,

customer knowledge, technology, and understanding of their products and

markets. What remains unique and becomes an ultimate competitive advantage

or factor for market leadership is how companies deliver on their value

propositions (Weinstein, 2012). That is, how companies design and deliver

customer value (Johnson and Weinstein, 2004; Weinstein, 2012). The design and

delivery of customer value must be superior to that of their competitors, and this

is not easily achieved without developing a customercentric philosophy and

culture within the organization. This entails engendering a market orientation

with customers as the focus of all organizational activities, decisions, and

processes – meeting customer needs and wants must essentially become the

major value driver within the organization and each member of the organization

must understand this and become a value adding knowledge worker with a

passion for customer service and satisfaction.

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Components of Customer Value: The S-Q-I-P Approach

Customer value can be summarized in one important question that all

organizations must ask themselves: “What do customers really want and how do

we meet their demands”? or in other words, “What do customers really value?”

These might seem like very simple questions, especially if they are supplied with

answers such as, “Customers want value!” or “Customers want quality products

and services!” These are correct responses. However, Professor Art Weinstein, in

his customer value theory, or what he calls “superior customer value”, would say

that customers want more than just simple value; they want businesses to

overwhelm and surprise them by going above and beyond the ordinary to meet

their needs and wants (Weinstein, 2012). This means delivering above and

beyond on every value-point of the customer value spectrum in terms of four

components: service, quality, image, and price. Weinstein (2012) calls these the

“The Essence of Customer Value” (p. 6).

Customer value refers to the ability of companies to create and add value to

the goods and services, especially to the services they offer to customers, or the

service aspects of their business (Johnson and Weinstein, 2004). Essentially,

customer value entails extraordinary delivery on these four value-points or

components:

a) Service: the intangible value offered to customers.

b) Quality: customers’ perception of how well a company’s products and

services meet expectations.

c) Image: customer’s perception of the company or business they interact

with.

d) Price: the price you can command for your goods and services and that

your customers are willing to pay.

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Figure 1 – The SQIP Approach to Customer Value

Together, these form what Weinstein (2012), and Johnson and Weinstein

(2004) refer to as the SQIP Approach to customer value, where S stands for

Service, Q for Quality, I for Image, and P for Price (SQIP). Each of these four

components contributes to customers’ perception of value or definition of value

and affects their levels of dissatisfaction or satisfaction with a product, service,

or business. Thus, in order to design and deliver superior customer value, each of

these components must be treated with equal attention and importance. As

Figure 1 above shows, service, quality, image, and price are what constitute

customer value in terms of conferred benefits, meeting customers needs, wants,

and expectations, and hence affecting and determining customer satisfaction,

company performance, market share, competitive advantage, profits, revenue,

market position, brand loyalty, and ultimately company success and survival.

Essentially, everything that a company does ultimately funnels into customer

value and this translates into the bottom line that is so important to measuring

and defining business success in the globally competitive economy of the 21st

century.

The prices of products and services depend highly on service quality, the

quality of the products and services offered, and the image of the company and

the benefits that the products and services bring to consumers. Organizations

must remember that consumers are unlimited and rapturous in their need and

desire for value for their money. Consumers want to experience the joy of every

hard-earned dollar they spend on products and services and companies must

understand this as a basic idea in their approach to meeting customer needs and

SERVICE

QUALITY

IMAGE

PRICE

CUSTOMER

VALUE

Customer satisfaction, Company performance, Market share, Competitive

Advantage, Profits, Revenue, Market position, Brand loyalty, Company

survival, Company success.

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wants. That is why Weinstein (2012) regards customer value as best defined

from customers’ perspectives as tradeoffs between benefits received from offers

versus the sacrifices including money, stress, and time to obtain products and

services or these offers. While the value of a dollar has experienced continuous

decline over the past several decades, consumers have a “dollar-constant

perception” when it comes to value; they must feel that the value of their dollar

remains the same overtime with the services and products you offer in terms of

service, quality, and satisfaction. This might seem unreasonable on the part of

consumers. However, we must remember that our customers are value-seeking

individuals, dollar maximizing spenders, and difficult-to-please clients who are

seeking great service, exceptional quality, image-building, and fairly priced

products and services. Describing the SQIP approach; (S-Q-I-P) approach,

Weinstein (2012) states that value is expressed in many ways as a combination

of service, product quality, image and price. Customer value encompasses the

total experience of the customer regarding the organization, its products and

services, purchase and post-purchase services and customer support, as well as

the overall impact of the interaction between consumer and product, the benefits

conferred and how these affect well-being and are perceived by influential others

(Duncan, 2005; Kerin, Hartley and Rudelius, 2009).

Quality service is critical to corporate success in today’s increasingly

competitive environment (McFarlane and Britt, 2007). Delivering high quality

service is closely related to profits, cost savings, and market share (Ham, 2003).

Weinstein (2012) believes that the service factor must reign supreme in value-

creating organizations as evident in companies such as Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton,

Lexus, American Express, UPS, and FedEx. Delivering service quality is an

essential strategy for success in today’s economy (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and

Berry 1985a, 1985b; Reicheld and Sasser, 1990; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and

Berry, 1990; McFarlane, Britt, Weinstein, and Johnson, 2004; McFarlane and

Britt, 2007).

Product quality and innovation have become especially important to

producers and consumers in the 21st century where competition and the need for

change have forced both parties to search for new means and ways to create

value and to satisfy needs and wants using limited resources. This entails using

available and emerging technology and new methods and ideas to satisfy an

increasingly sophisticated and smarter customer-base and survive in both the

marketplace and marketspace characterizing the global economy. Examples of

companies that are doing exceptionally well in terms of the quality element of

the SQIP value components include Ben & Jerry’s and Harley-Davidson

(Weinstein, 2012). While this is the case, these companies are not unique in

delivering exceptional quality. The automobile industry market leaders and

followers have seen some exceptional increase in product quality over the last

decade, and some notable companies that have improved quality significantly

include Hyundai, Lexus, Kia, among others. Thus, in order to become market

leaders or drivers rather than market followers or market driven, competitor

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companies need to deliver above and beyond consumer expectations on all four

elements of the SQIP model.

Consumers are very class conscious in our materialistic society where

influential others shape our attitudes toward various brands and our purchasing

choices and decisions (Solomon, 2004). Therefore, organizational image matters,

as well as the type of image-impact that consumption of a particular good or

service will have on customers. Value is created when a product or service

represents high quality in the eyes of consumers and their peers and onlookers.

Customers perceive value based on how they feel about a company and its

products and how other consumers feel about the same.

Price is the fourth and an equally important element of customer value as

service, quality, and image. It is through price that customers and producers or

providers of goods and services express the presence of the other three elements

in the SQIP model. As Weinstein (2012) notes, tradeoffs exist among the S-Q-I-P

elements and companies cannot expect to be market leaders or absolutely

superior in all areas. The best they should strive to do therefore is to offer an

effective and efficient combination of these that define the value they create and

deliver to their customers. Some companies have mastered offering great prices

to customers and make it their mission (value proposition) to do so. Examples

include Wal-Mart and Brands-Mart. Other companies compete on the price

factor of the SQIP model as a competitive differentiation customer value

strategy – for example, Home Depot and Lowe’s. However, Weinstein (2012)

reminds these companies and entrepreneurs that customer value is a much

richer concept and entails far more than just a fair price – “Superb service, top

quality, and a unique image are also highly valued by target markets” (p. 6).

Why Superior Customer Value?

In today’s highly competitive market environment where companies have equal

or great opportunities to access the same resources including talents, technology,

and information, the question, “Why superior customer value?” seems rhetorical.

If not superior customer value, then what else do companies have to offer

consumers? Companies today must seek more than ever before to distinguish

themselves and the ability to do so using technology and widely and generally

available means and resources is no longer a viable strategy for differentiation

or distinction. Therefore, they must turn to customer value which makes all the

difference between companies offering similar products and services. Superior

customer value serves as the most unique strategic option for differentiation in

an environment where most companies are market followers rather than market

leaders. Companies that deliver above and beyond customers’ expectations by

overwhelming and surprising customers stay way ahead of their competitors and

command the greatest profits and market share.

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In an economy built predominantly on a growing service sector, projected to

account for almost 96% of U.S. job growth between 2008 and 2018 (Weinstein

2012), it becomes obvious that designing and delivering superior customer value

is no joke; it is more than a strategy, it is a necessity and those companies that

have not yet recognized this, regardless of their line of business or industry, will

certainly fail. The recession or “great recession” as it has come to be known and

which began in or around 2007, led to massive business failure in many sectors

and industries and no doubt brought to light the importance of customer value to

those businesses surviving up to present. Many companies gained valuable

experiences by observing how consumer purchasing decisions altered by

economic and financial factors shape business performance and success, but

most of all, recognized that creating, designing, and delivering customer value is

an effective strategy that can lead to significant retention despite these changes.

When organizations are able to deliver superior value, their customers are less

constrained by economic and financial forces in their spending and purchasing

decisions, as these customers are willing to spend a dollar more and save a dollar

less in order to obtain that value. In other words, Weinstein (2012) is right on in

his theory to say that superior customer value is a driving factor in company

success and survival. The recession has phased out many businesses offering

subpar or sub-marginal value to their customers as customers defect to

businesses offering exceptional and perceived fair value for their money.

Customer value has become a mandate for business leaders and managers

as companies lose other core and distinctive competencies in the current rapidly

changing and highly competitive global economy. Customer value creation is no

longer an activity or process relegated to marketing and sales departments and

specialists; it is an organizational-wide philosophy like Total Quality

Management (TQM) that requires each member of the organization to play an

active role in adding value to the customer experience. The organization must

essentially take a marketing orientation approach backed by value driven

management (VDM) philosophy and attitude (Pohlman and Gardiner, 2000) in

focusing strategically on the customer from the planning stage of business right

to the delivery and post-purchase, post-consumption activities of customers.

There is no business that survives without creating value for customers

because that is what businesses exist to do; they are driven and shaped by

customer demands – needs and wants, and the degree to which they are able to

meet these needs and wants through value creation. The idea is that customer

value is not something that can be created within a day; it is a strategic creation

that results from a combination of service, quality, developed image, and the

determined prices for products and services that consumers are willing to pay to

meet their existing and emerging unlimited needs and wants.

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Customer Value and Competition: Market Leadership

Weinstein (2012) espouses customer value theory as a holistic and all-

encompassing approach and strategy to value creation and growth in

organizations. Organizations exist to meet customer needs and wants and strive

to grow and prosper in doing so. As a result, they want to be ahead of the game,

becoming market drivers or market driving companies (market leaders) rather

than market followers or market-driven companies (Mujtaba and McFarlane,

2007). Furthermore, technology and virtual performance operations and

management demand that businesses develop new understanding of customer

value and new delivery methods in the face of increasing electronic interactions

with customers (McFarlane 2012; Mujtaba and McFarlane, 2011; Mujtaba and

McFarlane, 2005). Laudon and Laudon (2004) and Johnson and Weinstein

(2004) have shown how the new economy concept and the digital firm have

impacted the understanding of service, especially as millions of customers flock

to the e-marketplace or the global marketspace to purchase goods and services.

This means that the increasingly changing paradigm for designing and

delivering superior customer value has modern organizations constantly on their

feet, and only those that can anticipate and predict changing customer attitudes

and needs will survive in this hypercompetitive global economy.

Market leadership has become increasingly difficult to attain in the globally

competitive economy where the playing field has been leveled for companies to

compete on equal factors and equal footing. Customer value remains the most

salient and expansive factor upon which strategic direction and opportunities

can be crafted and cultivated. One approach to accomplishing this is to use

Weinstein’s Customer Value Funnel (CVF) which serves as both a strategic and

diagnostic tool for understanding an organizations current business environment

and contexts and the important factors and actors that shape customer value

design, creation, and delivery, and ultimately, organizational performance,

success, and survival.

To compete successfully, organizations must evaluate all pertinent actors

and factors in the market (Johnson and Weinstein, 2004; McFarlane and Britt,

2007). According to Johnson and Weinstein (2004), and Weinstein (2012), the

CVF is a valuable tool for understanding and assessing business dynamics and

situations. Weinstein (2012) contends that the effective application of the CVF

allows an organization to maximize value over time (VOT) and this should be the

mission of management where value creation means profitability and success.

According to Weinstein (2012), the CVF captures and summarizes the salient

attributes of customer value, illustrating that organizations must deal with

macro issues as well as customer-specific concerns in order to design and deliver

superior value. Weinstein’s CVF (Figure 2 below) consists of four levels of factors

affecting value creation for customers: the global business community or

macroenvironment (Level I), the market or microenvironment (Level II), the

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organization (Level III), and the customers (Level IV). In understanding these

forces, companies are able to seek out and know their strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats (SWOTs).

In the Customer Value Funnel (CVF), organizations need to pay attention to

what Weinstein (2012) refers to as the value drivers: societal value (Level I),

suppliers, partners, competitors, and regulator values (Level II), owner and

employee values (Level III), and customer value (Level IV). These value drivers

are also the foundation and essence of Value Driven Management (VDM) as

espoused by Pohlman and Gardiner (2000) as an organization-wide philosophy

or approach to creating value. The CVF is thus a tool for creating and managing

customer value in order to improve business performance and increase sales,

profits, market share, image, customer retention and build value over time

[VOT] (Weinstein, 2012; Pohlman and Gardiner, 2000).

Source: Adopted from Weinstein (2012).

Figure 2 – Weinstein’s Customer Value Funnel (CVF)

Global Business

Market

III-Organization

IV-Customers

BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

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The Strategic Importance of Customer Value (CV)

Customers are the reason why businesses exist! While many individuals going

into business think first and foremost in terms of profits and earnings, and are

motivated by these factors, without having a good customer base or established

needs and wants for their product or service ideas, operating a business would be

impossible. Thus, customers should be the first starting point for developing and

implementing a business idea. Starting with the customer allows the

entrepreneur or business leader to set priorities straight from the beginning –

understanding that businesses exist to meet and satisfy customer needs and

wants, and that those that fail to do so quickly disappear.

Businesses, leaders and managers, as well as employees must think of

themselves as value creators and value drivers or what Pohlman and Gardiner

(2000) call value adders. They must start thinking of customer value

strategically by recognizing that every point of interaction with customer affects

the perception of value and the company’s ability to design and deliver superior

value. This means that customer value is not exclusively an upper management

or strategic concern, it is everyone’s business and an ongoing matter as

customers come into contact with products and services and their providers

daily, whether direct in terms of face-to-face interaction or indirectly via various

channels and media (Solomon, 2004; Duncan, 2005). Both the S-Q-I-P approach

and Customer Value Funnel (CVF) developed and presented by Johnson and

Weinstein (2004), and Weinstein (2012) are effective tools that organizations can

use to strategically create customer value as the basis for organizational

operations, performance, growth, and success.

The strategic and overall importance of customer value can be summarized

in ten (10) salient points made by Professor Art Weinstein in his book, Superior

Customer Value: Strategies for Winning and Retaining Customers (Third

Edition, 2012):

1. Designing and providing superior customer value are the keys to

successful business strategy in the 21

century.

2. Value reigns supreme in today’s marketplace and marketspace.

3. Customers will not pay more than a product is worth and will reward

excellence.

4. A customercentric culture provides focus and direction for the

organization, ensuring that exceptional value will be offered to customers.

5. Designing and delivering superior customer value propels organizations to

market leadership positions in today’s highly competitive global markets –

absolute advantage.

6. Providing outstanding customer value has become a mandate for

management.

7. In choice-filled arenas, the balance of power has shifted from companies to

value-seeking customers.

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8. Managing customer value is even more critical to organizations in the new

service and information-based economy.

9. Firms not providing adequate value to customers will struggle or

disappear – customer value is a key ingredient in building competitive

advantage.

10. Today’s customers are quite smart and sophisticated and are looking for

companies that (1) create maximum value for them based on their needs

and wants, and (2) demonstrate that they value their business (Weinstein,

2012).

Designing and delivering superior customer value will help organizations

develop winning and retention strategies in an environment where competition

has eroded other bases for differentiation and market leadership.

Conclusion and Implications

Customers are more than just avid and hard-to-please individuals patronizing

your business. Businesses must come to understand that customers are their

most valuable long-term strategic partners. Organizations must understand that

customer value is not simply a tactic or short-term oriented endeavor; it is a way

of doing business, and understanding the dynamics of business value drivers and

how they interact to create profitability and success overtime. Value over time

(VOT) is what builds strong and lasting businesses, as well as what creates

market drivers and leaders.

According to Weinstein (2012), the key to retention is customer satisfaction

and high customer satisfaction comes from delivering superior customer value.

Highly satisfied customers stay loyal longer, talk favorably about the

organization, pay less attention to the competition, are less price sensitive, offer

service ideas to the organization, and cost less to serve than new customers

(Weinstein, 2012). This should also remind organizations of the 80-20 rule;

essentially that 80% of sales comes from 20% of customers, and that this 20% of

customers represents repeat customers who are loyal because of the exceptional

customer value they perceive in your business. Organizations must now measure

themselves by their ability to please customers, meet their expectations, and

retain them.

Dedication

The author would like to dedicate this paper to Dr. Art Weinstein, Chair and

Professor of Marketing at the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and

Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University.

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Author Information

Dr. McFarlane is currently a Visiting Professor of Management at the Keller

Graduate School of Management, DeVry University, where he has taught

Marketing, and teaches Leadership and Organizational Behavior across the MBA

and graduate programs on a recurring basis. He is an Adjunct Professor in

Marketing at the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship,

Nova Southeastern University, where he teaches the definitive MBA marketing

course, “Delivering Superior Customer Value.” He also serves as Professor of

Business Administration and Business Research Methods at Frederick Taylor

University where he assesses final projects for the university’s BBA and MBA

programs, and is an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Broward

College. Dr. McFarlane previously worked as an Adjunct Professor at City College,

where he taught several marketing courses including Global Marketing, Principles

of Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Sales Strategies, and Integrated Advertising. Dr.

McFarlane is coauthor of the book, The State of Business Schools: Educational and

Moral Imperatives for Market Leaders (2010), and is published in a variety of

academic peer reviewed and professional journals.

ISSN: 2165-3879 (print), 2165-3887 (electronic)

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 2013)