Devising appropriate service strategies for customers of different value: an integrated assessment model for the banking industry

Customer relationship management seeks to nurture relationships with customers by providing appropriate services for particular customers. Previous studies in this area have tended to examine either: (i) the improvement of service quality or (ii) the identification of customers who will bring the most value (and thus greatest profit). Few studies have attempted to integrate the two aspects of the problem. The present study addresses this deficiency by proposing a comprehensive assessment model that integrates a novel categorization of customers (using a customer pyramid) with a detailed analysis of particular service-quality attributes (using a performance control matrix) to provide more accurate guidance for practitioners in designing specific service-improvement strategies for particular quality attributes and particular customer categories. This integrated assessment model promises to be of particular benefit to service providers whose business resources are limited because it facilitates the design of appropriate service-improvement strategies that are tailored to specific customer groups and the service-quality attributes that are of importance to them.