Purpose: The technology evolution compels retail networks to introduce unique business models to retain customers and to gain a competitive advantage. Customer reviews available through social media need to be taken into account by retail networks to design a model with unique service operations and marketing approaches that will improve loyalty by adding value to customers. Furthermore, the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer spending behaviour is very weak and needs further investigation. Hence the purpose of this paper is to understand how retail network leverage the potential of social media reviews along with unique service operations to satisfy customers. The study analyses the nexus of: a brand, promotional offers, service operations; and their interaction through social media reviews on customer satisfaction levels. Design/methodology/approach: The authors develop a conceptual model for the social media era. The authors combine the idea of loyalty- and value-based models of Chatterjee (2013). The authors employed a survey questionnaire method to elicit opinions of retail customer satisfaction based on social media reviews, service operations and marketing efforts. The authors derive measures of the model from existing literature and expert opinion. Findings: Social media reviews dramatically impact upon customer satisfaction. Similarly the empirical analysis identifies the significant and positive role played by service operations in customer satisfaction levels. Interestingly the authors did not find unequivocal support for brand satisfaction impacting on customer satisfaction. However, when promotions interact well with service operations, the level of customer satisfaction is significantly affected. Similarly the authors did not observe a positive outcome when there is an interaction between promotion and social media reviews. After reading the reviews, some potential buyers make a visit to store before making final decisions and surprisingly, promotional effects do not change their mind set. Practical implications: Research findings confirm the importance of social media reviews, marketing and interaction between promotion and service operations enabling retail networks to build loyalty and value-based models. Based on customer behaviour, the study suggests a need to consider operational efficiencies when promoting sales; through careful planning, customer satisfaction and profitability levels can be increased. This sends a strong message to the retail network to defend their position within a very competitive business market. Originality/value: The empirical evidence based on customer experience would be helpful for companies in integrating their operations and marketing efforts enabling them to convert different segment of customers such as “free riders (higher satisfaction and low profitability)” and “vulnerable customers (low satisfaction and higher profitability)” into “star customers (higher satisfaction and high profitability)”. Through a considered approach: combining social media reviews, marketing and operations, businesses will be better-placed to survive in the ultra-competitive social media-influenced era.

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore the performance of UK hotels, in terms of various service attributes, and whether it influences customers' intention to stay again. Design/methodology/approach – Data are used from online customer ratings of 664 hotels in the UK for the purpose. The approach is based on an interesting use of statistical regression reported in the literature that attempted to classify different cues in hotels as critical, satisfier, dissatisfier, etc. In this study, six prominent attributes are considered, namely: customer service, cleanliness, room quality, value for money, quality of food, and family friendliness, rated by guests, based on their experiences of staying in hotels. Findings – The findings reveal that “Value for money” is a critical attribute, while “Customer service”, “Room quality” and “Quality of food” are dissatisfiers. Business guests, and guests of independent hotels, exhibit similar behavior, but for leisure guests, and guests of chain hotels, “Value for money” is a dissatisfier. Practical implications – “Value for money” is a critical attribute, in that good performance, in terms of this attribute, is critical for positively influencing guests' intention to stay again; however, failures in terms of this attribute cannot be compensated by improving service in terms of other attributes. There are three dissatisfier attributes (“Customer service”, “Room quality”, and “Quality of food”), implying that an inadequate performance in terms of these attributes could significantly adversely impact guests' intention to stay again. Originality/value – This study would appear to be the first to use the extensive data available on the internet on guest ratings of hotels.

Purpose: Successful implementation of supply chain collaboration (SCC) by Wal‐Mart has encouraged many manufacturing companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Hewlett‐Packard Co, and West Marine Products Inc., to initiate collaboration. Subsequently, collaboration between suppliers and retailers has become a common practice in many recent supply chains. However, measuring the benefits of collaboration is still a big challenge. Based on supply chain literature and practice, this paper aims to propose a conceptual framework and a standard set of metrics to evaluate the performance of SCC.Design/methodology/approach: The authors discuss two case studies to validate the proposed model. The case study discussions are appropriate to understand the usage of different performance metrics in initial and advanced stages of collaboration.Findings: From the case study it is recognized that the collaborating members in the supply chain are not able to visualise all possible benefits of collaboration. To surmount this issue, the paper proposes a framework to study the performance of companies involved in initial and advanced stages of collaboration.Originality/value: The classification suggested in this paper on different stages of collaboration and related metrics can guide researchers and practitioners in manufacturing companies to evaluate the performance of SCC.