Don’t call us, we’ll call you - Performance Measurement in Multi-Channel Environments

Abstract

Typically, companies nowadays implement so-called multi-channel management strategies, i.e. they seek to offer their customers a brad variety of interaction channels for marketing, sales and services. A prominent example for such mobile initiatives is mobile marketing, where the pervasiveness and personalization features of mobile technologies such as cellular are taken advantage of. Typically these channels are in a competitive situation, competing for budgets and other resources as well as for their share in the revenue stream. CRM as an approach to balance a company’s investment into a customer relationship with its economic value requires insights about the effectiveness and cost structure of different channels. Current management accounting instruments do not provide sufficient information about the performance of the different channels, though. Particularly new and innovative channels such as mobile marketing are required to prove their efficiency and thus need such instruments. This paper proposes a model for performance measurement in multi-channel environments, particularly taking into account the mobile channels. The model is evaluated in a real-world case study.