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have channeled the pattern of transactions towards the realms of service-dominant logic (e.g., Vargo and Lusch (2004)), customer engagement (e.g., Kumar et al. (2010)), and social networks (e.g., Kumar et al. (2013)).
Marketing channels are an important ingredient for successful rm-customer exchanges. A marketing channel is de ned as a set of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption (Coughlan et al. 2006). And, it is the management of channels that is of utmost importance. Palmatier (2008) de nes the management of channel relationships as the process of identifying, developing, maintaining, and terminating relational exchanges with the purpose of enhancing performance. Research on effective channel management has focused on areas such as retailer power (Geylani et al. 2007; Raju and Zhang 2005), channel governance(Heide et al. 2007; Iyer and Villas- Boas 2003), and pro table multichannel management (Kumar and Venkatesan 2005; Venkatesan et al. 2007). With the availability of a plethora of digital and non- digital channels to transact in, rms are continuously revisiting their channel management mix and strategies to ensure sustained interaction with their customers.
Feedback/Reviews. Research has shown that approximately 35 to 40 percent of all new industrial products fail(Cooper 1983; Cooper 1982). Similarly,
it has been reported that less than 3 percent of new consumer packaged goods exceed rst-year sales of $50 million – considered the benchmark of a highly successful launch(Schneider and Hall 2011). In this regard, understanding customer preferences has
been identi ed as a key prerequisite for new product success(Cooper and Kleinschmidt 1995). Therefore, customer feedback (a) informs rms if they are meeting customer expectations, (b) identi es areas in need
of improvement, and (c) provides suggestions and solutions for future upgrades and modi cations.
In responding to such customer interactions and insights, rms are quickly adapting themselves to
offer more personalized customer experiences, service provision, intangible resources, co-creation and relationships(Vargo and Lusch 2004). This has led to the situation where customers that are well informed, networked, empowered, and active co-create with the rm (Hoyer et al. 2010; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004).Studies have also recognized the importance
of customer insights and have taken steps to quantify the value through the customer knowledge value
(CKV) metric (Kumar 2013; Kumar et al. 2010). CKV is de ned as the monetary value attributed to a customer
by a rm due to the pro t generated by implementing an idea/suggestion/feedback from that customer. Providing feedback should be natural, interactive and effortless – and for these reasons social media is a particularly useful tool to obtain feedback. Perhaps the biggest advantage of social media is the direct and unforced line of interaction it creates between the rm and the customer.
Product development. Firms regularly reach out
to customers to seek inputs at various stages of product development. The wide range of digital options has only brought rms and customers closer in this regard. Given the instant access and ease
of interaction, online mediums such as microblogs, review sites, websites, social networking sites, and media sharing sites have brought in a rich variety of feedback options. For instance, in pursuit of achieving superior customer service, London’s Gatwick Airport uses a combination of Twitter (for real-time customer support), billboards (for public information), and review sites (for information/ratings about facilities and retailers in the airport). Similarly, JCPenney posts hauls (fashion videos made by teens) on YouTube to take advantage of the user generated content, while Taylor Swift used Google Hangouts to announce the release of her 2012 album – Red.
Increasingly, rms are involving customers in their entire new product development process. For instance, Quirky.com has modeled its business on customer inputs in every aspect of product creation – from ideation, design, naming, manufacturing, marketing, right on through to sales. The company regularly launches products through a process of conversation between the global community and Quirky’s expert product design staff. The community comments in uences the business in real-time, and the rm shares the revenue directly with the people who help launch successful products. This is done to reduce uncertainty, share nancial risks, and provide input into key decisions in the development process (Campbell and Cooper 1999).
Content generation. At the heart of the DME is the ability to create and share content. While of ine digital media such as TV and electronic displays typically have one-way messages from rms to customers, the online media provides rich platforms for two-way conversation between rms and customers. However, of ine digital media today incorporate ways to direct customers to respond to rm-initiated messages by including online options such as quick response (QR) codes, websites, and social networking pages. These online response
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