Cicero Institute

Customer Satisfaction and Business Performance

2010: and

Business owners and managers often have a love-hate relationship with customer satisfaction — they know they should care about it, but they're not sure how it impacts the company's bottom line.

A review of academic research reveals that improved customer satisfaction has a statistical impact on customer behavior including purchase intentions, referrals, and customer retention. Additionally, customer satisfaction has a statistically significant impact on various business performance metrics including market share, total sales revenues, gross margin, and shareholder value.

• Customer Satisfaction and Business Performance

Expanding Effective Classroom Instruction

2010: and

Merit pay and teacher evaluations, increasingly at the center of the state and national dialogue on school reform, have surfaced within Newark as the district explores changes it will implement with a donation one-eighth the size of its total district education budget.

The assumption behind merit pay is that most teachers already know how to teach effectively, but are simply choosing not to. A conversation with virtually any school teacher quickly dispels the hypothesis that motivation is the problem. The reality is that not all teachers teach effectively because not all know how.

• Expanding Effective Classroom Instruction

A Deeper Look at For-Profit Marketing

2010: , , and

Some commentators condemn the for-profit education industry for spending more on marketing than public and private not-for-profit (traditional) schools. Ultimately, this argument is founded on the premise that traditional and for-profit schools should expend similar quantities and types of resources in marketing. But should we expect similar marketing expenditures from all colleges and universities?

This paper compares marketing expenditures at public, private, and for-profit colleges and universities. The findings reveal specific and unique student motivations that demand different higher education marketing approaches.

• A Deeper Look at For-Profit Marketing

Reforming Data-Driven Reform

2010: , , and

A majority of school districts are adopting sophisticated data systems, collecting increasing amounts of data, and becoming increasingly data literate. However, even data enthusiasts must face the reality that despite the explosion in data use, our most reliable national assessment benchmarks suggest scores have only marginally improved.

This paper examines why data-driven reform in K-12 education has fallen short and presents several actionable ideas to help schools better leverage data and improve student outcomes.

• Reforming Data-Driven Reform

Utah Schools Must Produce more Job - and College - Ready Graduates

2010: and

The recent financial crisis has made policy wonks argue about short- and long-term solutions to the challenges we face. Investing in a better educated and more skilled workforce is the most viable long-term strategy for helping America and Utah emerge from this crisis in a stronger and more competitive global economic position than we entered it.

This article suggests foundational steps, upon which State legislatures can build to create programs and initiatives that will result in more prepared high school graduates.

• Utah Schools Must Produce more Job - and College - Ready Graduates

Market Research, Gut Feelings, and Recessions

2009: and

During a recession, there are seemingly strong arguments for why market research should be first on the chopping block. Recessions force companies to review the value derived from all expenditures and while market research often yields interesting information, it is sometimes difficult to tie those insights to the company's bottom-line.

This paper presents a brief historical analysis of past downturns and suggests that effective market research can help companies overcome misdirected "gut feelings" and find success even in the worst economic downturns.

• Market Research, Gut Feelings, and Recessions

Who is Your Customer, and What Do They Want?

2009: , and

In the late 1990s Levi-Strauss failed to anticipate new consumer tastes in jeans, and subsequently lost $6 billion in market value. Meanwhile VF Corp., maker of Wranglers and Lee Jeans, worked with customers to introduce new styles that increased VF's market share.

Companies need to approach production and marketing decisions with an understanding of customer needs. This paper explores the relationship between success and effective customer research.

• Who is Your Customer, and What Do They Want?