CPS Paper

Products
Understanding Customers

Module Code: 7FNCE40W

Module Name: Business Analytics
Student Number:

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Introduction/Assessment/Recommendation
Corrugated Paper Sales (CPS Paper Products), an independent United Kingdom-based

paper manufacturer, operates in the paper and packaging markets. Its competitive edge in the

industry is attributed to experienced staff, specialist manufacturing machinery, and high-quality

products. While the core business of CPS entails rewinding papers for corrugators, the book

publishing industry and the magazines industry mark the two main market segments of this

company. This firm makes sales either through brokers or directly to the customers.

CPS aims at formulating its marketing plan for the subsequent year. Establishing a better

understanding of its customers' attributes and the links between their CPS viewpoints and their

behaviour towards the organization underlies the development of an effective marketing scheme.

This research examines the outcome/relationship measures, including customer satisfaction,

likelihood to recommend, likelihood to purchase, purchase level, and consideration for a strategic

alliance, subject to different customer characteristics variables; such as customer duration,

customer size, customer type, distribution system, and customer region, to establish the existence

of any significant differences in these measures. Furthermore, it designs models to determine the

interconnectedness among customer satisfaction, likelihood to purchase, or likelihood to

recommendation subject to perceptions of CPS's performance variables, including product

quality, w-commerce activities/website, technical support, advertising, complaint resolution,

Salesforce image, product line, warranty and claims, competitive pricing, ordering and billing,

new products, delivery speed, and price flexibility. Consequently, the analysis would allow

identifying the most influential performance variables and enhancing the understanding of CPS

regarding their customers, thereby facilitating the formulation of the firm’s marketing plan for

the next year. The participants of this study included 200 purchasing managers from CPS’s

customer firms.

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 From the situational analysis, significant distinctions in the outcome/relationship

variables subject to any of the customer characteristics variables exist. Moreover, different

constituents of perceptions of CPS's performance exact distinct dimensions of influence on

customer satisfaction, likelihood to purchase, or likelihood to recommend and exist. This

outcome implies that the impact of the predictors on the dependent variables varies across the

study subjects. Therefore, CPS should address each measure of customer characteristics

distinctively when seeking to improve the purchase outcomes and relationship. Consequently,

the inputted effort would sufficiently match the required attention for each dimension of

purchase outcomes and relationship variables.

Increases in customer duration and customer size are associated with increased customer

satisfaction. Therefore, CPS should institute strategies that favour customer retention. Besides, it

should target customers with a high number of employees since a positive relationship exists

between customer size and customer satisfaction. Moreover, since the distribution system

positively influences customer satisfaction, the firm should establish reliable and effective

product distribution.

The improvement of product quality and salesforce image enhances customer

satisfaction. Hence, CPS should ensure the production of high-quality paper products that satisfy

the needs of the clients and uphold a likable overall impression of its Salesforce to attract sales.

Moreover, following the converse relationship between e-commerce activities/website and

customer satisfaction, the company should cease focusing on improving its website since this

strategy may not pay-off the costs incurred. Remarkably, customers may fail to rely on the

website when making purchases.

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 Improved product quality, technical support, and Salesforce image lead to an increased

likelihood of recommendation and likelihood to purchase. Therefore, CPS should ensure high-

quality paper products to increase its sales and customer base through referral clients.

Furthermore, the firm should intensify technical support for solving product or service issues to

raise customer satisfaction, and thereby trigger sales. Besides, the Salesforce image affects the

customer likelihood to recommendation and likelihood to purchase; hence, CPS should invest in

improving the appearance of its Salesforce. Finally, the warranty and claims services are

negatively related to the likelihood of recommendation; thus, this firm should reduce its input to

support its product and service warranties and claims.

Rationale for Recommendation

Hypothesis
H1: There is a significant difference in the outcome/relationship measures (Customer

satisfaction and Likelihood to recommend) and any of the customer characteristics variables (the

type of customer, customer size, customer region, distribution system, and customer duration)

Independent Samples Test

Table 1: Independent Samples Test for satisfaction and type of customer

Levene's Test t-test for Equality of Means

for Equality of
Variances
F Sig. t df Sig. Mean Std. Error
(2- Differenc Differenc
tailed e e
)
Q19 - Equal .232 .63 1.04 198 .296 .1840 .1755
Satisfactio variances 1 9
n assumed
Equal 1.04 197.42 .296 .1840 .1755
variances 9 6

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 not
assumed
As shown in table 1 above, the analysis revealed that customer satisfaction was no

significant difference between magazine and book customers at 0.05 level of significance (t

(198) = 1.049, p = 0.631) assuming equal variances. The analysis findings suggested that the

satisfaction rate between magazine customers was not different from that of book customers.

Conversely, the analysis discovered that customer satisfaction was a significant difference

between small customers (below 500) and large customers (500 and above) at a 0.05 level of

significance (t (198) = 2.781, p = 0.006) assuming equal variances (See table 2, Appendix).

Based on the analysis, large customers were more satisfied than small customers. Moreover, the

analysis identified a statistically significant difference between customers within Europe and

those outside Europe at a 5% level of significance (t (198) = 2.467, p = 0.014) assuming equal

variances. See table 3 in the appendix. The analysis surmised that European customers were

more satisfied than customers outside of Europe. Also, when the equal variance was assumed

between the two groups, the analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between the

distribution of products directly through a salesforce and indirectly through a broker (t (198) =

9.236, p < 0.005) (See table 4 in the appendix). This suggested that customers directly through

salesforce were more satisfied than those from a broker.

Similarly, the Likelihood to recommend was found to be statistically significant between

magazine and book customers at a 0.05 level of significance (t (198) = 0.072, p = 0.0.863) (see

table 5 in the appendix). This postulated that magazine customers recommended the same as

books customer. The analysis revealed that the Likelihood to recommend among small

customers (below 500) is significantly different from the Likelihood to recommend among large

customers (500 and above) at a 0.05 level of significance (t (198) = -4372, p < 0.05). Based on

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the analysis, large customers are likely to recommend more than small customers (see table 6 in

appendix). Nevertheless, according to the analysis displayed in table 7 (see the appendix), the

Likelihood to recommend among customers within Europe was not significantly different from

that of customers from outside Europe (t(198) = 0.937, p = 0.350). This postulated that the

Likelihood to recommend among European customers was the same as those of customers

outside Europe. It was evident from the analysis displayed in table 8 (see appendix) that the

Likelihood to recommend was significantly different between distribution directly through

salesforce and indirectly through a broker (t(198)= -7.41, p < 0.05). Based on the analysis,

salesforce was more likely to recommend customers than a broker.

One-Way ANOVA

Table 2: One-Way ANOVA for each of the Response variable and Customer Duration
Source Dependent Variable Type III Sum of d Mean F Sig.
Squares f Square
Corrected Q19 - Satisfaction 164.311 a
2 82.156 113.794 .00
Model 0
Q20 - Likely to 71.043 b
2 35.521 43.112 .00
Recommend 0
Intercept Q19 - Satisfaction 9676.798 1 9676.798 13403.324 .00
0
Q20 - Likely to 9673.560 1 9673.560 11740.626 .00
Recommend 0
Q1 Q19 - Satisfaction 164.311 2 82.156 113.794 .00
0
Q20 - Likely to 71.043 2 35.521 43.112 .00
Recommend 0

According to one-way ANOVA the analysis results (Table 9) for each outcome variable

with customer duration, satisfaction was significantly different across customer duration

(F=113.79, p < 0.05). Besides, likely to recommend was also found to be significantly different

across customer duration (F=43.11, p < 0.05). Further analysis (presented in table 10) was
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needed to determine the pairwise comparison of satisfaction and Likelihood to recommend

between customer durations.

Table 3: Multiple Comparison using Tukey HSD

Dependent (I) Q1 - (J) Q1 - Customer Duration Mean Std. Sig.
Variable Customer Difference (I- Error
Duration J)
Q19 - Satisfaction Less than 1 1 to 5 years -1.564* .1480 .00
year 0
Longer than 5 years -2.124* .1457 .00
0
1 to 5 years Less than 1 year 1.564 *
.1480 .00
0
Longer than 5 years -.559 *
.1480 .00
1
Longer than 5 Less than 1 year 2.124 *
.1457 .00
years 0
1 to 5 years .559 *
.1480 .00
1
Q20 - Likely to Less than 1 1 to 5 years -1.068 *
.1581 .00
Recommend year 0
Longer than 5 years -1.381 *
.1557 .00
0
1 to 5 years Less than 1 year 1.068 *
.1581 .00
0
Longer than 5 years -.313 .1581 .12
0
Longer than 5 Less than 1 year 1.381 *
.1557 .00
years 0
1 to 5 years .313 .1581 .12
0

The multiple comparisons using Tukey HSD portrayed in table 10 above, indicated that

customer satisfaction was significantly different between customers with less than one year and

those with less or more than five years (p < 0.05). Moreover, it was also identified that customers

with one to 5 years had significantly different satisfaction from those with longer than five years.

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Similarly, customers with less than one year had a significantly different likelihood to

recommend than customers with less or more than five years (p < 0.05). Conversely, customers

with one to five years had no significant difference from those with longer than five years (p =

0.12).

Multiple Regression Analysis

Multiple regression analysis was used to develop two models used to predict customer

satisfaction and the likelihood to recommendation from the perceptions of the performance

variables (product quality, E-commerce, technical support, complaint resolution, advertising,

product line, salesforce image, competitive pricing, warranty & claims, new products, order &

billing, price flexibility, and delivery speed.

Satisfaction Model

Table 4: Model Summary

Change Statistics

R Adjusted R Std. Error of the R Square F Sig. F

Model R Square Square Estimate Change Change df1 df2 Change

1 .897a .804 .790 .5681 .804 58.756 13 186 .000

Satisfaction model was developed using customer satisfaction as the response variable

and perceptions of the performance as the predictor variables. The R-Square of 0.804 suggested

that perceptions of the performance variables can explain 80.4% of the customer satisfaction

variation. Only 19.6% of the variation is explained by other variables not included in the model

(see table 11 in the appendix).

Test of Model Parameters

Table 5: Regression Coefficient for Satisfaction Model

Model Unstandardized Standardized Coefficients t Sig.
Coefficients

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 B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) -2.255 .789 -2.859 .00
5
Q6 - Product Quality .412 .038 .459 10.87 .00
9 0
Q7 - E-Commerce -.264 .087 -.163 -3.044 .00
3
Q8 - Technical Support .031 .046 .041 .669 .50
5
Q9 - Complaint Resolution .099 .073 .097 1.366 .17
3
Q10 - Advertising -.034 .047 -.031 -.714 .47
6
Q11 - Product Line .347 .186 .368 1.862 .06
4
Q12 - Salesforce Image .629 .068 .572 9.194 .00
0
Q13 - Competitive Pricing -.064 .033 -.082 -1.965 .05
1
Q14 - Warranty & Claims .002 .089 .002 .026 .97
9
Q15 - New Products .033 .028 .040 1.185 .23
7
Q16 - Order & Billing .030 .073 .022 .413 .68
0
Q17 - Price Flexibility .263 .193 .252 1.358 .17
6
Q18 - Delivery Speed .008 .375 .005 .022 .98
2
a. Dependent Variable: Q19 - Satisfaction

Based on the regression analysis displayed in table 12 above, only product quality, E-

commerce, and salesforce image had a significant contribution to the predicting power of the

model at 0.05 level of significance (p < 0.05). All the other perceptions of the performance

variables did not significantly contribute to the predicting power of the model (p>0.05). The

analysis revealed that customer satisfaction when all the perceptions of the performance

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variables are zero was a negative value (-2.255), suggesting that customers have a negative

attitude towards the products without perceptions of performance. The coefficients of the

significant predictor variables suggest that controlling for all the other variables, increasing

product quality by one unit, increases customer satisfaction by 0.412. similarly, increasing

salesforce image by one unit increases customer satisfaction by 0.629. Conversely, controlling

for all the other variables, increasing E-commerce by one unit decreases customer satisfaction by

0.264. Although most of the performance variables' perceptions have no significant contribution

in predicting customer satisfaction, they were used as confounding variables in the model.

Therefore, the customer satisfaction model was as shown below:

Where: Q6=Product quality; Q7=E-Commerce; Q8=Technical support; Q9=Complaint

resolution; Q10=Advertising; Q11=Product line; Q12=Salesforce image; Q13=Competitive

pricing; Q14=Warranty & claims; Q15=New products; Q16=Order & billing; Q17=Price

flexibility; Q18=Delivery speed

A satisfied customer is likely to purchase frequently and to recommend services or

products to potential clients (Khadka and Maharjan, 2017; Jumawan 2018). The ability of a

business organization to grow without regarding or acknowledging the needs of customers seems

impossible. Seemingly, increasing product quality and salesforce image and decreasing E-

commerce would increase customer satisfaction with CPS.

Likely to Recommend Model

Likely to Recommend Model was developed 'likely to recommend model' using

likelihood to recommend as the response variable and perceptions of the performance as the

predictor variables. The R-Square of 0.536 suggested that performance variables' perceptions can

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explain 53.6% of the likelihood to recommend variation. And 46.4% of the variation is explained

by other variables not included in the model (see table 13 in the appendix).

Table 6: Regression coefficients for likely to recommend model

Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized t Sig.
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) .808 1.060 .762 .447
Q6 - Product Quality .344 .051 .440 6.770 .000
Q7 - E-Commerce -.085 .116 -.061 -.734 .464
Q8 - Technical Support .214 .062 .327 3.476 .001
Q9 - Complaint Resolution -.052 .098 -.058 -.534 .594
Q10 - Advertising -.123 .064 -.130 -1.931 .055
Q11 - Product Line .193 .250 .234 .769 .443
Q12 - Salesforce Image .463 .092 .482 5.036 .000
Q13 - Competitive Pricing -.028 .044 -.041 -.635 .526
Q14 - Warranty & Claims -.302 .120 -.244 -2.522 .013
Q15 - New Products .022 .038 .030 .582 .562
Q16 - Order & Billing .089 .098 .075 .903 .368
Q17 - Price Flexibility .200 .260 .220 .769 .443
Q18 - Delivery Speed .130 .504 .090 .258 .797
a. Dependent Variable: Q20 - Likely to Recommend

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 The multiple regression analysis displayed in table 14 revealed that only four perceptions of

performance variables (product quality, technical support, salesforce image, and warranty & claims) had a

significant contribution to the model's predicting power at a 0.05 level of significance (p <0.05). All the

other variables had no significant contribution in predicting the likelihood to recommend (p>0.05).

When all the perception of performance variables is set to zero, the likelihood to recommend would be

0.808. Holding all the other variables constant, a unit increase in product quality and technical support

would increase the likelihood to recommend by 0.344 and 0.214, respectively. Similarly, increasing the

salesforce image by one unit would increase the likelihood to recommend customers by 0.463. However,

increasing warranty & claims by one unit would decrease the likelihood to recommend by 0.302. Since all

the other performance variables' perceptions had no significant contribution in predicting likelihood to

recommend, they were considered controlling variables. Therefore, the likely to recommend model was

as shown below:

Where: Q6=Product quality; Q7=E-Commerce; Q8=Technical support; Q9=Complaint

resolution; Q10=Advertising; Q11=Product line; Q12=Salesforce image; Q13=Competitive

pricing; Q14=Warranty & claims; Q15=New products; Q16=Order & billing; Q17=Price

flexibility; Q18=Delivery speed

Therefore, it can be summarized that increasing product quality, technical support, and

salesforce image and decreasing warranty & claims would facilitate the likelihood to recommend

other customers.

The analysis revealed to increase customer satisfaction with CPS would be improved by

increasing the quality of the product and salesforce image and decreasing E-commerce.

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Moreover, to enhance the likelihood of recommending other customers for CPS, the firm needs

to increase its quality, technical support, and salesforce image and decrease warranty & claims.

Therefore, CPS needs to devise strategies on lowering E-commerce and decreasing warranty and

claims to facilitate customer satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, respectively. CPS should

ensure the production of high-quality paper products that satisfy the needs of the clients and

uphold a likable overall impression of its Salesforce to attract sales. Customers prefer high-

quality products and services due to the possibility of fewer losses (Hoe and Mansori 2018;

Waluya, Iqbal, and Indradewa, 2019); hence, such products remain instrumental in promoting

social change. Additionally, the salesforce image substantially affects customer satisfaction. The

sales team should maintain a long-term customer relationship and possess customer orientation

for the customer to perceive high Salesforce cooperation (Lussier and Hall 2018; Xu, Yu, and

Zhang 2018). The staff should present themselves as experts to enhance relationship outcomes.

Moreover, CPS should focus on improving the quality of the products, salesforce image, and

technical support when developing its business plan for the next year. They should also examine

other influencing factors not included in the model that would affect the likelihood to

recommend and customer satisfaction.

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References
Casielles, R.V., and Alvarez, B.A., 2007. Consumers' characteristics and brand choice behaviour:

Loyalty and consumption. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for

Marketing, 15(2), pp.121-131.

Dendena, B., 2019. An assessment of the draft beer distribution system in light of customer

satisfaction: The Case of Heineken Brewery Share Company in Addis Ababa (Doctoral

dissertation, st. mary's University).

Hoe, L.C. and Mansori, S., 2018. The effects of product quality on customer satisfaction and

loyalty: Evidence from Malaysian engineering industry. International Journal of

Industrial Marketing, 3(1), pp.20-35.

Imran, M., Hamid, S., Aziz, A. and Hameed, W., 2019. The contributing factors towards e-

logistic customer satisfaction: a mediating role of information Technology. Uncertain

Supply Chain Management, 7(1), pp.63-72.

Javed, F. and Cheema, S., 2017. Customer satisfaction and customer perceived value and its

impact on customer loyalty: the mediational role of customer relationship management.

The Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, pp.1-14.

Jumawan, J., 2018. The Effect of Service Quality on Loyalty using Satisfaction as an Intervening

Variable (Study on Entrepreneurs in Bekasi Bonded Zone). International Journal of

Advanced Engineering, Management and Science, 4(5), p.240006.

Khadka, K. and Maharjan, S., 2017. Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty: Case

Lussier, B. and Hall, Z.R., 2018. Cooperation in B2B relationships: Factors that influence

customers' perceptions of salesperson cooperation. Industrial Marketing Management,

69, pp.209-220.

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Park, C., Jun, J., Lee, T. and Lee, H., 2018. Customer orientation or employee orientation:

Which matters more? The moderating role of firm size. Journal of Business & Industrial

Marketing.

Rastegar, M., 2018. Impacts of residential energy management on reliability of distribution

systems considering a customer satisfaction model. IEEE Transactions on Power

Systems, 33(6), pp.6062-6073.

Waluya, A.I., Iqbal, M.A. and Indradewa, R., 2019. How product quality, brand image, and

customer satisfaction affect the purchase decisions of Indonesian automotive customers.

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Xu, W., Yu, Y. and Zhang, Q., 2018. An evaluation method of comprehensive product quality

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Appendix

Figures and Charts: Customer Duration, Type, and Size

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Figures and Charts: Customer Region and Distribution System

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Table 7: Independent Samples Test for satisfaction and size of customer

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q19 - Equal variances -

7.341 .007 198 .006 -.4801 .1727
Satisfaction assumed 2.781

Equal variances -
192.629 .006 -.4801 .1719
not assumed 2.792

Table 8: Independent Samples Test for satisfaction and customer region

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q19 - Equal variances

19.821 .000 2.467 198 .014 .4355 .1765
Satisfaction assumed

Equal variances
2.617 197.114 .010 .4355 .1664
not assumed

Table 9: Independent Samples Test for satisfaction and distribution system

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q19 - Equal variances -

.001 .978 198 .000 -1.3630 .1476
Satisfaction assumed 9.236

Equal variances -
192.012 .000 -1.3630 .1478
not assumed 9.225

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Table 10: Independent Samples Test for Likelihood to recommend and type of customer

Levene's Test for

Equality of
Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q20 - Likely to Equal variances

.030 .863 .072 198 .943 .0110 .1535
Recommend assumed

Equal variances
.072 197.792 .943 .0110 .1535
not assumed

Table 11: Independent Samples Test for Likelihood to recommend and customer size

Levene's Test for

Equality of
Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q20 - Likely to Equal variances -

.734 .393 198 .000 -.6412 .1466
Recommend assumed 4.372

Equal variances -
197.916 .000 -.6412 .1465
not assumed 4.377

Table 12: Independent Samples Test for Likelihood to recommend and customer region

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q20 - Likely to Equal variances

11.750 .001 .937 198 .350 .1462 .1560
Recommend assumed

Equal variances
.995 197.202 .321 .1462 .1470
not assumed

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Table 13: Independent Samples Test for Likely to recommend and distribution system

Levene's Test for

Equality of
Variances t-test for Equality of Means

Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error

F Sig. t df tailed) Difference Difference

Q20 - Likely to Equal variances -

.643 .424 198 .000 -1.0099 .1363
Recommend assumed 7.410

Equal variances -
195.924 .000 -1.0099 .1356
not assumed 7.445

Table 14: Model Summary

Change Statistics

R Adjusted R Std. Error of the R Square F Sig. F

Model R Square Square Estimate Change Change df1 df2 Change

1 .732
a
.536 .503 .7632 .536 16.506 13 186 .000

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