An Exploratory Study for Analyzing the Needs of the Customers Who Use Academic Information Service

This study performs an exploratory investigation of the needs of the customers who use academic information service from a research institute, K, that provides information services for domestic academic institutions of natural science and technology. K institute is planning customized services in order to improve customer satisfaction on the academic information service And therefore, the institute begins the research on customer needs analysis and customer segmentation. The research is regarded as well-timed, because CRM implementation in public organizations has been activated recently. Data mining and data warehousing techniques were used for pilot analyses. For the purpose of customer segmentation, a mixed segmentation model, which adds product life cycle concept to the `balanced customer segmentation` model, which in turn considers the value of customers from the organizational viewpoint and the value of organizations from the customer`s viewpoint, simultaneously, was applied. The result of investigation indicated that, in the case of K, `balanced customer segmentation` and `contents reach approach` which uses data warehouse/OLAP, rather than those customer segmentation techniques that are often used within the industry, are the more potent ways of approach. This exploratory case study is expected to provide a useful guideline for `deriving an organizationally unique CRM model` that recently is one of the hot topics in the CRM area.