Weathering the crash: Do customer-company relationships pay off during economic crises?

Do stronger relationships with customers (customer-company relationships [CCR]) help firms better weather economic crises? To answer this question, we examine firm performance during the stock market crashes associated with the two most severe economic crises of the last 15 years-the protracted Great Recession crisis (2008-2009) and the shorter but extreme COVID-19 pandemic crisis (2020). Juxtaposing the predominant expected utility theory perspective with observed deviations in investor behavior during crises, we find that both pre-crash firm-level customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are positively associated with abnormal stock returns and lower idiosyncratic risk during a market crash, while pre-crash firm-level customer complaint rate negatively affects abnormal stock returns and increases idiosyncratic risk. On average, we find that one standard deviation higher CCR is associated with between $0.9 billion and $2.4 billion in market capitalization on an annualized basis. Importantly, we find that these effects are weaker for firms with higher market share during the COVID-19 crash, but not during the Great Recession crash. These results are found to be robust to a variety of alternate model specifications, time periods, sub-samples, accounting for firm strategies during the crises, and endogeneity corrections. When compared to relevant non-crash periods, we also find that such effects are equally strong during the Great Recession crash and even stronger during the COVID-19 pandemic crash. Contributing to both the marketing-finance interface literature and the nascent literature on marketing during economic crises, implications from these findings are provided for researchers, marketing theory, and managers. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-023-00947-1.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI): A sample dataset and description.

This article provides a sample of survey data collected by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Using online sampling and stratified interviewing techniques of actual customers of predominantly large market-share ("large cap") companies, the ACSI annually collects data from some 400,000 consumers residing across the United States for more than 400 companies within about 50 consumer industries. For this article and the data depository, consumers' perceptions of their experiences with individual companies included within four consumer industries as defined and measured by ACSI - processed food, commercial airlines, Internet service providers, and commercial banks - are included in the dataset. These industries were chosen to represent and illustrate a cross-section of data from differentiated sectors, not because they are representative of the larger economy or larger ACSI dataset per se. The survey items reflect a diverse array of customers' perceptions regarding prior expectations, perceived quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, complaint behavior, and customer loyalty. These are also the core latent factors modeled in the so-called ACSI model since 1994. The ACSI model is continuously analyzed using a proprietary and patented Partial Least Squares structural equation modeling approach (PLS-SEM). Detailed firm- or brand-level results from the ACSI data are used by individual companies for strategic organizational decision-making and in the aggregate to forecast trends in the U.S. national economy. ACSI data have been analyzed in thousands of peer-reviewed academic and practitioner journal articles.

Oxidative stress-induced apoptosis prevented by Trolox.

The ability of oxidative stress to induce apoptosis (programmed cell death), and the effect of Trolox, a water soluble vitamin E analog, on this induction were studied in vitro in mouse thymocytes. Cells were exposed to oxidative stress by treating them with 0.5-10 microM hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for 10 min, in phosphate-buffered saline supplemented with 0.1 mM ferrous sulfate. Cells were resuspended in RPMI 1640 medium with 10% serum and incubated at 37 degrees C under 5% CO2 in air. Electron microscopic studies revealed morphological changes characteristic of apoptosis in H2O2-treated cells. H2O2 treatment fragmented the DNA in a manner typical of apoptotic cells, producing a ladder pattern of 200 base pair increments upon agarose gel electrophoresis. The percentage of DNA fragmentation (determined fluorometrically) increased with increasing doses of H2O2 and postexposure incubation times. Pre- or posttreatment of cells with Trolox reduced H2O2-induced DNA fragmentation to control levels and below. The results indicate that oxidative stress induces apoptosis in thymocytes, and this induction can be prevented by Trolox, a powerful inhibitor of membrane damage.

Serotonergic neurotransmission in the spinal cord and motor cortex of patients with motor neuron disease and controls: quantitative autoradiography for 5-HT1a and 5-HT2 receptors.

Serotonin 5-HT is a potent modulator of motor neuron excitability in the spinal cord. Serotonergic neurotransmission, because of its effects on glutamatergic excitation, may be relevant to the pathogenesis and therapy of motor neuron disease (MND). The human motor system was studied at two levels, spinal cord and motor cortex, by autoradiography for the 5-HT1A and 5-HT2 receptor subclasses. In addition, biochemical estimations of indole metabolites were performed in the spinal cord. Post mortem tissue from control cases and MND patients showed a reduction in 5-HT1A receptor binding in the cervical (p < 0.01) but not lumbar ventral horn in MND. 5-HT2 receptors were preserved in the ventral horn at both levels and were focally abundant around motor neuron somata. Tissue levels of 5-HT were unchanged in the spinal cord in MND. The metabolite 5-HIAA was increased in the cervical spinal cord in MND as was the molar ratio of 5HIAA:5-HT, implying that there may be an increased turnover of 5HT. In the motor cortex and premotor cortex the 5-HT1A receptor remained unchanged in MND. There was a 20% reduction in 5-HT2 receptor binding sites (p < 0.05) across all the cortical laminae with preservation of the normal pattern of laminar binding. These changes in two levels of the motor system in MND most likely represent physiological adaptations in the spinal cord and motor cortex rather than primary involvement of the serotonergic system in the pathogenesis of the disease.

Influence of the carcinogenic pollutant benzo[a]pyrene on plant development: fern gametophytes.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), ubiquitous environmental pollutants, are known to be biologically active in mammalian systems and are accumulated by plants. A few reports suggest that PAHs stimulate growth in plants and induce morphogenesis in plant tissue in culture. To investigate the growth altering abilities of PAHs in plants, polypodiaceous fern gametophytes were grown under sterile conditions on media containing a biologically active PAH, benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), at doses ranging from 0.1 to 10.0 micrograms/ml. The growth pattern of polypodiaceous fern gametophytes enables alterations in growth and morphogenesis to be observed at the cellular level in an intact plant. Doses of BaP in the range 0.1--3.2 micrograms/ml enhanced the onset of the morphological transitions from 1-dimensional (1D) to 2-dimensional (2D) growth. This transition for BaP treated plants occurred after fewer cell divisions than the corresponding solvent and untreated controls. The low (0.1 and 0.32 micrograms) and high (1.0 and 3.2 micrograms) doses of BaP were found to accelerate and inhibit cell proliferation, respectively. The 10.0 microgram dose was toxic and resulted in decreased germination of spores and reduced survival of plants. A slight but significant decrease in survival was also observed in ferns treated with 3.2 micrograms. This is the first example of PAH influencing cell differentiation in a whole plant system.

CSF and plasma amino acid levels in motor neuron disease: elevation of CSF glutamate in a subset of patients.

Fasting plasma and/or CSF amino acid levels have been measured in a group of 37 patients with motor neurone disease (MND) and in 35 neurological control patients undergoing lumbar puncture prior to myelography. There were no significant differences in the plasma levels of 22 amino acids between the two groups. In CSF, there was a significant elevation of the glutamate level in the MND patients (P = 0.008). However, the MND group were heterogeneous with regard to CSF glutamate: 19/31 (61%) had levels within the normal range; eight (26%) had levels more than twice the upper limit of normal (> or = 10 mumol/l) and five (16%) had levels more than seven times normal (> or = 30 mumol/l). In a subset of seven MND patients there was a significant inverse correlation (rs = -0.775, P < 0.03) between CSF glutamate levels in life and the density of pre-synaptic glutamate re-uptake sites in the lumbar spinal cord measured in a post-mortem autoradiographic study. A possible interpretation of these findings is that an abnormality of glutamate transport may underlie the increase in CSF glutamate. The identification of a subgroup of MND patients with high CSF glutamate levels may be important in evaluating the clinical response to antiglutamate therapeutic agents.