你的大顧客是不是關鍵顧客？──揭櫫運輸物流業關鍵顧客管理

Are Your Big Accounts Your Key Customers? Unveiling Key Account Management in the Transportation and Logistics Industry

關鍵顧客管理之學術領域發展已近30 餘年，惟國內運輸物流業界對是項議題仍欠缺關注。因此本研究基於社會交換理論，建構關鍵顧客管理的量化評估模式，並以實務界慣以大顧客作為關鍵顧客的做法，驗證大顧客可否為達到預期的優先顧客，實證取借兩家世界級航空承攬業所提供101 份大顧客樣本為例，以偏最小平方迴歸方法進行量化分析。實證結果顯示，承攬業的功能性關係活動在組織內具有正面的跨組織角色配適；而社會性關係活動則無顯著效果。在雙邊績效評估方面，大顧客對承攬業者的關係活動感到滿意，而滿意的大顧客卻未能帶給承攬業在銷售與技術上的預期回報。研究歸結大顧客實難成為關鍵顧客，結論提醒承攬業在顧客分類議題的重要性。

Key account management (KAM) has been continuously developed for more than three decades, but it still lacks attentions in the transportation/logistics (T/L) sectors. In addressing this weakness, this study aims to establish a quantitative model of assessing KAM performance, drawing on social exchange theory. In coinciding with the general situation in industry that using big accounts serving as key accounts, this study tests the proposition whether big accounts are preferred customers using our model. 101 big account samples retrieved from two collaborating global air forwarders for Taiwanese market were examined using the partial least square regression technique. Our empirical results reveal the positive effect of functional relationship activities on the capabilities of KAM managers, while no significant effect for social relationship activities. As far as bilateral performance assessments are concerned, big accounts are broadly satisfied by the relational activities provided by forwarders, but, conversely, the forwarders do not receive expected gains from the big accounts, in particular, in sales and technical aspects. This study concludes that big accounts can hardly be key customers, and also stresses the importance of customer classification of KAM in the T/L fields.