NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

BUSINESS SCHOOL

Phan Thanh Tuan

FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER’S UPSELLING

DECISION IN THE COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH COURSE
AT LANGMASTER ENGLISH CENTRE

Bachelor of Business Administration in English (E-BBA) Thesis

HANOI, 2019

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 NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY
BUSINESS SCHOOL

FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER’S UPSELLING

DECISION IN THE COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH COURSE
AT LANGMASTER ENGLISH CENTRE

Bachelor of Business Administration in English (E-BBA) Thesis

Student: Phan Thanh Tuan

Class: E-BBA 8A
Student’s ID: 11165721
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof., PhD. Bui Duc Tuan

HANOI, 2019

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

“This research serves as the final thesis which completes my course of Bachelor
of Business Administration in English (E-BBA), at Business School, National
Economics University.”
“First of all, I would like to give my sincere thanks to Assoc. Prof. Bui Duc
Tuan, who has provided invaluable comments, consultants, instructions and
guidance to my research throughout the study, as my instructor.”
“Secondly, I would like to deeply thank the professors, lecturers, instructors and
teachers of Business School in particular and National Economics University in
general, who have spent time and effort to give us new knowledge, skills and points
of view during four years of the course.”
“Thirdly, I would like to express my gratitude to the managers, sales counsellors
and staff members at Langmaster Educational Investment & International
Technology Development Joint Stock Company, who went through the trouble of
guiding me during my internship, giving me valuable practical experience and
participating in my study.”
“Last but not least, I truly appreciate the emotional and material support from all
of my friends and family, without whom I could not have carried on until the end of
this course and research.”

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION...........................................................................1
1.1. Rationale............................................................................................................1
1.2. Research Objectives..........................................................................................2
1.3. Research Questions...........................................................................................3
1.4. Research subject and Scope of Study...............................................................3
1.4.1. Research subject......................................................................................3
1.4.2. Scope of Study.........................................................................................3
1.5. Report’s structure.............................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF UPSELLING AND
AFFECTING FACTORS........................................................................................5
2.1. Literature Review..............................................................................................5
2.2. Upselling and the Upselling decision process................................................10
2.2.1. Definition of Upselling..........................................................................10
2.2.2. Decision process in Upselling situations...............................................11
2.2.3. Final decision........................................................................................12
2.3. Affecting factors on the upselling decision....................................................13
2.3.1. Initial decision: Customer’s Cognitive Effort and Surrogate’s
Perceived Effort...............................................................................................13
2.3.2. Message’s Goal Frame..........................................................................16
2.3.3. Regret Proneness...................................................................................18
2.3.4. Customer’s Existing Knowledge of the industry...................................19
2.3.5. Customer’s persuasion knowledge........................................................20
2.4. Research Model and Observed Variables.....................................................22
2.4.1. Research Model.....................................................................................22
2.4.2. Observed Variables................................................................................23
2.4.3. Research hypotheses..............................................................................25
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.................................................26
3.1. Research process.............................................................................................26

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3.2. Secondary data’s attaining method................................................................29
3.3. Primary data’s attaining method...................................................................30
3.3.1. Sample scale and selecting method.......................................................30
3.3.2. Sampling Design....................................................................................30
3.3.3. Questionaire constructing.....................................................................30
3.3.4. In-depth interview..................................................................................33
3.4. Data administrating and collecting process...................................................33
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS................................................................35
4.1. Overview of the situation of upselling at Langmaster English centre.........35
4.1.1. Overview of Langmaster English centre...............................................35
4.1.2. Upselling situations...............................................................................37
4.2. Descriptive analysis.........................................................................................38
4.2.1. Respondents’ profile..............................................................................38
4.2.2. Choice probability..................................................................................41
4.3. Quantitative approach results........................................................................42
4.3.1. Reliability verification (Cronbach’s Alpha)..........................................42
4.3.2. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)......................................................47
4.3.3. Correlation Analysis..............................................................................50
4.3.4. Regression Analysis...............................................................................51
4.3.5. Compared with Demographic variables................................................55
4.4. Qualitative approach results..........................................................................58
4.4.1. Qualitative approach objectives.............................................................58
4.4.2. Qualitative approach results..................................................................59
4.5. Discussion about the research results............................................................62
4.5.1. Research results summary.....................................................................62
4.5.2. Results discussion..................................................................................63
CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................68
5.1. Constructing Upselling strategy.....................................................................68
5.2. Increasing Upselling’s probability.................................................................69

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5.3. Understanding customer’s insight..................................................................70
5.4. Other recommendations.................................................................................71
CHAPTER 6: REFERENCES..............................................................................74
CHAPTER 7: APPENDIXES................................................................................77

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
No. Acronym Meaning
1. “EFA” “Exploratory Factor Analysis”
2. “KMO” “Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Test”
3. ANOVA Analysis of Variance
4. “SPSS” “Statistical Package for Social Sciences”
5. “VIF” “Variance Inflation Factor”
6. “Sig.” Significant
7. CP “Choice Probability”
8. CE “Customer’s cognitive effort”
9. PE “Surrogate’s perceived effort”
10. RP “Regret Proneness”
11. KE “Knowledge of English centres”
12. PK “Persuasion Knowledge”
13. LF “Loss frame”
14. GF “Gain frame”

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 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2-1: Decision process in Upselling situtations (Heidig, 2012).................11
Figure 2-2: Research Model..................................................................................22
Figure 3-1: Research Process................................................................................26

LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph 4-1: Gender.................................................................................................39
Graph 4-2: Age range and Academic level...........................................................39
Graph 4-3: Decision makers..................................................................................40
Graph 4-4: Frequency response of the dependent variable................................41

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 LIST OF TABLES
Table 2-1: Literature Review..................................................................................8
Table 2-2: Summary of Methodological differences in Risky choice framing,
Attribute framing and Goal framing (Levin, 1998).............................................16
Table 2-3: Overserved Variables..........................................................................23
Table 2-4: Research hypotheses............................................................................25
Table 3-1: Questionnaire constructing.................................................................31
Table 4-1: Business figures....................................................................................35
Table 4-2: Upselling circumstances.......................................................................37
Table 4-3: Data description...................................................................................38
Table 4-4: Verification for the scale “Customer’s Cognitive Effort”.................42
Table 4-5: Verification for the scale “Surrogate Perceived Effort”...................43
Table 4-6: Verification for the scale “Regret Proneness”...................................44
Table 4-7: Verification for the scale “Knowledge of English centres”...............45
Table 4-8: Verification for the scale “Persuasion Knowledge”...........................46
Table 4-9: KMO and Bartlett’s Test.....................................................................47
Table 4-10: Cumulative of Variance.....................................................................48
Table 4-11: Rotated Component Matrix..............................................................49
Table 4-12: Correlation Analysis..........................................................................50
Table 4-13: Model Summary.................................................................................51
Table 4-14: ANOVA analysis for the dependent variable...................................52
Table 4-15: Coefficients of the independent variables.........................................52
Table 4-16: Hypotheses verification......................................................................53
Table 4-17: Model Summary with “Message goal frame”..................................54
Table 4-18: Coefficients with “Message goal frame”...........................................54
Table 4-19: T-test verification between “Gender” groups.................................55
Table 4-20: ANOVA verification between “Age” groups....................................56
Table 4-21: ANOVA verification between “Income” groups..............................57
Table 4-22: ANOVA verification between “Academic level” groups.................57
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Table 4-23: In-depth interview questions.............................................................58
Table 4-24: Research results summary.................................................................62

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In the modern world of business, upselling has no longer been an unfamiliar

term to most salespersons. In fact, upselling has been an efficient tactic for a
multitude of companies throughout the world to maximise and proliferate their
number of sales. As not only does it help to persuade customers into buying or
purchasing higher quality or quantity products or service, it also brings latent
advantages to the consumers, which in turn benefits both customers and the sellers
simultaneously. Nonetheless, not many enterprises have successfully implemented
this strategy since it can vary throughout the industries and the characteristics of
their customers as well. “Langmaster Educational Investment & International
Technology Development Joint Stock Company”, also known as Langmaster
English centre, a small firm located in Hanoi city has also fallen into this category as
there is no explicitly standardized criteria for this strategy. Thus, the current study,
“Factors affecting customer’s uspselling decision in the communicative English
course at Langmaster English centre”, is conducted to solve this gap of
understanding.
The main objective of the study is to find out basic elements having
considerable impact on the possibility of upselling from the customers through
statistics using quantitative analysis. In addition, qualitative analysis is also applied
in finding out other subjective factors coming from the customers themselves
through in-depth interviews.
After the analyzing process, solutions and recommendations corresponding to
the findings of the study are given by the researcher with a view to helping the
counsellors at Langmaster have a deeper understanding about the customers and
suggesting a more appropriate strategy especially for upselling.

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
As the linguist Khamkhien contends, speaking is one of the most essential
skills when learning a language, which includes the language English (Khamkhien,
2010). According to Bygate, speaking skill is one of the reflective skills, which
helps learners to use the language to express ideas, thoughts and feelings to the
listeners (Bygate, 1987). Thus, it can be infered that, it is the speaking skill that
helps the English language to employ its communicative function. Moreover,
speaking skill also plays a role in consolidating learners’listening skill, helps to
intnensify the vocabulary amount and practice other related skills. For that reason,
many college students in Viet Nam when studying English all have the aspirations to
study and apply extensively to improve speaking skill, which helps facilitating
academic and social learning and working in the future. However, Vietnamese
college students still incur difficulties in the English learning process, especially the
speaking skill in communicating English (Nhật, 2018). Therefore, Langmaster
English Centre has been providing the optimal solutions to tackle this problematic
issue.
Having operated for 7 years, Langmaster has experienced a variety of
vicissitudes. In the first 4 year, the company thrived as being the leader in adapting
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and other special kinds of teaching methods
into communicative English for working people. However, since then, many new
English centres, both direct and indirect competitors, have entered the market due to
the low entry barrier and the increased awareness of Vietnamese people towards the
importance of English nowadays. Langmaster’s differentiations from the early years
have gradually been diminished since they can be imitated by the competitors. Since
then, the company has still been struggling to turn back to its prime.
In addition, due to the trend for English certificates (such as Ielts, Toeic,
Toefl…), there are not many students willing to attend the upper level courses that
the company provides just for the usage of English in the workplace and foreign

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environment, because most of them want to tackle the test with tricks and tips in
order to achieve the aimed band score. This result in the company’s not making the
most of its capacity and even loss from this segment (because a class with too few
students can not be initiated until the required number of students is met, and in that
period of time, customers can change their mind and go to learn somewhere else).
Thus, one solution to this problem is utilising the previous customers and
while-using the service customers through upselling. The cost for attracting new
customers has been more and more costly through all types of communication and
marketing channels. Therefore, making use of the data from interested customers
and old customers can be the optimal solution in this context. A research about “The
factors affecting customers’ upselling decision in the communicative English course
at Langmaster English centre” is crucial to optimize this strategy.
For academic purpose, there hasn’t been an official study for disclosing factors
affecting the upselling decision of customers which can be applied for the English
educating industry in general and for Langmaster’s communicative English centre in
particular. This research: “Factors affecting customer’s upselling decision in the
communicative English course at Langmaster English centre” aims to fill the gap of
that specific theoretical study.

1.2. Research Objectives

General objectives: Through this study, board of directors and other chief
officers of Langmaster will be able to understand more intensively about their
targeted customers and thus come up with a more effective and suitable upselling
strategy.

Specific objectives:
First, synthesize and systematize the theoretical basis of upselling and review
of factors having an impact on upselling in some prominent industries.

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 Second, discover significant factors affecting the upselling decision of both old
and new customers before and after using the service and model that relationship.
Third, identify the impact extent of each factors on upselling decision.
Fourth, propose solutions in order to improve the upselling strategy of the
company.

1.3. Research Questions

What are significant the factors affecting both old and new customers’
upselling decision before and after using the service at Langmaster?
What is the level of impact of customers ‘original cognitive effort and other
factors on their upselling decision?
Which message’s goal-frame reduces or enhances the effect of the customers
‘original cognitive effort investment on their upselling decision?
Are there any changes in the decision process when a consumer delegates
his/her original decision making right to a surrogate?
What are the solutions to help increase the choice probability to upsell among
both and new customers at Langmaster?

1.4. Research subject and Scope of Study

1.4.1. Research subject
The upselling decision of customers who have chosen the communicative
English courses at Langmaster but not yet experienced or have already experienced
at least one communicative English course at Langmaster English centre.

1.4.2. Scope of Study

Boundaries of Space: The research is carried out at all the branches of
Langmaster English centre in Ha Noi.
Boundaries of Time:
The research is conducted from 27th October 2019 to 29th December 2019.

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 The primary data is collected from 24th November 2019 to 15th December
2019.
The secondary data is synthesized between 2011 and 2018.
Recommendations of the study are expected to be utterly carried out by the
second quarter of 2020 and be in use until the end of 2025, regardless of updating
and modification.

1.5. Report’s structure

The report is divided into 5 chapters:
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: Theoretical framework of Upselling and Affecting Factors
- Chapter 3: Research Methodology
- Chapter 4: Research Results
- Chapter 5: Recommendations

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 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF UPSELLING AND
AFFECTING FACTORS
2.1. Literature Review
In the field of life insurance, a research looking into how to measure the
upselling potential of customers was carried out by two corporate authors Byung-Do
Kim and Sun-Ok Kim in 1999. With the sample size of 5,000 life insurance
customers, the studies employed a “stochastic frontier model”, which illustrated an
average result of 28% inefficiency in the firm’s selling activity. Thanks to this figure
of “customer-level estimate of selling inefficiency” (or upselling potential), the firm
was able to identify a cluster of customers who have high potential for upselling.
Moreover, this model can also be applied for acquiring customers by predicting the
maximum insurance premium that can be sold for each of the potential customers,
based on their demographic features (types of professions, insuring age,...) (Kim, B.-
D., & Kim, S.-O., 1999).
Another study which sees upselling as a way to make use of customer
relationship management took place in the financial services industry, conducted by
Maria Teresa Salazar in 2007. All the data used in the research was extracted from a
large international insurance company’s data warehouse. This study has succeeded
in consolidating the validity of a systematic approach, available for usage in other
industries, with a view to discovering cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.
Furthermore, the benefits of retaining customers longer and methods to attain them
have also been unequivocally illustrated. Through the “Acquisition Pattern
Analysis”, the study has depicted “how consumption evolves through successive
purchases and how products interrelate generating more business opportunities in
terms of both cross-selling and up-selling”. Age and other factors related to the
customers’ previous experience with the company, such as the sale channel they
interact, the number of products they use, the value and length of their relationship
with the company, are the most prominent factors which determine repurchasing
decisions (Salazar, 2007).

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 Looking deeper into modelling the customer’s upgrade decision but in terms of
Business-to-Business, the research carried out by Ruth Bolton in 2008 has
developed a model which helps facilitating business customer’s decision to renew
the contract. In the context of industrial services in general, the study investigated a
sample size of over 2,000 service contracts and found out three most influential
factors on the firm’s upgrade decision: (1) the perceptions of the decision maker of
the relationship between him/her and the supplier; (2) the customer’s experiences
with the contract-level: (3) the interactions between the firm and contract-level
variables. In other word, decision-maker satisfaction, service quality and price have
a significant effect on the customer’s upgrading decision. Moreover, to some extent,
“price and satisfaction also moderate the implications of service quality on the
decision” (Bolton, 2008).
One of a few extensive studies that take into account the whole service
industry in general was carried out by Wibke Heidig in 2012. The main focus of the
research is to develop a conceptual model of the upselling decision process and
clarify when and why consumers may accept the offer. In order to crystalize those
theories, four comprehensive experiments were conducted in different service
industries, which were car rentals, hotel reservations and travelling bookings. The
first experiment concludes that the initial cognitive effort investments leads to
intention of reserved products or service decision. Specifically, high initial cognitive
effort investments constitute an inertia for customers that prevents them from
accepting the upselling offer. Also, customers who highly exert their cognitive effort
at their original decision, are less willing to pay for the price premium of the upsell
offer, compared to those who have lower effort investments. The conclusion for the
second experiment is that in the context of high cognitive effort, loss-framed selling
message provides the aid for depleting the lock-in situation and loosens the effect of
initial effort investments, whereas gain-framed message consolidates the influence
of the inertia for the final decision. Nevertheless, in the context of low cognitive
effort, neither of the goal frames has major impact on the intention of the customers.

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The second and third experiment have found out that anticipated inaction regret and
decision justifiability are the two factors that work as mediators in the relationship
between the upsell message’s goal frame and the final decision. However, when the
responsibility for making the final decision is not on the consumer’s hand but on a
someone else’s, the possibility to acquire the upselling offer from the customers
remains relatively constant despite the implementation of either loss-framed or gain-
framed goal message. This is due to the absence of need for justification from the
consumers, as they are no longer the one who get to make the final decision. The
final experiment took place in situations where customers delegate the decision
making process to their surrogates. An assumption was made that choice delegation
itself created a lock-in for the customers, which meant that customers put their utter
trust to their surrogates and follow with their decision. This, however, hasn’t always
been the case. The experiment has proven that if the surrogate puts high cognitive
effort in deciding, the customer will remain locked-in with the surrogate’s decision,
regardless of the goal frame used. In contrast, if the surrogate has low amounts of
cognitive effort, loss-framed upsell message will bring about better result in a switch
to the upselling offer, compared to the gain-frame’s (Heidig, 2012).

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 Table 2-1: Literature Review

Research Title Industry Focus Main findings Citation

“Measuring Upselling Life “Identification of upselling “Context specific findings: (Kim,
Potential of Life insurance potential and introduction of a Identification of an upselling 1999)
Insurance Customers: methodology to calculate potential of an additional 25% for
Application of a upselling potential.” more than half of the customers.
Stochastic Frontier Type of profession and age act as
Model” predictors of upselling potential.”
Customer Relationship Management

“An Approach for the Financial “Identification of cross-selling “The lifecycle stages of the (Salazar,
Identification of services and upselling opportunities to customers determine their 2007)
Cross-Sell and Up- reinforce customer retention in consumption of cross- and
Sell Opportunities ongoing relationships.” upselling offers. These stages
Using a Financial encompass variables such as age
Services Customer and previous experiences with the
Database” company.”
“Expanding Business Industrial “Identification of variables that “A model-estimation with more (Bolton,
to-Business Customer services determine a business customer’s than 2000 service contracts 2008)
Relationships: decision to expand service reveals that satisfaction, service
Modelling the contracts instead of renewing an quality, and price directly
Customer’s Upgrade existing one.” influence the upsell decision of
Decision” business decision makers, while
price and satisfaction also
moderate the influence of service
quality.”

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 “Upselling or Service in “Examine how consumers “High initial cognitive investment (Heidig,
Upsetting? Studies on general respond to upsell offers and why prevents upselling.” 2012)
the Behavioural they react in the way they do.” “Customers with high initial
Consequences of cognitive investment opt for the
Upsell Offers in upsell offer when the message is
Service Encounters” loss-framed (compared to gain-
framed).”
Revenue Management

“Customers with low cognitive

effort condition are unaffected by
both goal frames.”
“If the surrogate proposes high
cognitive effort in the original
decision, the customer will remain
in the first decision regardless of
either goal frames of the upsell
offer.”
“If the surrogate invests low
cognitive effort, upselling choice
will be more likely to come about
when using loss-framed upsale
messages than gain-framed.”
Source: Heidig 2012

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2.2. Upselling and the Upselling decision process
2.2.1. Definition of Upselling
The definition of “upselling” has been known as an established and universally
used sales tool which is employed by services companies with a view to increasing
the purchasing value of their customers. Thus, many companies have been making
efforts to persuade their customers to purchase a higher-level product or service,
richer in functions for the user and more profitable for the company. Although
having been considerably used and known for its universality, upselling has not been
intensively studied yet. The reasons for this might be due to the discord of upselling
conceptualization among researchers, and also due to the absence of clarity between
upselling and other related selling activities such as cross-selling.”
The definition of upselling used in this dissertation is the combination of its
strategy perspective of customer relationship management and its operative view as
a tool of a firm’s revenue management, which is based on the studies of Bauer in
2003 and Heidig in 2012, respectively. For its strategic application, upselling is
defined as “an instrument to increase the lifetime value of customers in ongoing
long-term client-business relationships” (Bauer H.H, 2003). In addition, upselling
can also be defined as an operative selling technique without assuming prior
customer-seller relationships (Heidig, 2012).
Consequently, upselling in the present dissertation is conceptualized as a
strategy to boost sale by persuading customers to acquire a superior and more
valuable product or service both from old customers (customer relationship
management) and from new customers (revenue management), which in turn can
constitute mutual benefits for the customers in obtaining more advantageous
experience and for the company in making more profit. In this context, upselling
offer is visualized as an option for customers to choose to purchase more
communicative English courses or continue studying for higher level courses at
Langmaster, thus, creating higher commitment to Langmaster.

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 The following sections synthesize the main findings, focuses and conclusions
of previous researches and studies relating to upselling based on either viewpoints
above.

2.2.2. Decision process in Upselling situations

As aforementioned, up-sell can sometimes be misinterpreted as cross-sell.
While a cross-selling offer tries to encourage customers to acquire extra items or
service that compliment the original purchase (Kubiak, 2010), an upselling offer
“prompts the customer to reconsider the initial decision and therefore involves a
quite unique dections pattern” (Heidig, 2012). Therefore, the upselling process can
be illustrated as a three-step model below:

“Initial Choice” “Upsell Offer” “Final Choice”

“Acceptance of the
“Personal Upselling Offer
(Reservation)
(Rejection of the
Decision”
Initial Choice)”
Personal
(Reservation)
Decision
“Rejection of the
Surrogate Upselling Offer
(Reservation) (Acceptance of the
Decision
Initial Choice)”

“First Choice” “Second Choice”

Service Encounter
Figure 2-1: Decision process in Upselling situations (Heidig, 2012)
Source: Heidig 2012

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 In the first step, the customers themselves make their own choice from the
fixed set of available options that the company provides. The customers in this
situation can be either the consumers who choose the option themselves or the
surrogates who decide on behalf of their consumers. In the context of the English
centre industry, the decisions for the courses are considered as reservations.
The second step is where the direct customer-seller interaction takes place. At
this step, the salesperson tries to deliver an upselling offer to the one who makes the
final decision.
The third step is where the final decision is given. The decision maker can
either accept the Upselling offer and reject the Initial choice or vice versa.
In addition, at all but every English centre, the upselling process can take place
at one of these three time frames: when the customers first encounter the centre’s
counsellors and have yet to interact with the service; after the customers have
experienced a trial session at the centre; after the customers have experienced at
least one course at the centre. Nonetheless, in these situations, the customers all have
an advisory session with the counsellors, where the upselling decision process
happens.

2.2.3. Final decision

By and large, people who make decisions often go for the preference that is
clearly comprehensible and has the lowest probabilities of having regrets. This
theory “is concerned with how well-justified decision makers themselves perceive a
decision to be, the justification they themselves consider reasonable for the way it
was made, and the self-blame and regret they experience when they do not see the
decision as justifiable” (Reb & Connolly, 2010). Evidently, it is the experience and
anticipation of regret that make an impact on the final decision of the decision
makers, which brings about the alterations during the decision making process.
Especially in situations when switching decisions occurs, it has also been stated
that“previous negative experiences with a product”or service constituted reasons for

12
a shift in decision and increased the anticipated regret that followed the repetition of
the same purchase. Thus,“because human decision makers are regret averse, they try
to regulate their decision by increasing decision justifiability and consequently
reducing experienced and anticipated regret.”
All these studies have constructed a similar conclusion“that a loss-framed
upselling offer”elicits the justification process. Because of the possibly foreseeable
losses, customers can hardly keep associating themselves with their first reservation
decision, despite the cognitive effort put into making that decision. Thereby, it can
be inferred that “loss-framed upsell offers may cancel out already invested cognitive
effort while providing strong arguments for a decision switch” (Heidig, 2012).
Likewise,“gain-framed upsell offers”concentrating on“the advantages of the
upselling offers may not”provoke considerable regretting anticipations. In addition,
these two message’s goal frames can variously alter the ending results, depending on
the level of customers’ initial cognitive effort. In situations when customers have
high level of cognitive effort for their own decision, using the gain-framed upselling
offer could stimulate regret as their initial cognitive effort would be vanished
without any potent justification. In contrast, low level cognitive effort situations
doesn’t require much significant justification for a shift towards the upselling offer
to come through.

2.3. Affecting factors on the upselling decision

2.3.1. Initial decision: Customer’s Cognitive Effort and Surrogate’s Perceived
Effort
2.3.1.1. The role of Customer’s Cognitive Effort
By and large, cognitive effort has been conceptualized as the cumulative
amount of cognitive resources which are required in order to fully implement a task.
Those cognitive resources include perception, information acquisition and
judgement. The role of cognitive effort has been proven to be an indispensable
factor affecting the decision making process. Some past researches into cognitive

13
effort within cognitive psychology have stated that decision makers are intent on
trying to minimize cognitive effort, as they want to avoid a complex decision
making process and aim for an easy one. Nonetheless, the amount of cognitive effort
people invest may vary in certain situations, especially situations where their
benefits are affected since people are loss averse. It is these variations that prompt
customers to come up with and employ different strategies while making a decision.
According to the effort-accuracy framework, decision maker will tend to apply a
decision strategy which can balance the effort and attainable accuracy in the context
when the decision requires costly effort. In situations relating to upselling,
customers’ cognitive investments in their initial option constitute a lock-in situation
that ties them with that decision. These cognitive effort investments originated and
were gradually built up through the customer’s experience with similar past
consumption situations (Johnson, 2003).
H1: Customer’s cognitive effort has negative impact on the Upselling choice
probability.

2.3.1.2. The role of Surrogate’s Perceived Effort

In many types of service, customers often entrust the decision making to
another person, also known as a surrogate. Especially in the foreign language centers
industry, many young consumers have their parents or their peers make the decision
for them on where to study, at which level and which courses. This is also true to
adults customers, who are busy with their work or have no experience with English
centers or how the purchasing process works, they will delegate their initial decision
to a surrogate, who the customers put their trust in, such as peers, experts, reliable
acquaintances,… Therefore, the role of a surrogate takes action when “a customer
delegates the complete reservation decision to a surrogate, the customer is likely to
become locked-in to this reservation because he or she neither knows the choice set
nor the associated attributes and thus depends upon the surrogate’s expertise.

14
However,“the strength of this lock-in”also depends on the amount of effort which
the surrogate invests in the reservation decision.
In most cases at English centres, where the targeted customers are college
students and adults, the lock-in situations involving a surrogate can be flexible since
the surrogate doesn’t have a considerable influence on the consumers, unlike
situations where the surrogates are parents of the young consumers. The effort the
surrogate invests in this context is defined as “perceived effort”,“an equivalent to the
customer’s cognitive effort”in situations where the consumers themselves make the
final decision. However, in contrast to“customer’s cognitive effort, the surrogate’s
perceived effort has to be observable and”persuasive in order to be assessed by the
main customer. In other words, perceived effort is the surrogate’s cognitive effort in
the eye and perspective of the customers. Perceived effort is termed as “the amount
of energy a customers believes an employee has invested on their behalf” (Huang,
2010). In a study focusing on failures in service in 2010, Huang illustrated the
impact of the employees’ perceived effort at dealing service problems for customers
on the level of their satisfaction, repurchasing intentions and word-of-mouth.
Specifically, in the context of upselling, the surrogate’s perceived effort plays an
important role when the surrogate invests high cognitive effort in making“decision,
the customer is more likely to stay locked-in”with that decision. Thus, encouraging
the surrogate to invest higher cognitive effort for the upselling offer can result in
higher probability for the upsell decision from the customers. Also, unlike the
customer’s own reservation decision, the customers anticipate their surrogates to put
a considerable amount of cognitive effort while making decisions (Heidig, 2012).
H2: Surrogate’s perceived effort has negative impact on the Upselling choice
probability.

15
 2.3.2. Message’s Goal Frame
2.3.2.1. Definition of Message Framing
With a view to fully understanding the reasons behind the process of how
framing can either facilitate or hinder the upselling decision of customers by
affecting their cognitive lock-in, a clear understanding of how message can be
framed needs to be acquired. Message framing can be defined as “a diverse set of
framing techniques that have gained heterogeneous attention in research” (O'Keefe,
2006). Despite their differences, all these framing techniques have the same facet of
delivering information either in positive or negative perspective. According to Levin
in 1998, based on their implicit mechanisms and outcomes, those framing
techniques can be divided into three distinct frame types: Risky choice framing,
Attribute framing and Goal framing (Levin, 1998).
Table 2-2:“Summary of Methodological differences in Risky choice framing,
Attribute framing and Goal framing (Levin, 1998)

“What is “How effect is

“Frame type” “What is framed”
affected” measured”
“Comparison of
“Set of options with
“Risky choice” “Risk preference” choices for risky
different risk levels”
options”
“Object/event “Comparison of
“Attribute” attributes or “Item evaluation” attractiveness ratings
characteristics” for the single item”
“Consequence or “Comparison of rate of
“Impact of
“Goal” implied goal of a adoption of the
persuasion”
behaviour” behaviour”
Source: Levin 1998

Of these three frames, Goal framing is the most applicable for the present
study. Messages delivered in Goal framing can be either one of these 2 ways: gains
or losses. “Gain- or positively framed messages emphasize the advantages

16
associated with compliance, which is the advantages of adopting the
communicator’s request. However, loss- or negatively framed messages emphasize
the losses and disadvantages linked with noncompliance, which is the disadvantages
of failing to comply with the communicator’s suggested course of action” (Levin,
1998).

2.3.2.2. Goal Frame in Upselling

Since the upsell offer often manifests a better quality or greater quantity
product or service, the upselling message can be directed into either of these two
approaches: one where the strengths and the benefits of the upsell offer are evidently
enlightened and the other where the drawbacks of carrying on with the initial
decision come to light. Both goal frames aim to reach the final goal, which is to
transfer the customers’ thought from their original decision to the upsell offer.
However, to determine which frame has more influential impact and the capability
of setting apart the customers from their cognitive lock-in situations, a set of aspects
must be taken into account.
According to Zeelenberg, the author contended that negatively framed upsell
messages introduce different levels of anticipated regret, that is the “negative,
cognitively based emotion” the decision makers anticipate if they had decided
differently. Thus, the loss-framed messages not only concentrate on the
insignificance of the customers’ reserved decision, but also induce them to envisage
imminent disadvantages that are likely to come about if they continually follow their
initially chosen product or service option. As a result, loss-framed upselling
messages would nudge the decision makers to expect the pessimistic prospect
following the decision to abide by their original reservation. In short, loss-framed
upsell delivering may make the customers to think about the regret that would
happen if they didn’t do anything about it. On the other hand, while going through
the gain-framed upsell messages, customers can get a chance to conceive the

17
benefits they could acquire if they switched to the upsell offer, and no feelings of
regret come up throughout the whole process.
All these previous statements have advocated the notion that it is the goal
frame of the upsell offer that moderate the implication of cognitive effort on the
customers’ final decision. Accordingly, “the final decision of the customer is a
trade-off between the cognitive effort invested at the initial choice stage and the
argumentative strength of the upsell offer. One can assume that the customer finally
decides in favour of the option that is most justifiable and therefore based on the
best overall reason. It seems likely that cognitive effort and goal framing trigger
justification processes through the induced anticipated inaction regret” (Heidig,
2012).

2.3.3. Regret Proneness

Regret aversion has been proven to be not only a statistically significant factor
but also a more potent force which affects the decision making process, compared to
loss aversion (Zeelenberg, 1998). Regret takes place when one experiences being
offered two or more options for his/her targeted goals. The more options there are,
the higher the possibility that the customers will make an non-optimum decision,
which can demoralise their expectation in their decision. Besides the amount of
cognitive effort customers put in their decision, simultaneously, their final decision
is also influenced by the regrets they have to go through with other upselling offers.
Similarly in the context of English centre industry, there is a myriad of course sets
and combos with various prices including different advantages due to sale boosting
programs. As options increase, three possible problems for the customers arise: “a
problem relating to gaining adequate information about the options to make a
choice; a problem that people’s standards for what is an acceptable outcome rise; a
problem that people may come to believe that any unacceptable result is their fault,
because with so many options, they should be able to find a satisfactory one”
(Schwartz, 2000). However, these psychological effects may lead to different results

18
to two distinct types of people: maximizer who aims to maximize his/her outcome,
and satisficer who aims just to satisfice. As options enlarge, the percentage of
acquiring the optimal goal of maximization decreases. When this happens, for
maximizers, regret is prone to happen and is ever-present since the question they
always ask themselves is “Is this the best option?”. Whereas for satisficers who are
just looking for an option that is above their standard of acceptability, more options
will have relatively no effects on them since they have already chosen a “good
enough” option, thus they are less likely to experience regret even when they might
find out that there is an option better than their original option (Schwartz, 2002). For
the above rationales, customers’ regret proneness could be significantly influenced
by their cognitive effort, hence affect the upselling decision.
H3: Regret proneness has positive impact on the Upselling choice probability.

2.3.4. Customer’s Existing Knowledge of the industry

Consumers who have comprehensive former knowledge about a product or a
service in particular and about the industry of that product or service in general tend
to constitute thorough knowledge structures that facilitate evaluation relating tasks
in the future. Thus, well-knowledgeable consumers seem to certainly have a
multitude of criteria and decision rules for their own which allow them to “follow
well-travelled and procedural solutions paths” when it comes to assessing options. In
contrast, customers who have limited knowledge may find it more difficult to
assimilate the information presented into their decision-making framework because
the problem is too difficult for them. Thus, knowledge is the primary source where
problem difficulty arises. Customers who have attained sufficient knowledge about
the product or service they encounter will be better equipped to seek for a solution to
this problem. Hence, they tend not to be affected by the attraction effect.
As for this knowledge factor, a two-dimensional criteria, which consist of
familiarity and expertise, is applied. “Familiarity is defined as the number of
product/service-related experiences that have been accumulated by the consumer.

19
Expertise is defined as the ability to perform product/service related tasks
successfully” (Mishra, 1993). Applied for the present research, familiarity is
considered as the experience the consumer has acquired in the English-teaching
industry in general and communicative English course in particular. Whereas,
expertise is the involving tasks while acquiring a communicative English course,
such as making a reservation.
Customers with low levels of familiarity don’t usually fully understand or are
not able to differentiate between their offering options. Therefore, they are not
subjectively responsible for their final decision and are more likely influenced by the
context effect, in other words, their choices are subject to the number of alternatives
presented, or upselling offers in the current context. Consequently, these customers
are more susceptible to the attraction effect of the upselling offers. Similarly
argumented, customers with high expertise level will exhibit lower level of
attraction effect. These customers tend to have “a clear and stable decision structure,
and their choice will not be affected by the introduction of a dominated decoy”
(Mishra, 1993).
H4: Knowledge of English centres in general has negative impact on the
Upselling choice probability.

2.3.5. Customer’s persuasion knowledge

Another prominent covariate affecting the result of the upselling process is the
customer’s persuasion knowledge. This dimension illustrated the confidence of an
individual about his or her knowledge and ability to understand the tactics used by
marketers with a view to persuading consumers (Friestad, 1994). Moreover, it
depicts a consumer’s belief about persuasion tactics employed by a salesperson or
through advertisements (Bearden, 2001). Persuasion knowledge also promotes the
life span and carries implications of consumer’s certain suspicion about the actual
motives of the upselling offers (Baek, 2012). It is this sense of incredulity that
determines the perception of customers and their response to persuasion efforts.

20
Persuasion knowledge augments resistance from the customers towards persuasive
advertising attempts from the marketers, which leads to a consequence of “negative
evaluations of the advertised product and the brand as well as less favourable
attitudes towards the marketer” (Heidig, 2012). It is clear that all but every
advertisements and sales attempt involves more or less aspects of disbelief as the
customer blames those concrete incentives on the marketer (Baek, 2012). Thus, this
situation is certain to occur in the upselling process since the customers might
perceive the counsellors as attempting to manipulate them. Accordingly, customers
who are highly certain about their persuasion knowledge might react more
negatively towards the upsell offer than participants with less developed scepticism”
(Heidig, 2012).
H5: Customer’s Persuasion knowledge has negative impact on the Upselling
choice probability.

21
2.4. Research Model and Observed Variables
2.4.1. Research Model
Moderating Variables:

Demographic Message’s Goal

Variables Frame
Customer’s Initial Surrogate’s
Decision Initial Decision Gender Loss Frame (-)
Age
Cognitive Effort Perceived Effort Gain Frame (+)
H2- Academic
Level
Regret H1- Income
+
Proneness H3

Knowledge of H4-
English Centres Final Choice

H5- Choice Probability

Customer’s Persuasion
Knowledge

Figure 2-2: Research Model

Source: Heidig 2012

22
2.4.2. Observed Variables
The following table lists out all the variables indicated in each present’s
research relating scale which was verified to be significant in past studies. All the
statements are kept in their original form and no modifications in order to
accommodate them to the current context of the research have been made. An
alternative well adapted set of scales is presented in the next part of the study.
Table 2-3: Overserved Variables

Factors Content Sources

“I intensively thought about which service/product I
chose.”
(Van Herpen
Customer’s “I concentrated a lot while making a decision.” & Pieters,
Cognitive 2007)
Effort “It was difficult for me to make this choice.”
“Trading off the pros and cons of the different
alternatives took a lot of time.”
“The representative exerted a lot of energy when
making a decision.”
“The representative was very persistent.”
Surrogate’s
“The representative was very attentive.” (Heidig,
Perceived
Effort “The representative tried his/her best to make the 2012)
right decision.”
“The representative put a lot of effort into making a
decision.”
Regret “Whenever I make a choice, I’m curious about what (Schwartz,
Proneness would have happened if I had chosen differently.” 2002)
“Whenever I make a choice, I try to get information
about how the other alternatives turned out.”
“If I make a choice and it turns out well, I still feel
like something of a failure if I find out that another
choice would have turned out better.”
“When I think about how I’m doing in life, I often
assess opportunities I have passed up.”

23
 “Once I make a decision, I don’t look back.” (R)
“I know a lot about the industry whose service I’m
using.”
“I have acquired a lot of experience with the industry
Knowledge whose service I’m using.” (Mishra,
of the
Industry “I know a lot about making a reservation for the 1993)
service I’m using.”
“I have acquired a lot of experience with making a
reservation for the service I’m using.”
“I know when an offer is “too good to be true”.
“I can tell when an offer has strings attached.”
“I have no trouble understanding the bargaining
Persuasion tactics used by the salesperson.” (Bearden,
Knowledge “I know when a marketer is pressuring me to buy.” 2001)
“I can see through sales gimmicks used to get
consumers to buy.”
“I can separate fact from fantasy in advertising.”
“The implications of the message I receive focus on
the disadvantages of my initial course.”
Message’s (Meyers-
Loss Frame “The implications of the message I receive focus on Levy, 2004)
what negative consequence will arise when I remain
with my initial decision.”
“The implications of the message I receive focus on
the positive outcomes I will experience when I
Message’s accept the new offer.” (Meyers-
Gain Frame “The implications of the message I receive focus on Levy, 2004)
what I will gain when I decide in favour of the new
offer.”
“How probable is it that you will decide in favour of
the offer of the consultant instead of your original (Chandran &
Choice decision?” Morwitz,
Probability
“How certain is it that you will choose the offered 2005)
course instead of the original decision?”
Source: Heidig 2012

24
2.4.3. Research hypotheses
As mentioned in the affecting factors’ definitions in the above parts, all the
hypotheses in the present study are summarized in the below table.
Table 2-4: Research hypotheses

Hypothesis Content of hypothesis

Customer’s cognitive effort has negative impact on the Upselling
H1
choice probability.
Surrogate’s perceived effort has negative impact on the Upselling
H2
choice probability.
Regret proneness has positive impact on the Upselling choice
H3
probability.
Knowledge of English centres in general has negative impact on the
H4
Upselling choice probability.
Customer’s Persuasion knowledge has negative impact on the
H5
Upselling choice probability.
Source: Research 2019

25
 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research process
The implementation of the whole research follows all the steps indicated in the
model:

LITERATURE
REVIEW

PRIMARY DATA

DATA COLLECTING

SECONDARY DATA

DATA MODELLING

DATA PROCESSING

DATA ANALYSIS

FINDINGS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

Figure 3-3: Research Process

Source: Research 2019

Step 1: Theory basis

The researcher has scrutinized, evaluated and summarized documents and
studies that relates to and promotes the research topic. After the acknowledgement

26
consultation process, the researcher decided to use the model by the author Wibke
Heidig in 2012 with some modifications including factors and implementation
process following the context of the foreign language center industry, particularly
Langmaster English centre. In addition, the model also consists of a combination of
other factors extracted from other previous studies which are statistically significant.
Step 2: Data collecting
Collecting secondary data: The secondary data is collected through previous
studies from many foreign authors about the factors affecting the upselling decision
and upgrading decision. In addition, the overview information about “Langmaster
Educational Investment & International Technology Development Joint Stock
Company” and some figures of Langmaster’s upselling situation in recent years are
also taken into account.
Collecting primary data: The questionnaire is shared to the targeted customers
who have chosen the communicative English courses at Langmaster English centre
but not yet experienced, and those who have already experienced at least one of the
courses. The information of this sample of customers is all identified through the
company’s CRM (customer relationship management) data. The questionnaire is
sent to them both through email and the fan page group of Langmaster’s students on
Facebook in the form of Google Form. Nonetheless, the total sample size has been
collected in the present research is only 116. This figure for sample size is just
enough for exploratory factors analyzing (20*5 = 100) for the present study.
Step 3: Data processing
- Secondary data: all the information is analyzed and synthesized systematically.
- Primary data: After the process of spreading questionnaire, collecting, selecting
and documenting the raw data, the researcher conducts the data analysis through the
program SPSS 20.0 to verify the reliability of the scale and measure the impact
amount of each independent variable on the sole dependent variable - Choice
Probability.

27
 During the analyzing procedures, a correlation analysis must also be conducted
including all the independent variables and the dependent variable with a view to
verifying the correlative level of these factors. Furthermore, a regression analysis is
applied in order to testify the research hypotheses.
Specifically, the quantitative analysis process is carried out with five following
steps respectively:
- Data purification: After the data collecting process, the researcher filter rechecks
again all the primary data to identify if there is any problems or irrational errors
within the data. All damaged, unqualified or irrelevant data are excluded from the
dataset.
- Reliability verification (Cronbach’s Alpha): In order to test the suitability of the
scales in the current study and point out the basis of rejecting undependable
variables, the researcher conducts an analysis on Cronbach’s Alpha. This assessment
is based on the following criteria:
+ Excluding the variables which have correlation coefficient lower than 0.3. The
threshold for accepting a scale is when its Cronbach’s Alpha is higher than 0.6.
+ The value levels of Cronbach’s Alpha: higher than 0.8 is a good scale; from 0.7 to
0.8 is a usable scale; higher than 0.6 is only acceptable in case when the researching
concept is novel.
+ All the observed variables which have correlation coefficient lower than 0.4 are
considered to have “garbage value” and are excluded from the. Only then the scale
will be acceptable (when the Cronbach’s Alpha is higher than 0.7).
- Exploratory factor analysis: With the purpose to evaluating the level of accuracy
of the observed variables in the scale, the researcher conducts the EFA. To analyze
the exploratory factors, a number of particular coefficients must meet the following
requirements:
+ The KMO (Kaiser – Meyer-Olkin) coefficient must be higher than 0.5 (0.5 ≤
KMO ≤ 1). This is the coefficient for assessing the appropriateness of factor

28
analyzing. If the KMO coefficient is lower than 0.5, the factor analyzing might be
unsuitable with the current dataset.
+ Bartlett’s verification is used to evaluate whether the variables in one group factor
have correlation between them or not. If this verification has the significant level
lower than 0.05, it means that all the observed variables in one group factor is
correlated with each other.
+ Cumulative variance higher than 50% demonstrates that the exploratory factors
model is significant. Assuming the variance is 100%, this value indicates the
percentage of observed variable is explained by factor analysis.
+ The factor loading coefficient shows the correlation between the variable and the
factor. The factor loading coefficient has to be higher than 0.5, the higher the
coefficient, the higher the correlation between that observed variable with the factor.
- Regression analysis: The purpose of regression analyzing is assessing the validity
of the research model, testing whether the hypotheses are proven or not, and also
finding out the level of impact of each independent factor on the dependent factor.
After finishing the quantitative analyzing process, the researcher continues to
carry out in-depth interviews with 5 randomly chosen customers, who are within the
targeted sample and have already finished the questionnaire. All the interviews are
held throughout phone calls conversation.
Step 4: Conclusion and solutions
After all the scrutinized analysis, having proven the impact of the independent
variables on the dependent variable, the researcher comes up with a number of
proposals and solutions for the company to have a more comprehensive viewpoint in
how to implement effectively the present upselling strategy.

3.2. Secondary data’s attaining method

Theories, models, hypotheses, suppositions and suggestions of the previous
researches and studies, which relate to upselling, are summarized and moderated to
suit the research’s context.

29
 In addition, overview information about Langmaster and the company’s
upselling situations are synthesized through the company’s Business Department.

3.3. Primary data’s attaining method

The primary data is collected through survey by questionnaires with customers
at Langmaster English Centres in Ha Noi.
3.3.1. Sample scale and selecting method
- Sample scale: With 20 observing variables, the researcher has to assure that there
are at least 5*20 = 100 samples collected (Comrey, 1973) in order to acquire
sufficient conditions to conduct exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and regression
analysis. The total sample gathered is 116.
- Sample selecting method: Convenient Sampling.

3.3.2. Sampling Design

Customers who have chosen the communicative English courses at Langmaster
English centre but not yet experienced, and those who have already experienced at
least one of the courses or a trial lesson.
After 3 weeks collecting data, the researcher has acquired a sample of 116.
However, there are 12 samples which are not qualified after the data qualification
process has been conducted. For that reason, the number of sample size for usable
data is 104.
Total sample size: 104.

3.3.3. Questionaire constructing

After the customizing and adjusting process, the researcher has synchronized
all the observed variables so as to make the questionnaire suitable for the context of
the English centre industry. The variables are then translated into Vietnamese
language as all the targeted subjects are Vietnamese.

30
 Some modifications have been made, the most prominent belongs to the scale
for the dependent variable. Instead of using a 2-item scale like the original scale of
Chandran & Morwitz in 2005, the researcher decides to use only one of the two
items. Since there isn’t any considerable differences between the two items when
translated into Vietnamese, they might tend to perplex the survey’s participants. For
that reason, only a 1-item scale for “Choice probability” is used in the current study.
The value of all the variables will remain the same except for the variable RP5.
This variable when collected and coded, its value will be inversely changed as the
researcher of the original scale desired them to be in reverse.
Table 3-5: Questionnaire constructing

Factors Content Symbol

“I intensively thought about which communicative
CE1
English course I chose.”
“I concentrated a lot while choosing a communicative
Customer’s CE2
English course.”
Cognitive
Effort “It was difficult for me to make this choice.” CE3
“Trading off the pros and cons of the different alternatives
CE4
took a lot of time.”
“The representative exerted a lot of energy when choosing
PE1
the communicative English course.”
“The representative was very persistent.” PE2
Surrogate’s
“The representative was very attentive.” PE3
Perceived
Effort “The representative tried his/her best to make the right
PE4
decision.”
“The representative put a lot of effort into making a
PE5
decision.”
Regret “Whenever I make a choice, I’m curious about what
RP1
Proneness would have happened if I had chosen differently.”
“Whenever I make a choice, I try to get information about
RP2
how the other alternatives turned out.”
“If I make a choice and it turns out well, I still feel like RP3
31
 something of a failure if I find out that another choice
would have turned out better.”
“When I think about how I’m doing in life, I often assess
RP4
opportunities I have passed up.”
“Once I make a decision, I don’t look back.” RP5
“I know a lot about communicative English courses.” KE1
“I have acquired a lot of experience with communicative
Knowledge English courses.” KE2
of English
Centres “I know a lot about making a reservation for a course.” KE3
“I have acquired a lot of experience with making a
KE4
reservation for a course.”
“I know when an offer is “too good to be true.” PK1
“I can tell when an offer has strings attached.” PK2
“I have no trouble understanding the bargaining tactics
PK3
Persuasion used by the salesperson.”
Knowledge “I know when a marketer is pressuring me to buy.” PK4
“I can see through sales gimmicks used to get consumers
PK5
to buy.”
“I can separate fact from fantasy in advertising.” PK6
“The implications of the message I receive focus on the
LF1
disadvantages of my initial course.”
Message’s
Loss Frame “The implications of the message I receive focus on what
negative consequence will arise when I remain with my LF2
initial decision.”
“The implications of the message I receive focus on the
positive outcomes I will experience when I accept the GF1
Message’s new offer.”
Gain Frame
“The implications of the message I receive focus on what
GF2
I will gain when I decide in favour of the new offer.”
“The probability you will choose the course offered by the
Choice
counsellor (instead of your original decision) or continue CP
Probability
higher levels at Langmaster.”
Source: Research 2019

32
3.3.4. In-depth interview
After quantitative analyzing, the researcher conducts small in-depth interviews
with 5 randomly arbitrarily selected subjects from those who have completed the
survey. All interviews last around 20-30 minutes and are carried out on telephone.
The main purpose of the interviewing process is to attain a deeper
understanding in the reasons why there are differences in the level of impact
between the factors appeared in the research. Also, the interview aims to discover
more factors affecting the customer’s upselling decision coming from their point of
view.

3.4. Data administrating and collecting process

As aforementioned, the survey is spread through email with the contact’s
information of the company’s Customer Relationships Management system and
through the centre’s students group on Facebook in the length of three weeks.
In the first week of data collecting, the researcher sent the questionnaire to 200
Langmaster’s customers though Gmail. Simultaneously, the questionnaire was
published on the Facebook’s group of Langmaster’s students. After the first week
from 24th November to 30th November, the number of data collected was 43.
With the sluggish speed of getting more samples, in the second week, the
research had asked some of the teachers at Langmaster to also share the survey to
their current classes. At the end of the second week, on the 7 th of December, the
result was 92 samples.
In the last week, the researcher tried to directly contact to some of the
Langmaster’s customers with whom he had interacted during the time working at the
Business Department through messengers on Facebook and through mobile phone.
Up to 15th December, the total sample size was 116.
The data in Google form was then transferred into an Excel file and coded
following the researcher’s intention. Any samples that were either invalid or

33
irrelevant, would be excluded from the dataset. After the filtering process, 12
samples were eliminated, thus the total usable sample size was 104.

34
 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS
4.1. Overview of the situation of upselling at Langmaster English centre
4.1.1. Overview of Langmaster English centre
Full name of the organization: “Langmaster Educational Investment &
International Technology Development Joint Stock Company”
Working fields: Langmaster is operating in two main fields, which are:
English educating and human developing.
+ English educating: Langmaster English Centre has always been known as a
company which organizes communicative English courses for all those whom has
the aspiration of improving their English speaking and listening ability at all ages
and at all levels (from A1 to B2). The company’s main segments are college
students and working people (from 18 to 26). The main products the company
provides to the customers are from basic pronunciation courses for beginners to
reflexive communication courses.
+ Human developing: Not only in the field of English, Langmaster also focuses on
the field of developing people. The company has associated with other organizations
to set up training courses in terms of mentality and skills, called “Neuro Linguistic
Programming - NLP”. Neuro Linguistic Programming is a scientific subject
researching into the 0.7% most outstanding people in the planet.
Table 4-6: Business figures

2016 2017 2018

Revenue
25.23 43.58 33.7
(billion VND)
Net profit
5.12 8.35 5.92
(billion VND)
Net profit margin
20.29 19.16 17.57
(%)
Source: Langmaster’s Business Department

35
 Difficulties: Having operated for 7 years, Langmaster has experienced a
variety of vicissitudes. In the first 4 year, the company thrived as being the leader in
adapting NLP and other special kinds of teaching methods into communicative
English for working people.
However, some difficulties arose in 2015 within the company’s members,
creating a direct competitor. Since then, many new English centres, both direct and
indirect competitors, have entered the market due to the low entry barrier and the
increased awareness of Vietnamese people towards the importance of English
nowadays. Langmaster’s differentiations from the early years have gradually been
diminished since they can be imitated by the competitors.
With the appearance of many new competitors, Langmaster has been striving
for new competitive advantages and differential features. The trend of requiring
comprehensive English in many universities and workplace has led to an escalating
demand of English certificates such as Ielts, TOEIC, TOEFL,… Langmaster, being
intensive only in communicative English, has been put pressure on in expanding its
product range. Being a newcomer in this field, Langmaster has been facing with
difficulties in attracting the novel segmented customers.
Also due to the trend for English certificates, there are not many students
willing to attend the upper level courses that the company provides just for the usage
of English in the workplace and foreign environment, because most of them want to
tackle the test with tricks and tips in order to achieve the aimed band score. This
result in the company’s not making the most of its capacity and even loss from this
segment (because a class with too few students can not be initiated until the required
number of students is met, and in that period of time, customers can change their
mind and go to learn somewhere else).

36
4.1.2. Upselling situations
There are three points of time when an upselling situation can occur: before the
customers experience a course at the centre (1), after the customers experience a trial
class session (2) and after the customers experience one course at Langmaster (3).
However, only the two latter situations are recorded and have a particular
policy in 2017 that there is a small bonus for the salesman who takes care of the
customer and for the lecturer and the teaching assistant who directly give the service
whenever a student makes an upsale. As for the first situation (1), the salesman who
successfully persuades the customers into making an upsell decision will only have
the benefit of reaching closer to his/her KPI in the month. Since there is already a
policy for bonus if a salesman exceeds his/her KPI in one month, no additional
policy for an upsale in the first situation. Thus, no upselling situations from the first
situation is recorded.
The table below illustrates the circumstances of upselling at Langmaster in
recent years (situation (2) and situation (3)):
Table 4-7: Upselling circumstances

2016 2017 2018

Upselling ratio
5.2 7.9 8.5
(%)
Revenue ratio
3.6 5.7 5.2
(%)
Source: Langmaster’s Business Department

37
4.2. Descriptive analysis
4.2.1. Respondents’ profile
After 3 weeks of collecting the primary data, the researcher has finalized the
filtered dataset ready to be analyzed in SPSS. The table below illustrates the
overview of basic information of the participants in the survey. This table shows the
frequency and percentage of the demographic aspects of the participants.
Table 4-8: Data description

Taxonomy Frequency Percentage

Male 48 46.2%
Gender
Female 56 53.8%
From 14 to 18 12 11.5%
From 19 to 22 72 69.2%
Age range
From 23 to 55 20 19.2%
Above 55 0 0%
Below College 14 13.5%
Academic level While studying at College 76 73.1%
After College & higher 14 13.5%
From 0 - 2,000,000 VND 66 63.5%
From 2,000,000 - 5,000,000 VND 18 17.3%
Income range
From 5,000,000 - 20,000,000 VND 14 13.5%
Above 20,000,000 VND 6 5.8%
Source: Survey results 2019

38
4.2.1.1 Gender

Male
Female

Male; 48;
Female; 56; 46%
54%

Graph 4-1: Gender

Source: Survey results 2019

From the sample of 104 participants, there are 56 females making up 54% and
48 males accounting for 46%. There are no substantial differences in the percentage
of gender between male and female, which makes the dataset be more objective.

4.2.1.2. Age range and Academic level

From 14 From 14 to 18 Bellow College

From 23 After Bellow
to 18; 12; From 19 to 22
to 55; 20; College; College; College
12%
19% From 23 to 55
14; 14% After College
14; 14%

From 19
to 22; 72; College;
69% 74; 72%

Graph 4-2: Age range and Academic level

Source: Survey results 2019

39
 As the main targeted customers of Langmaster are college students, who has
the age range from 18 to 22, the dataset reflects correctly the strategy of the
company aiming for the targeted segment. In addition, the percentages for each
category in age range and academic level are roughly similar, which somewhat
demonstrates the reliability of the whole dataset.

4.2.1.3. Decision makers

Surrogate; 14; Customer

13% Surrogate

Customer;
90; 87%

Graph 4-3: Decision makers

Source: Survey results 2019

With the sample size of 104 participants, only 13% of them have a
representative to make a decision for them, whereas 87% make decision for
themselves. Since the survey was spread randomly to the targeted subjects, the
number of whoever to make the final decision is not controlled. Also, as the targeted
customers of Langmaster are college students and adults, not many of them need or
have a surrogate make decisions for them, but rather make their own decision. For
this reason, the extensive difference in percentage is expected. Nonetheless, the
figure for participants who has a surrogate as a decision maker is fairly small and
might not be able to be conducted through exploratory factor analysis.

40
4.2.2. Choice probability
In order not to mislead the survey doers, a question has been added in the
questionnaire which can be interpreted as “Have you ever chosen to study or
continue to study higher courses (higher level or more levels) at Langmaster
compared to your own original decision?”. With this question, if the survey doers
answer “yes”, all their answers are decoded as 5 in the Choice Probability scale; if
they answer “no”, they will be delivered another question about “Choice
Probability”.

50

40

30
Frequency response
20

10

0
1 2 3 4 5
Frequency 10 18 24 10 42
response

Graph 4-4: Frequency response of the dependent variable

Source: Survey results 2019

The bar chart above illustrates the number of participants choosing each option
in a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (certainly). It is clear that the highest percentage option
belongs to those who have chosen to keep studying or have already taken a higher
course at Langmaster. Since the survey was sent to Langmaster’s customers at
random, there might be a chance that only those who have particular interest for the

41
courses at Langmaster or are loyal customers (who have already followed an
upselling offer) at Langmaster would do the survey. Thus, there’s not enough
evidence to conclude that there is a high percentage of Langmaster’s customers
accepting an upsell offer.

4.3. Quantitative approach results

4.3.1. Reliability verification (Cronbach’s Alpha)
4.3.1.1. Reliability verification for the scale “Customer’s Cognitive Effort”
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's N of
Alpha Items
,835 4

After the first verification, the above Cronbach’s Alpha analysis result has
shown that with these 4 variables of this scale, the reliability figure of 0.835 at a
high level of reliability, thus proving that this scale has acceptable credibility to be
utilized in the upcoming analysis.
Table 4-9: Verification for the scale “Customer’s Cognitive Effort”

Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted
CE1 8,80 7,937 ,712 ,769
CE2 8,87 8,566 ,624 ,808
CE3 9,29 8,432 ,634 ,804
CE4 9,18 7,923 ,688 ,780
Source: Survey results 2019

All the coefficient of the Corrected Item-Total Correlation in the scale is

higher than 0.4 and there are no situations where if an item is excluded will make
the Cronbach Alpha of the whole scale higher than 0.835.

42
 The variables in the scale will all make the Cronbach Alpha of the whole scale
decrease if any of which is deleted, and the disparity between the variables is not
particularly prominent, which demonstrates the consistency between them.

4.3.1.2. Reliability verification for the scale “Surrogate Perceived Effort”

Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's N of
Alpha Items
,866 5

The Cronbach figure for this 5-item scale is 0.866, which is higher than 0.6.
This shows that this scale has acceptable reliability.
Table 4-10: Verification for the scale “Surrogate Perceived Effort”

Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted
PE1 9,00 7,692 ,834 ,800
PE2 9,43 9,495 ,510 ,877
PE3 10,00 8,308 ,679 ,840
PE4 9,86 6,286 ,885 ,783
PE5 9,14 9,363 ,574 ,864
Source: Survey results 2019

As shown from the above table, if the variable PE2 is deleted from the scale,
the Cronbach Alpha of the scale will go up to 0.877, higher than the present one
(0.866). However, this amount of increase is not significantly considerable. Thus,
for the purpose of this study, the researcher decides to keep PE2.

4.3.1.3. Reliability verification for the scale “Regret Proneness”

Due to the intention of the researcher while constructing the questionnaire, the
numbers for the variable RP5: “Once I make a decision, I don’t look back” has been

43
changed into reverse in the data set (1 -> 5; 2 -> 4; 3 remains; 4 -> 2; 5 -> 1). After
the editing process has finished, verification for reliability analysis is carried out.

Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's N of
Alpha Items
,915 5

Table 4-11: Verification for the scale “Regret Proneness”

Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted
RP1 13,62 17,559 ,857 ,879
RP2 13,42 19,081 ,718 ,908
RP3 13,60 18,573 ,779 ,896
RP4 13,71 18,343 ,766 ,899
RP5 13,58 19,159 ,796 ,894
Source: Survey results 2019

The result of this analysis demonstrates an extremely high Cronbach

coefficient for the “Regret Proneness” scale with Cronbach = 0.915. In addition, all
the variables have the Corrected Item-Total Correlation figure higher than 0.7. Thus,
this scale has sufficient trustworthiness and is accepted for further analysis.

4.3.1.4. Reliability verification for the scale “Knowledge of English Centres”

Another group of variables is conducted for analysis is “Knowledge of English
Centres” consisting of 4 observed variables (from question 6 to question 9 in the
questionnaire).

Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's N of
Alpha Items
,851 4
44
 Table 4-12: Verification for the scale “Knowledge of English centres”

Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted
KE1 7,83 8,455 ,674 ,817
KE2 8,10 7,661 ,718 ,800
KE3 8,08 9,043 ,649 ,829
KE4 8,25 8,034 ,730 ,793
Source: Survey results 2019

The result from the analysis shows that the reliability of this scale is at an
advanced level, the coefficient is 0.851. Moreover, all the variables have the
Corrected Item-Total Correlation figure higher than 0.6. For that reason, this scale
has sufficient reliability and is accepted for the factor analysis, no need for further
verification.

45
4.3.1.5. Reliability verification for the scale “Persuasion Knowledge”
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's N of
Alpha Items
,928 6

The reliability coefficient for the scale of “Persuasion Knowledge” with 6

components has proved to be extremely high at 0.928. This figure indicates that the
scale is utterly credible with the customers at Langmaster.
Table 4-13: Verification for the scale “Persuasion Knowledge”

Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted
PK1 14,04 27,105 ,739 ,922
PK2 14,00 24,388 ,823 ,912
PK3 14,21 25,295 ,834 ,909
PK4 13,83 26,824 ,803 ,914
PK5 14,02 27,592 ,740 ,922
PK6 14,04 25,824 ,822 ,911
Source: Survey results 2019

The figures from the Corrected Item-Total Correlation column are above 0.7.
As the present Cronbach Alpha is 0.928, if any of the variables in the scale is
deleted, the scale’s reliability coefficient will fall. Thus, the scale is already at its
highest reliability level.
All in all, every independent factors’ scale in the current study has acquired
significant level of reliability to continue conducting the research and analyze
exploratory factors, no further verification is required.

4.3.2. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Since the survey is delivered to the targeted subjects are Langmaster customers
at randomly, the actual number of subjects, who are either make the final decision

46
themselves or have a representative influenced their final decision, is not controlled
by the researcher. For that reason, in the 3 weeks collecting data, there are not
enough samples for the scale “Surrogate Perceived Effort” to be adequately viable
for exploratory factor analysis. Therefore, all the variables in the scale “Surrogate
Perceived Effort” are excluded from the model. All the remaining independent
variables in the present research are now qualifiable for carrying out exploratory
factor analysis.
4.3.2.1. KMO and Bartlett’s test
The results for the KMO and Bartlett’s Test indicates that the coefficient is
higher than 0.5 (0.846), therefore the analysis for exploratory factor is statically
significant. In addition, the significant level of the Bartlett’s test is lower than 0.05,
thus all the variables in one group factor is correlated with each other.
Table 4-14: KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. ,846

Approx. Chi-Square 1456,726
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity df 171
Sig. ,000
Source: Survey results 2019

4.3.2.2. Cumulative of variance

Table 4-15: Cumulative of Variance

Component Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation Sums of Squared

Loadings Loadings
Total % of Cumulative Total % of Cumulative Total % of Cumulative
Variance % Variance % Variance %
1 9,712 51,113 51,113 9,712 51,113 51,113 4,558 23,990 23,990
2 1,891 9,952 61,066 1,891 9,952 61,066 3,939 20,733 44,723
3 1,461 7,690 68,756 1,461 7,690 68,756 2,951 15,529 60,252
4 1,125 5,923 74,679 1,125 5,923 74,679 2,741 14,427 74,679
5 ,731 3,845 78,523
6 ,631 3,321 81,845

47
7 ,539 2,835 84,680
8 ,489 2,574 87,253
9 ,461 2,429 89,682
10 ,415 2,182 91,864
11 ,322 1,693 93,557
12 ,313 1,649 95,206
13 ,231 1,218 96,424
14 ,190 ,999 97,422
15 ,142 ,746 98,168
16 ,133 ,700 98,868
17 ,100 ,526 99,394
18 ,069 ,365 99,758
19 ,046 ,242 100,000
Source: Survey results 2019

After the exploratory factor analysis is conducted, the results clearly states that
with the 4 groups of independent variables, its accumulated total variance is
74.679% (above 50%). This number depicts that the explainable level of the
independent variables for their variance is considerably high. Specifically, all the
analyzing factors have explained 74.679% of the variance between those variables.

48
4.3.2.3. Rotated Component Matrix
Table 4-16: Rotated Component Matrix

Component
1 2 3 4
PK6: “I can separate fact from fantasy in advertising.” ,838
PK3: “I have no trouble understanding the bargaining tactics
,799
used by the salesperson.”
PK5: “I can see through sales gimmicks used to get
,779
consumers to buy.”
PK2: “I can tell when an offer has strings attached.” ,774
PK1: “I know when an offer is “too good to be true.” ,773
PK4: “I know when a marketer is pressuring me to buy.” ,768
RP1: “Whenever I make a choice, I’m curious about what
,847
would have happened if I had chosen differently.”
RP5: “Once I make a decision, I don’t look back.”(R) ,800
RP3: “If I make a choice and it turns out well, I still feel like
something of a failure if I find out that another choice would ,761
have turned out better.”
RP4: “When I think about how I’m doing in life, I often
,726
assess opportunities I have passed up.”
RP2: “Whenever I make a choice, I try to get information
,721
about how the other alternatives turned out.”
KE1: “I know a lot about communicative English courses.” ,795
KE2: “I have acquired a lot of experience with
,747
communicative English courses.”
KE4: “I have acquired a lot of experience with making a
,659
reservation for a course.”
KE3: “I know a lot about making a reservation for a
,638
course.”
CE3: “It was difficult for me to make this choice.” ,789
CE2: “I concentrated a lot while choosing a communicative
,684
English course.”
CE4: “Trading off the pros and cons of the different
,660
alternatives took a lot of time.”
CE1: “I intensively thought about which communicative
,620
English course I chose.”
Source: Survey results 2019

49
 All the loading factors are above 0.5, which indicates that all the variables are
practically significant. The results for the exploratory factor analysis EFA also
means that the distribution of factors for the observed variables is rational, which
follows the intentions that the researcher has stated.

4.3.3. Correlation Analysis

Table 4-17: Correlation Analysis

Customer’s Knowledge
Regret Persuasion Choice
Cognitive of English
Proneness Knowledge Probability
Effort centres
Customer’s 1
Cognitive
Effort
1
Regret
-,646**
Proneness

Knowledge 1
of English ,639** -,623**
centres
1
Persuasion
,541** -,641** ,621**
Knowledge

1
Choice
-,823** ,858** -,755** -,735**
Probability

n = 104, ** p < 0.01

Source: Survey results 2019

The correlation analysis result shows that all the independent group variables
have the significant level 2-tailed below 0.05. Therefore, all the independent
variables have significant correlation with the dependent variable - Choice
Probability.

50
 As shown in the final row of the table, it is clear that:
+ “Customer’s Cognitive Effort” has negative correlation with Choice Probability.
+ “Regret Proneness” has positive correlation with Choice Probability.
+ “Knowledge of English centres” has negative correlation with Choice Probability.
+ “Persuasion Knowledge” has negative correlation with Choice Probability.

4.3.4. Regression Analysis

After the correlation analysis between the independent variables and the
dependent variable, the analyzing process continues with regression analysis,
includes:
Independent group of variables: “Customer’s Cognitive Effort” - CE, “Regret
Proneness” - RE, “Knowledge of English centres” - KE, “Persuasion Knowledge” -
PK.
Dependent variable: Choice Probability - CP.
4.3.4.1. Model Summary
Table 4-18: Model Summary

Model R R Square Adjusted R Std. Error of Durbin-Watson

Square the Estimate
a
1 ,726 ,527 ,522 ,495 1,826
Source: Survey results 2019

After conducting regression analysis, the researcher has found out that the 4
groups of independent variables can explain 52.2% of the variance of customer’s
upselling decision.

51
4.3.4.2. ANOVA analysis
Table 4-19: ANOVA analysis for the dependent variable

Model Sum of df Mean Square F Sig.

Squares
Regression 165,093 4 41,273 168,155 ,000b
1 Residual 20,863 85 ,245
Total 185,956 89
Source: Survey results 2019

The significant level of the whole model is below 0.05, which means the model
is statistically significant.

4.3.4.3. Coefficients
Table 4-20: Coefficients of the independent variables

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. Collinearity

Coefficients Coefficients Statistics
B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF
(Constant) 4,635 ,470 9,867 ,000
CE -,560 ,082 -,361 -6,850 ,000 ,476 2,100
1 RP ,556 ,071 ,416 7,862 ,000 ,471 2,124
KE -,239 ,080 -,156 -2,989 ,004 ,488 2,051
PK -,240 ,069 -,173 -3,484 ,001 ,534 1,872
Source: Survey results 2019

The VIF coefficient of all the factors is lower than 10 and slightly higher than
2, therefore the model is considered to experience no collinearity.
In addition, all these factors have significant level below 0.05, which means
they are all statistically significant.
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that:
- The unstandardized regression equation:
CP = 4.635 - 0.560*CE + 0.556*RP - 0.239*KE - 0.240*PK

52
 Under the condition all other factors do not variate:
+ When CE increases by 1 unit, CP decreases by 0.560 unit.
+ When RP increases by 1 unit, CP increases by 0.556 unit.
+ When KE increases by 1 unit, CP decreases by 0.239 unit.
+ When PK increases by 1 unit, CP decreases by 0.240 unit.
=> The signs of the independent variables are all suitable with the intent hypotheses
of the research.
- The standardized regression equation:
CP = -0.361*CE + 0.416*RP - 0.156*KE - 0.173*PK
=> The standardized regression equation has illustrated that all three factors
“Customer’s Cognitive Effort”, “Knowledge of English centres” and “Persuasion
Knowledge” have the same impact tendency and have an opposite impact tendency
with the factor “Regret Proneness”.
Table 4-21: Hypotheses verification

Hypothesis Content of hypothesis Result

Customer’s cognitive effort has negative impact on the
H1 Verified
Upselling choice probability.
Surrogate’s perceived effort has negative impact on the
H2 Unverified
Upselling choice probability.
Regret proneness has positive impact on the Upselling
H3 Verified
choice probability.
Knowledge of English centres in general has negative
H4 Verified
impact on the Upselling choice probability.
Customer’s Persuasion knowledge has negative impact
H5 Verified
on the Upselling choice probability.
Source: Survey results 2019

53
4.3.4.4. Regression analysis with message goal frame
As 2 message goal frames are applied differently between customers and are
perceived distinctively among customers, they are considered moderating variables
in the model.
Table 4-22: Model Summary with “Message goal frame”

Model R R Square Adjusted R Std. Error of Durbin-Watson

Square the Estimate
1 ,741a ,549 ,543 ,437 1,822
Source: Survey results 2019

With 2 more factors “Loss frame” and “Gain frame” in the equation, the model
has been able to explain 54.3% the variance of the dependent variable, higher than
the previous one (52.2%). Thus, these 2 factors have more or less impact on the
customer’s upselling decision.
Table 4-23: Coefficients with “Message goal frame”

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. Collinearity

Coefficients Coefficients Statistics
B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF
(Constant) 4,481 ,493 9,080 ,000
LF ,365 ,075 ,223 4,846 ,000 ,487 2,055
GF -,132 ,068 -,087 -1,946 ,055 ,517 1,936
1 CE -,732 ,081 -,471 -9,082 ,000 ,381 2,621
RP ,491 ,067 ,368 7,330 ,000 ,408 2,453
KE -,196 ,071 -,128 -2,758 ,007 ,479 2,088
PK -,196 ,063 -,141 -3,127 ,002 ,505 1,982
Source: Survey results 2019

As can be seen from the above coefficients table, “Loss frame” has positive
implications on the dependent variable, whereas “Gain frame” has negative
implications. Though the “Gain frame” has a slightly higher significant level than

54
the accepted range (< 0.05), the researcher decides to consider it as significant for
the sake of the research.

4.3.5. Compared with Demographic variables

4.3.5.1. Verification between “Gender” groups
A T-test analysis is carried out with 2 groups of “Gender” (Male and Female).
Table 4-24: T-test verification between “Gender” groups

Levene's Test for Equality t-test for Equality of Means

of Variances
F Sig. t df Sig. (2-
tailed)
Equal variances
,128 ,722 -,576 102 ,566
assumed
CP
Equal variances not
-,578 100,468 ,565
assumed
Source: Survey results 2019

Levene analysis indicates the coefficient Sig. = 0.722 > 0.05, thus the
variances between 2 gender groups “Male” and “Female” are no difference.
The result for T-test on the “Equal variances assumed” row shows that t =
0.566 > 0.05, which means there are no significantly differences in the upselling
decision between male and female.

4.3.5.2. Verification between “Age” groups

For the next 3 demographic group factors, each factor is divided into more than
2 ordinal options, thus ANOVA analysis will be applied for these groups.

55
 Test of Homogeneity of Variances
CP
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.
,248 2 101 ,781

Table 4-25: ANOVA verification between “Age” groups

CP
Sum of df Mean Square F Sig.
Squares
Between Groups 7,035 2 3,518 1,787 ,173
Within Groups 198,811 101 1,968
Total 205,846 103
Source: Survey results 2019

In the test of homogeneity of variances, Sig. = 0.781 > 0.05 showing that there
is sufficient evidence to carry on with ANOVA analysis.
However, in ANOVA, Sig. = 0.173 > 0.05, which means the statistics don’t
have enough proof to conclude that there is a difference in upselling decision
between age groups.

4.3.5.3. Verification between “Income” groups

Test of Homogeneity of Variances
CP
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.
,342 3 100 ,795

Table 4-26: ANOVA verification between “Income” groups

CP
Sum of df Mean Square F Sig.
Squares
Between Groups 6,700 3 2,233 1,122 ,344
Within Groups 199,146 100 1,991

56
Total 205,846 103
Source: Survey results 2019

In the test of homogeneity of variances, Sig. = 0.795 > 0.05 showing that there
is sufficient evidence to carry on with ANOVA analysis.
However, in ANOVA, Sig. = 0.344 > 0.05, which means the statistics don’t
have enough proof to conclude that there is a difference in upselling decision
between income groups.

4.3.5.4. Verification between “Academic level” groups

Table 4-27: ANOVA verification between “Academic level” groups

CP
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.
3,995 2 101 ,021
Source: Survey results 2019

In the test of homogeneity of variances, Sig. = 0.795 > 0.05 showing that there
is not enough evidence to carry on with ANOVA analysis.
Therefore, there is not any statically evidence to conclude there is a difference
in upselling decision between academic level groups.
4.4. Qualitative approach results
4.4.1. Qualitative approach objectives
After the quantitative analysis, the researcher carries out an in-depth interview
with 5 randomly chosen targeted subjects who have already finished the online
questionnaire. All the interviews are conducted through telephone lines.
The whole in-depth interview process aims to achieve two purposes:
- Find out more comprehensively about the correlation between the statistically
significant factors proven in this research through quantitative analysis and the

57
upselling decision of customers, especially the influence of “Gain frame” and “Loss
frame”.
- Find out more objective factors affecting the customers’ upselling decision other
than their subjective factors discovered in the current research.
With these two targets, the researcher has constructed the following questions
for the in-depth interview:
Table 4-28: In-depth interview questions

No. Questions
1. Have you ever decided to follow higher extra courses (levels) more than
your first decision?
2. When did you decide to do that?
3. What were your thoughts while listening to the counsellor’s upselling
persuasion?
4. What are the factors that influence your final decision to whether follow a
higher courses or not?
5. What do you think Langmaster should do or attain to have more students to
keep studying for higher levels?
Source: Survey results 2019

4.4.2. Qualitative approach results

After carrying through the in-depth interview, the researcher has gathered the
following results:
All 5 of them made their own decision whether to study at Langmaster or not,
thus also the upselling decision. Out of the 5 participants who are experiencing or
have finished at least one communicative English course at Langmaster, only 3 has
already taken the upselling offer from the centre’s counsellor and the other 2 have
yet to make decision and in a scale from 1 to 5 of possibility taking part in a higher
course (1 - never, 5 - certainly), one of them chooses 2 while the other chooses 4.

58
 Within 3 customers who have already followed the upselling offer, two of
whom made their decision before taking part in any courses at the centre, while the
other came to the decision when she has already finished a course.
All 5 participants had gone through at least one advisory session with the
centre’s counsellors before attending a course and they have different sets of
viewpoint towards the experience. As for the two participants who accepted the
upselling offer right from the start, they admitted having little or no experience with
English centres and just knew about Langmaster through online advertising and TV
commercials. In addition, they considered themselves as quite attentive when it
comes to making decisions and believed to have average knowledge about
persuasion. One more thing in common is that they both had taken a live speaking
test before having the final talk with the counsellor. They confessed to gaining more
or less confidence in the centre after having taken the test as it showed them what
they were then lack of. Their thoughts on the way the counsellor delivering the
upselling offer are different. While one felt reasonable while listening to the facts
about what she could have lost (loss frame) if she hadn’t accepted the offer and what
she could have achieved (gain frame) if she accepted the offer, the other just
conceived the former as satisfied while the latter as rather implausible. The reason
for this belief was that he doubted his ability to conform to the agendas of the course
as he was an adult and had many unplanned things to take care of at work.
Nevertheless, they both accepted upselling offer. The reasons for this decision
according to those two was that they trusted the counsellor as the counsellor had
solved their current issues and had become a companion that they could rely on
while taking the course in the long term.
The only participant to accept the upselling offer after taking a course said that
she didn’t recall much about the meeting with the counsellor for the upselling
decision as her intention of studying in higher levels was gradually built through her
experience with her own original chosen course. She had declined the upselling
offer at the first time interacting with the counsellor, but after finishing a course, she

59
decided to continue studying at a higher level. She explained the reason for that
decision was that she found the environment at Langmaster suitable for her to
improve English. Also, she was satisfied with the service at Langmaster, from the
people who delivered the service to the facility and the policies of the centre for old
customers who had already studied a course at the centre. In addition, she added that
there was a discount in price for the upselling course when she was thinking about
taking a higher course. That nudge also somewhat corresponds to her regret
proneness. All that reasons had contributed to the customer’s upselling decision
despite either of the gain frame or loss frame from the counsellor.
The two customers have yet to make an upselling decision both agreed that
they just saw the arguments made by the counsellor as sufficient conditions for them
to accept purchasing the service at Langmaster. They didn’t accept the upselling
offer since they felt there wasn’t enough trust built up between them and the centre,
thus, they had to experience themselves to confirm. These two participants stated
that they had studied at an English centre before and the past experience with an
English course hadn’t left a positive impression on them as one complained that he
couldn’t recall anything from the previous course and the other said that the former
English centre hadn’t satisfactorily helped her feel committed to studying.
Therefore, they both had a sense of averse feelings to the optimistic aspects (gain
frame) presented in their upselling offer. It can be assumed that these two have high
cognitive effort and the gain frame isn’t able to change their minds. Although one
did feel more or less sympathetic when listening to the counsellor as the advice
given had stroke right on her difficulties, the other considered the whole argument of
the counsellor as neutral and did not influence his final decision. While currently
experiencing the service at Langmaster, both of these participants haven’t made an
upselling decision yet, however, one claimed that he would hardly take up another
course and the other insisted that she was more likely to keep studying at the centre.
The customer who chose 2 in the scale from 1 to 5, clarified his decision as he felt
he had acquired enough knowledge for his demand and developing more wouldn’t

60
achieve anything more significantly. Whereas the customer who chose 4, explicated
her choice that she felt most satisfied with the environment and the service at
Langmaster, especially she opened that her decision also depended on her friends
who studied with her in the same class at the centre since they all wanted to keep
studying together for a longer period of time.
For the final question, the participants all have several similar suggestions such
as: synchronising all classes to have standard experience within the teachers and the
studying materials; creating more diverse courses for higher levels which is suitable
for various purposes of learners. There are other recommendations: having more
opportunities to communicate with foreign people throughout the course (4/5);
creating more extracurricular sessions to adapt to real life experience (3/5);
advancing the classes’ facility (3/5); giving customers the ability to choose which
class and which lecturer to study at a higher level (3/5); developing stronger bonds
between the lecturer and the students altogether (3/5); making make-up classes be
more flexible (2/5); having more remedial classes for those who are running behind
in class (1/5).

61
4.5. Discussion about the research results
4.5.1. Research results summary
The research has been carried out with 5 hypotheses, 4 of which has been
proven to be statistically significant through the study and the other doesn’t meet the
adequate requirements to be testified. This also means that these scales have been
once again verified to be reliable and have significant reliability between variables
(Heidig, 2012). Moreover, these scales are considered to be usable in the English
centre industry, not just in hotel industry and car rental industry in previous studies
(Friestad, 1994).
Table 4-29: Research results summary

Expected Experimental Statistically

Impact
Tendency Tendency Significant
“Customer’s cognitive effort” ->
- - Yes
“Choice Probability”
“Surrogate perceived effort”
- Unidentified Unidentified
-> “Choice Probability”
“Regret Proneness” -> “Choice
+ + Yes
Probability”
“Knowledge of English industry”
- - Yes
-> “Choice Probability”
“Persuasion Knowledge”->
- - Yes
“Choice Probability”
“Loss frame” -> “Choice
+ + Yes
Probability”
“Gain frame” -> “Choice
+ - Yes
Probability”
Gender -> “Choice Probability” No
Age -> “Choice Probability” No
Income -> “Choice Probability” No
Academic level -> “Choice
No
Probability”
Source: Survey results 2019
62
 After the analyzing and surveying process, the study of “Factors affecting
customer’s upselling decision in the communicative English course at Langmaster
English centre” has reached the following conclusions:
First, “Customer’s cognitive effort” (-0.361), “Persuasion knowledge” (-0.173)
and “Knowledge of the English centres” (-0.156) all have negative impact on the
possibility of accepting an upselling offer and are arranged in respectively
descending order of impact based on the standardized Beta coefficients.
Second, “Regret Proneness” is the only positively influencing factor to be
statistically proven in the current research with a notable standardized Beta
coefficient of 0.416.
Third, “Loss frame” has positive impact on the possibility for upselling, while
“Gain frame” diminishes that possibility.
Fourth, there is no difference in the level of upselling possibility between
demographic variables as there isn’t any statistically significant figure for those
variables: gender, age, academic level and income.

4.5.2. Results discussion

Research Question 1: “What are significant the factors affecting both old and
new customers’ upselling decision before and after using the service at
Langmaster?”
The 4 statistically validated factors proven through the study are: “Customer’s
cognitive effort”, “Regret proneness”, “Knowledge of the Industry” and “Persuasion
knowledge”.
Through this study, it can easily be seen that “Customer’s cognitive effort”
plays an important role in their upselling decision and has been verified once again
to be significant as in the research of Heidig in 2012. As the research of Heidig
aimed to testify the scale for customers in service industry in general and in the car

63
rental and hotel industry in particular, the current research shows that the scale is
also suitable for the customers in English centre industry as well.
The present study also provides sufficient evidence for the impact of “Regret
proneness” on upselling probability. Not only was it proven significant just as what
Schwartz did in 2002, but also has a relatively high coefficient in the regression
equation. With the elements from this scale, it is easier to determine the customers
whether a satisficer or a maximizer.
The two scales relating to knowledge, “Knowledge of English centre industry”
and “Persuasion knowledge”, have been verified to have significant correlation with
upselling probability. Customers with high level of knowledge of the above two
aspects are less likely to make an upselling decision. One reason for this incident
more or less lies in the sustainability of the trust between the customers and the
centres. As identified in the in-depth interview, this reason coincides with one of the
reasons stated by Beardon in 2001.

Research Question 2: “What is the level of impact of customers’ original

cognitive effort and other factors on their upselling decision?”
Out of the 4 statistically significant factors, “Customer’s cognitive effort” has
the most negative influence on accepting an upselling offer. Evidently, people are
well loss-averse even when coming to selecting a communicative English course as
it involves their benefits, in this case, the price and the effort they have to pay for
each decision. The result demonstrates that high cognitive effort reduces the
possibility for succeeding an upselling offer, which means when the customers
invest much cognitive effort, their switching barriers will become higher and they
are more likely to remain in their original decision.
The second most influential factor proven to be meaningful is “Regret
Proneness”. Similar to “Customer’s cognitive effort” but in an opposite inclination,
“Regret proneness” makes people feel more attracted to the upselling offer as they
conceive that they might lose a sumptuous opportunity if they don’t make a rational

64
decision. Their decision is now indirectly affected by the external factors such as the
extra benefits or the competitive price of the upselling option at Langmaster. Since
the figure for “regret proneness” is relatively high from the result, it can be assumed
that most Langmaster customers are maximizers.
Compared to the two aforementioned factors, the remaining two factors
relating to knowledge have fairly lower impact on the dependent variable. Knowing
about the service and already having the experience with it can help the targeted
customers to anticipate what may come, thus reduce the attraction level of the offer
(Mishra, 1993). As the barrier to entry the English centre industry is low, the
availability for English centre service is not uncommon, so there’s a high chance
that the customers at Langmaster have already been familiar with the protocol of the
service. Moreover, with high “persuasion knowledge”, customers might even be
disturbed with the tactics of the counsellor about the upselling offer, thus reduces the
possibility to accept it.

Research Question 3: “Which message’s goal frame reduces or enhances the

effect of the customers’ original cognitive effort investment on their upselling
decision?”
Other than the 5 principal hypotheses, the study also testifies two message goal
frames as moderating variables: Loss frame and Gain frame. The regression analysis
result from the present dataset suggests that using loss frame for an upselling
implying message increase the possibility which the customers accept the offer,
whereas exerting gain frame will do the opposite as it decreases the upselling
chance. In other words, when the counsellor experiences a lock-in situation from a
customer, a loss-frame message will have more superior effects on unlocking this
predicament compared to a gain-frame one. This can be explained by the fact that
customers nowadays are too well familiar with all the marketing and selling
techniques as the figure for “Persuasion Knowledge” is considerably high. Thus,

65
experiencing the gain frame message, the customers will become more sceptical and
sets their switching barrier even higher.
However, this argument might solely be rational for Langmaster’s customers
who inhabit in the North of Viet Nam. Since all the branches of Langmaster English
centres are located in Ha Noi, so in general, the company’s perennial customers are
mainly from the North and the Central of Viet Nam. If the research was conducted
in the South of Viet Nam or if Langmaster were to expand their market to the South
of Viet Nam in the future, the current result of the study might not be significantly
valid. As there are distinctions in the cultural consumption between people in the
North and those in the South. This cultural factor plays a relatively important role in
the end-result of the final decision. This difference lies in the fact that Northern
consumers tend to compromise when dealing with medium-to-high price products or
service; while Southern consumers have a tendency to instantly make up their mind
with most purchasing interactions. This discrepancy has led to a possibility that
consumers from the South might not need to go through a conversation with various
message goal frames, in other words, none of the message goal frames would have
impact on the customer’s upselling decision. In this case, the counsellors and the
salesperson may need to acquire different approaches.

Research Question 4: "Are there any changes in the decision process when a
consumer delegates his/her original decision making right to a surrogate?”
As there wasn’t sufficient data collected for consumers who have a surrogate
to make a decision for them, this question still doesn’t meet the requirements to be
satisfactorily answered. Nevertheless, the present data can be made use of to testify
the reliability of the scale and has proven it to be significant with a relatively small
sample size.
Research Question 5: “What are the solutions to help increase the choice
probability to upsell among both and new customers at Langmaster?”

66
 As indicated in the qualitative analysis of the study, there are some possible
proposals to increase the chance of attracting more new customers or retaining old
customers to acquire an upselling offer. A more comprehensive discussion about the
rational solutions will be presented in the final chapter of the study.

67
 CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. Constructing Upselling strategy
The implications for the findings of this study are prominent: “The success of
an upsell offer depends upon the customer’s cognitive effort investment in the
reservation decision and the wording of the upsell offer in the service encounter.” In
other words, it is essential for counsellors in particular and managers in general to
take into account interpreting the level of cognitive effort that the customers invest
in each conversation with them.
For managers, it is wise to understand that the two variables - “cognitive
effort” and “message framing” - can be utterly controlled. Thus, sale’s managers at
Langmaster should come up with a thoroughly comprehensive communication
strategy when it comes to facilitating an upselling decision. In order to maximize its
success with every customer, at a strategic level, the best way is synchronizing every
means of communicating to the customers with a downright extensive script. This
script should have all the possible ways of dealing with the various reactions of
customers based on their cognitive effort.
With a view to sensing and assessing the customer’s level of cognitive effort
and other factors, the counsellors at Langmaster should be trained to employ the
tactics to understand these factors from customers. Managers should be responsible
for instructing employees these techniques with their corresponding argument.
Moreover, manager must make sure that all sales’ employees follow this script in
order to attain the best result. Simultaneously, the script can be flexible and
promptly renovated if there are new ways to tackle the problems with inclusive
analysis. Such as this study, the result suggests that using a “loss-frame” message
would be more beneficial than the “gain-frame” one as a large number or
Langmaster’s customers has similar characteristics of a maximizer. But there might
still be some customers with unique characteristics and require a different
communication approach. For that reason, the script should be gradually updated
and testified by counsellors.

68
 At an operate level, managers should require their sales’ employees to record
and store customers’ information for each interaction. Applying this method, it’s
easier for employees to track down and monitor their way of communicating with
customers. Moreover, the employees can have more time to think of a suitable
argument for the next interaction with customers. For customers who don’t accept
the upselling offer in the first period and stay with their decision, the counsellors are
still able to keep track of the customers’ status throughout the course at the centre
using the data recorded. With this reservation system, it will be easier for
counsellors to bypass and facilitate the customer’s reservation decision and to keep
the customers away from the situations they become locked-in with their initial
decision.
In addition, managing customer’s information such as their original
inhabitancy can facilitate the customers’ insight research in the future. As mentioned
in the present study’s findings discussion, there can be an alternative result due to
the differences in the living region. This is the effect of culture in particular region.
With the attained information, subsequent researchers can have easier access to the
targeted subjects.

5.2. Increasing Upselling’s probability

As the current study indicates, “Regret proneness” is the only proven factor to
have a positive impact on the upselling’s probability. To invoke regrets from
customers, it is normal for the sales’ persons to use gain-frame messages with the
upselling offer. However, as the study suggests, gain-frame can have adverse effect
on the offer as it creates a sense of disliking from the customers. Thus, it is advisable
for counsellors to find a way to enhance the customer’s curiosity in the upselling
offer rather than brag about the advantages of the upsell options. Once the customers
have expressed their interest in the upsell offer, the counsellors should just compare
what aspect is lower than that of the upsell offer.

69
 Also for counsellors, they need to focus more on what the customers have been
suffering and flexibly adapt those pains exquisitely in the “loss-frame” message. As
the study implies that “loss-frame” has positive impact while “gain-frame” has
negative impact, the sales’ employees should concentrate more on using loss-frame
messages. Since gain frame has a counter-effect on accepting the upsell offer, it is
more suitable to constitute a stronger bond and trust with the customers before
promising any long-term future goals. Also, this method should be openly
approached with the customers who are still studying and not adults as students are
usually the one with more time on their hand. Over-inconsiderately
conscientiousness towards customers who are adults might have a counter-effect.
Not just “regret proneness”, other factors such as “customer’s cognitive effort”
also needs to be taken into account when considering to increasing the upselling’s
probability. Although, “customer’s cognitive effort” has a negative impact on the
choice’s probability, limiting it is also an effective approach to recover the upselling
probability. As the cognitive effort of the customers is also based on the options of
the choices themselves, it is advised that the marketers and counsellors elaborately
clarify all the options as comprehensive as possible for the customers. Making the
options hard to interpret might let the customers put more effort to differentiate
them. And in that process, there is a high possibility that the customers will put up
higher barrier of scepticism, which in turn leads to a decrease in the upselling
probability.

5.3. Understanding customer’s insight

For marketers, it is better to approach the customers with the expression of the
company’s main competency in the communicative English course. As “persuasion
knowledge” and “Knowledge of the Industry” of the customers is not a factor which
can be determined by the counsellors or marketers, it can be a challenge for
marketing department to come up with a corresponding tactics. Also for counsellors,
boasting too much about the company’s service may have a counter effect on the

70
customers, as they are so well acknowledged with what the sellers are trying to do.
Thus, instead of focusing on the excessively implausible benefits for the customers
in general, marketers should only converge at only the core strengths of the service.
In order to implement this, the sales department and also the research and
development department need to come together and re-prioritize the service’s
advantages and may renovate the service to have a distinct competitive advantage in
the market.
In addition, it is better to get to know implicitly what the customer’s current
familiarity with English centres and their ability to interpret selling techniques by
asking questions about their jobs and their past experience with English. These
questions should often be asked at the first encounter between the counsellor and the
customer as ice-breaking and bonding questions. Understanding the customers’
capability helps the sellers/counsellors to gain the initiative in the conversation and
have the suitable corresponding argument to the customer’s reasoning.

5.4. Other recommendations

From the results of the in-depth interview, customers of Langmaster
themselves have suggested some solutions to the company. From the viewpoint of
the people who experience the service, these methods can be subjective and might
be what the company’s strategy is lacking of. However, not all of these ideas can be
utterly feasible as they might violate the company’s policies. For that reason, the
followings are just the potential proposals, all the invalid notions are excluded.
First, all classes should be synchronized to have standard experience within
the teachers and the studying materials. Indeed, the quality of service between
classes at Langmaster is not aligned, thus the experience the customers go through
might not be the same. Therefore, for the customers to more likely accept the
upselling offer, all the services should meet a quality threshold. To implement this,
the Research and Development department should come together and decide on the
optimal syllabus and all the required materials for all the courses at the centre. Also,

71
the class manager should carefully administer all the sessions taking place to make
sure they’ve all met a certain standard.
Second, the program should have more opportunities for students to
communicate with foreign people throughout the course. As the main aim of the
communicative English courses is to communicate real English in an English using
environment, this desire from the customer is understandable. However, with the
limited budget of the course tuition, it will be difficult for the company to organize
more sessions with foreign teacher for every single class at the centre. Thus, it is
better if each class has an outdoor session to interact with foreigner people in the
society for free, such as going to the Walking Street, where lots of foreigners go to
on the weekends; or going to cafés which have service to set up a session with a
foreigner.
Third, the teachers should create more extracurricular sessions to adapt to real
life experience. Outdoor activity is also one of the aspects that distinguish
communicative English centres apart from other English centres. Despite the
implication of the suggestion, an outdoor session is not an obligatory session in the
course’s syllabus at Langmaster, it depends on the lecturer of the class only.
Therefore, this solution can be applicable in the future. Since it is not compulsory
for every class to have an outdoor session, the lecturers for each class should survey
the whole class apprehend whether the students want to have an extracurricular
session or not. And if they do, the centre should also provide the teachers and the
teaching assistants with bonus policy since an outdoor session can take much more
effort and time for setting up tasks. Moreover, these outdoor activities can indirectly
spread out the image of Langmaster to the social community, which can be an
effective way to promote the public relations of the brand.
Fourth, the lecturer in each class should develop stronger bonds between
him/her and the students altogether. Relationships between friends in one class can
be a major factor which influences students to keep studying at one place, as it gives
them the opportunity to keep meeting each other. Bonding sessions should be

72
scattered throughout the courses and since these sessions can be difficult to control,
it might not be the primary solution to go to.
Fifth, the company should advance the centre’s facility. Not all participants
from the in-depth interview agreed with this suggestion. Some even said that they
were satisfied with the facility of the centre as it was suitable with the price they
paid. This solution is plausible since the participants are from different branches of
Langmaster, which means the facility in each branch is not similar and it is
necessary that all the branches meet a certain quality.

73
 CHAPTER 6: REFERENCES

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8. Friestad, M. (1994). The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with
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10. Huang, W.-H. (2010). Other-Customer Failure: Effects of Perceived Employee
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11. Johnson, E. (2003). Cognitive Lock-in and the Power Law of Practice. Journal
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13. Kubiak, B. F. (2010). Cross- And Up-selling Techniques In E-Commerce
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23. Schwartz, B. (2002). Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of
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 CHAPTER 7: APPENDIXES
APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONAIRE
Xin chào Anh/Chị! Tôi là sinh viên từ chương trình E- BBA của Viện Quản trị Kinh
doanh, trường ĐH Kinh tế Quốc dân, hiện đang nghiên cứu về quyết định của khách
hàng tại trung tâm Anh ngữ Langmaster.
Mong Anh/Chị có thể bỏ chút thời gian hoàn thành phiếu điều tra này một cách
trung thực nhất, nhằm đảm bảo độ chính xác của nghiên cứu. Mọi thông tin của
Anh/Chị sẽ được giữ kín và chỉ sử dụng cho mục đích học thuật.
Xin chân thành cảm ơn sự giúp đỡ của Anh/Chị!

THÔNG TIN CÁ NHÂN:

1. Giới tính của Anh/Chị:  Nam  Nữ
2. Tuổi của Anh/Chị trong khoảng:
 14-18 tuổi  19-22 tuổi  23-55 tuổi  >55 tuổi
3 Mức thu nhập hàng tháng của Anh/Chị trong khoảng:
 0 - 2,000,000 VND  2,000,000 - 5,000,000 VND
 5,000,000 - 20,000,000 VND  >20,000,000 VND
4. Trình độ học vấn của Anh/Chị là:
 Dưới Đại Học  Đang học Đại Học
 Đã tốt nghiệp Đại Học và cao hơn

77
CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA:
Đối với các nhận định ở bảng dưới đây, đánh dấu X vào ô theo mức độ đồng ý của
Anh/Chị
(Lưu ý: mỗi nhận định chỉ đánh dấu vào 1 ô)
1. Hoàn toàn Không đồng ý
2. Không đồng ý
3. Trung lập
4. Đồng ý
5. Hoàn toàn đồng ý

* Nếu Anh/Chị người đưa ra quyết định, hãy trả lời phần bảng hỏi này:

Mức độ đồng ý
Các nhận định
1 2 3 4 5
1. Tôi suy nghĩ một cách tập trung về khóa học tiếng Anh giao
    
tiếp tôi chọn.
2. Tôi tập trung cao độ khi chọn một khóa học tiếng Anh giao
    
tiếp.
3. Đưa ra sự lựa chọn là một việc khó khăn đối với tôi.     
4. Việc bù đắp điểm mạnh và điểm yếu giữa các sự lựa chọn
    
tốn khá nhiều thời gian của tôi.

* Nếu Anh/Chị có người đại diện đưa ra quyết định, hãy trả lời phần bảng hỏi này:

Các nhận định 1 2 3 4 5

1. Người đại diện sử dụng nhiều năng lượng khi lựa chọn khóa
    
học tiếng Anh giao tiếp.
2. Người đại diện rất kiên định.     
3. Người đại diện rất tận tâm.     
4. Người đại diện cố gắng hết sức để lựa chọn đúng.     
5. Người đại diện bỏ ra nhiều nỗ lực trong việc đưa ra sự lựa
    
chọn.
* Các yếu tố tác động:

78
Các nhận định 1 2 3 4 5

79
1. Mỗi khi tôi đưa ra một quyết định, tôi tò mò về chuyện gì sẽ
    
xảy ra nếu tôi chọn một quyết định khác.
2. Mỗi khi tôi đưa ra một quyết định, tôi cố gắng thu thập
    
thông tin về các lựa chọn khác sẽ có kết quả như thế nào.
3. Nếu tôi đưa ra một quyết định và có kết quả tốt, tôi sẽ vẫn
cảm thấy có phần hụt hẫng nếu tôi phát hiện ra rằng một sự lựa     
chọn khác đã có thể mang tới kết quả tốt hơn.
4. Khi tôi nghĩ về tôi đang sống thế nào, tôi thường đánh giá
    
những cơ hội tôi đã bỏ qua.
5. Một khi tôi đã đưa ra quyết định, tôi không suy nghĩ về
    
chúng nữa.
6. Tôi biết khá nhiều về các khóa học tiếng Anh giao tiếp.     
7. Tôi đã tích lũy được khá nhiều kinh nghiệm với các khóa
    
học tiếng Anh giao tiếp.
8. Tôi biết rất nhiều về cách đặt chỗ trước cho một khóa học.     
9. Tôi đã đạt được khá nhiều kinh nghiệm với việc đặt chỗ
    
trước cho một khóa học.
10. Tôi biết khi nào một lời đề nghị là quá tốt để trở thành sự
    
thật.
11. Tôi có thể nhận biết được khi nào một lời đề nghị có thêm
    
các điều kiện ràng buộc.
12. Tôi không gặp khó khăn gì trong việc hiểu được các chiến
    
thuật mặc cả của người bán.
13. Tôi biết khi nào một người làm marketing tạo áp lực tới tôi
    
để mua hàng.
14. Tôi có thể nhìn thấu các chiêu trò bán hàng để lôi kéo
    
khách hàng mua hàng.
15. Tôi có thể phân biệt được giữa sự thực tế và sự hư cấu
    
trong quảng cáo.
16. Hàm ý trong lời đề nghị tôi nhận được tập trung về những
    
điểm bất lợi của khóa học tôi lựa chọn ban đầu.
17. Hàm ý trong lời đề nghị tôi nhận được tập trung về hậu quả
    
tiêu cực sẽ xảy ra nếu tôi ở lại với quyết định ban đầu.
18. Hàm ý trong lời đề nghị tôi nhận được tập trung về các kết
quả tích cực tôi sẽ được trải nghiệm khi tôi chấp nhận lời đề     
nghị mới.
19. Hàm ý trong lời đề nghị tôi nhận được tập trung về những     
gì tôi sẽ đạt được khi quyết định theo hướng của lời đề nghị

80
mới.

* Quyết định
Anh/Chị đã từng chọn học hoặc tiếp tục học các khóa học cao hơn (level cao hơn
hoặc nhiều level hơn) tại Langmaster so với lựa chọn ban đầu của mình chưa?
 Rồi  Chưa

Khả năng
1
Nhận định 5
(Không
2 3 4 (Chắc
bao
chắn)
giờ)
Nếu chưa, khả năng Anh/Chị sẽ chọn khóa học
được đề xuất bởi tư vấn viên (thay vì lựa chọn
    
ban đầu của mình) hoặc tiếp tục học các level cao
hơn tại Langmaster:

81
 APPENDIX 2: RESEARCH RESULTS
2.1. Descriptive analysis
* Demographic variables:
- Gender:
Gender

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

0 56 53,8 53,8 53,8

Valid 1 48 46,2 46,2 100,0

Total 104 100,0 100,0

- Age:
Age

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

0 12 11,5 11,5 11,5

1 72 69,2 69,2 80,8

Valid
2 20 19,2 19,2 100,0

Total 104 100,0 100,0

- Income:
Income

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

0 66 63,5 63,5 63,5

1 18 17,3 17,3 80,8

Valid 2 14 13,5 13,5 94,2

3 6 5,8 5,8 100,0

Total 104 100,0 100,0

82
- Academic level:
Academic_Level

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

0 14 13,5 13,5 13,5

1 76 73,1 73,1 86,5

Valid
2 14 13,5 13,5 100,0

Total 104 100,0 100,0

* Dependent variable:
CP

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

1 10 9,6 9,6 9,6

2 18 17,3 17,3 26,9

3 24 23,1 23,1 50,0

Valid
4 10 9,6 9,6 59,6

5 42 40,4 40,4 100,0

Total 104 100,0 100,0

83
2.2. Reliability verification
* CE:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,835 4

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

CE1 8,80 7,937 ,712 ,769

CE2 8,87 8,566 ,624 ,808
CE3 9,29 8,432 ,634 ,804
CE4 9,18 7,923 ,688 ,780

* PE:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,866 5

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

PE1 9,00 7,692 ,834 ,800

PE2 9,43 9,495 ,510 ,877
PE3 10,00 8,308 ,679 ,840
PE4 9,86 6,286 ,885 ,783
PE5 9,14 9,363 ,574 ,864

84
* RP:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,915 5

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

RP1 13,62 17,559 ,857 ,879

RP2 13,42 19,081 ,718 ,908
RP3 13,60 18,573 ,779 ,896
RP4 13,71 18,343 ,766 ,899
RP5 13,58 19,159 ,796 ,894

* KE:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,851 4

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

KE1 7,83 8,455 ,674 ,817

KE2 8,10 7,661 ,718 ,800
KE3 8,08 9,043 ,649 ,829
KE4 8,25 8,034 ,730 ,793

* PK:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,928 6

85
 Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

PK1 14,04 27,105 ,739 ,922

PK2 14,00 24,388 ,823 ,912
PK3 14,21 25,295 ,834 ,909
PK4 13,83 26,824 ,803 ,914
PK5 14,02 27,592 ,740 ,922
PK6 14,04 25,824 ,822 ,911

* LF:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,760 2

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

LF1 2,94 ,909 ,617 .

LF2 3,04 1,125 ,617 .

*GF:
Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

,832 2

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Item Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if
Deleted Deleted Correlation Item Deleted

GF1 3,38 1,055 ,713 .

GF2 3,42 1,101 ,713 .

86
2.3. Exploratory Factor Analysis
KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. ,846

Approx. Chi-Square 1456,726

Bartlett's Test of Sphericity df 171

Sig. ,000

Total Variance Explained

Component Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation Sums of Squared

Loadings Loadings

Total % of Cumulative Total % of Cumulative Total % of Cumulative

Variance % Variance % Variance %

1 9,712 51,113 51,113 9,712 51,113 51,113 4,558 23,990 23,990

2 1,891 9,952 61,066 1,891 9,952 61,066 3,939 20,733 44,723
3 1,461 7,690 68,756 1,461 7,690 68,756 2,951 15,529 60,252
4 1,125 5,923 74,679 1,125 5,923 74,679 2,741 14,427 74,679
5 ,731 3,845 78,523
6 ,631 3,321 81,845
7 ,539 2,835 84,680
8 ,489 2,574 87,253
9 ,461 2,429 89,682
10 ,415 2,182 91,864
11 ,322 1,693 93,557
12 ,313 1,649 95,206
13 ,231 1,218 96,424
14 ,190 ,999 97,422
15 ,142 ,746 98,168
16 ,133 ,700 98,868
17 ,100 ,526 99,394
18 ,069 ,365 99,758
19 ,046 ,242 100,000

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

87
 Rotated Component Matrixa

Component

1 2 3 4

PK6 ,838
PK3 ,799
PK5 ,779
PK2 ,774
PK1 ,773
PK4 ,768
RP1 ,847
RP5 ,800
RP3 ,761
RP4 ,726
RP2 ,721
KE1 ,795
KE2 ,747
KE4 ,659
KE3 ,638
CE3 ,789
CE2 ,684
CE4 ,660
CE1 ,620

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 6 iterations.

2.4. Correlation analysis

Correlations

CE RP KE PK CP

Pearson Correlation 1 -,646** ,639** ,541** -,823**

CE Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000

N 90 90 90 90 90
** ** **
Pearson Correlation -,646 1 -,623 -,641 ,858**
RP Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
N 90 104 104 104 104
** ** **
Pearson Correlation ,639 -,623 1 ,621 -,755**
KE Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
N 90 104 104 104 104

88
 Pearson Correlation ,541** -,641** ,621** 1 -,735**
PK Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
N 90 104 104 104 104
** ** ** **
Pearson Correlation -,823 ,858 -,755 -,735 1

CP Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000

N 90 104 104 104 104

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

2.5. Regression Analysis

* PK, CE, KE, RP -> CP
Model Summaryb

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Durbin-Watson

Estimate

1 ,726a ,527 ,522 ,495 1,826

a. Predictors: (Constant), PK, CE, KE, RP

b. Dependent Variable: CP

ANOVAa

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Regression 165,093 4 41,273 168,155 ,000b

1 Residual 20,863 85 ,245

Total 185,956 89

a. Dependent Variable: CP
b. Predictors: (Constant), PK, CE, KE, RP

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. Collinearity Statistics

Coefficients Coefficients

B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF

(Constant) 4,635 ,470 9,867 ,000

CE -,560 ,082 -,361 -6,850 ,000 ,476 2,100

1 RP ,556 ,071 ,416 7,862 ,000 ,471 2,124

KE -,239 ,080 -,156 -2,989 ,004 ,488 2,051

PK -,240 ,069 -,173 -3,484 ,001 ,534 1,872

a. Dependent Variable: CP

89
* PK, CE, KE, RP -> CP (added LF and GF)

Model Summaryb

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Durbin-Watson

Estimate
a
1 ,741 ,549 ,543 ,437 1,822

a. Predictors: (Constant), GF, KE, PK, LF, RP, CE

b. Dependent Variable: CP

ANOVAa

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Regression 170,108 6 28,351 148,489 ,000b

1 Residual 15,847 83 ,191

Total 185,956 89

a. Dependent Variable: CP
b. Predictors: (Constant), GF, KE, PK, LF, RP, CE

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. Collinearity Statistics

Coefficients Coefficients

B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF

(Constant) 4,481 ,493 9,080 ,000

CE -,732 ,081 -,471 -9,082 ,000 ,381 2,621

RP ,491 ,067 ,368 7,330 ,000 ,408 2,453

1 KE -,196 ,071 -,128 -2,758 ,007 ,479 2,088

PK -,196 ,063 -,141 -3,127 ,002 ,505 1,982

LF ,365 ,075 ,223 4,846 ,000 ,487 2,055

GF -,132 ,068 -,087 -1,946 ,055 ,517 1,936

a. Dependent Variable: CP

90
2.6. Compared with Demographic factors
* Gender:
Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for t-test for Equality of Means

Equality of
Variances

F Sig. t df Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence

tailed) Difference Difference Interval of the
Difference

Lower Upper

Equal
-,57
variances ,128 ,722 102 ,566 -,161 ,279 -,714 ,393
6
assumed
CP
Equal
-,57
variances not 100,468 ,565 -,161 ,278 -,713 ,391
8
assumed

* Age:
Test of Homogeneity of Variances
CP

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

,248 2 101 ,781

ANOVA
CP

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 7,035 2 3,518 1,787 ,173

Within Groups 198,811 101 1,968
Total 205,846 103

* Income:
Test of Homogeneity of Variances
CP

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

,342 3 100 ,795

91
 ANOVA
CP

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 6,700 3 2,233 1,122 ,344

Within Groups 199,146 100 1,991
Total 205,846 103

* Academic Level:
Test of Homogeneity of Variances
CP

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

3,995 2 101 ,021

ANOVA
CP

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 15,470 2 7,735 4,104 ,019

Within Groups 190,376 101 1,885
Total 205,846 103

92