Publications

2011
White Paper

Brands Are People Too! Harnessing the Power of Brand Warmth and Competence

By: Chris Malone, Jill Avery and S. T. Fiske

Research in customer behavior has revealed that the way humans respond to brands is simply an extension of the way they instinctively perceive, judge, and behave towards one another. Understanding how consumers judge brands using social processes akin to those used in... View Details

Keywords: Brands; Brand Management; Customer Relationship Management; CRM; Brand Positioning; Brand Equity; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

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July 2003 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

By: Youngme Moon and John Quelch

Starbucks, the dominant specialty-coffee brand in North America, must respond to recent market research indicating that the company is not meeting customer expectations in terms of service. To increase customer satisfaction, the company is debating a plan that would... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Recruitment; Marketing Strategy; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Planning; Food and Beverage Industry

Research Summary

Building Effective Relationships Across Cultures

Trust is the foundation of any successful collaborative relationship. In my first stream of research, I draw on the basic distinction between cognition-based versus affect-based trust– that is, trust from the head versus trust from the heart – to better... View Details

June 2019
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira

By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were among the highest-growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products, or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-Sided Markets; Digital Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Two-Sided Platforms; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Customers; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

June 2005 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

Siebel Systems: Organizing for the Customer

By: Robert Simons

Teaching Note to (103-014). The Siebel Systems case describes the unusual accountability and organizing choices made by managers of a successful, rapidly growing software development company. The case is set in 2002, but details the critical decisions made by founder... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Execution; Organization Design; Structure; Job Design; Diagnostic Control Systems; Customers; Strategy; Organizational Design

2011
Module Note

Suppliers to Dealers: Stakeholders' Management at TVS Motor Company Ltd.

By: Shashank Shah, Shashank Shah and A. Sudir Bhaskar

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Supplier Relationships; Dealer Network; Auto Industry; India

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September 2015 (Revised March 2017)
Technical Note

FIELD Global Immersion: Developing Customer Empathy

By: Jill Avery

The Design Thinking process begins with empathizing with potential customers. Empathizing, being aware of, interpreting, and understanding the thoughts of others, as well as being able to vicariously experience them oneself, requires the careful and deliberate study of... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Design Thinking; Customer Behavior; Ethnography; Interviews; Surveys; A/B Testing; Experimentation; Marketing; Customer Focus and Relationships; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers

November 2001 (Revised October 2017)
Case

GuestFirst Hotel (A): Customer Loyalty

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Provides a hotel context in which to explore the link between customer loyalty and financial performance, using four years of hotel data. Challenges students to find the extent of the relationship between loyalty and performance. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Mathematical Methods; Finance; Performance; Relationships; Customer Focus and Relationships; Data and Data Sets; Accommodations Industry

November 2011
Supplement

Comfort Class Transport: Does Customer Service Need an Overhaul? Spreadsheet Supplement (Brief Case)

Keywords: Capacity Utilization; Supply ＆ Demand; Operations Management; Customer Service; Operations; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Capacity

August 1988
Background Note

Close Encounters of the Four Kinds: Managing Customers in a Rapidly Changing Environment

By: Benson P. Shapiro

Describes four kinds of selling: 1) transaction, 2) systems, 3) major account management, and 4) strategic account relationships. Explains the advantages, disadvantages, and risks of each. The second half is devoted to a discussion of strategic account relationships... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Social Psychology

January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Exercise

Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys

By: Eva Ascarza, Nicolas Padilla and Oded Netzer

In late May 2023, Sarah Merino, the newly appointed manager of the Customer Insights group at Travelogo—an online travel booking platform—initiates a comprehensive analysis of clickstream data to understand the varied behaviors and needs of their users. In preparation... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Analysis; Analytics and Data Science; Marketing Strategy; Segmentation; Consumer Behavior; Travel Industry; United States

February 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Supplement

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (B)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Credit Cards; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing Strategy; Banking Industry; Spain

February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (A)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Banking Industry; Spain

February 2018
Article

Retention Futility: Targeting High-Risk Customers Might Be Ineffective.

By: Eva Ascarza

Companies in a variety of sectors are increasingly managing customer churn proactively, generally by detecting customers at the highest risk of churning and targeting retention efforts towards them. While there is a vast literature on developing churn prediction models... View Details

Keywords: Retention/churn; Proactive Churn Management; Field Experiments; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Machine Learning; Customer Relationship Management; Risk Management

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November 2011
Supplement

Comfort Class Transport: Does Customer Service Need an Overhaul? Faculty Spreadsheet (Brief Case)

Keywords: Capacity Utilization; Supply ＆ Demand; Operations Management; Customer Service; Operations; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Capacity

November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Technical Note

Customer Data Privacy

By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang

This note provides an overview of the evolving landscape of customer data privacy in 2023. It highlights two pivotal aspects that make privacy a central concern for businesses: building and maintaining customer trust and navigating the intricate regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk and Uncertainty; Reputation; Trust; Information Management; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Europe; United States