Publications

December 2017
Case

Molino Cañuelas: Serving Customers from Seed Development to the Kitchen Table

By: Jose B. Alvarez, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal

Molino Cañuelas was a vertically integrated food company with a management system that allowed it to innovate and grow systematically. With sales of $2 billion in 2016, the firm not only produced flour, vegetable oil, and packaged food products, it also owned a port... View Details

Keywords: Quality Management System; Food Industry; Molino Cañuelas; Argentina; Vertical Integration; Quality; Management Systems; Expansion; Global Range; Growth and Development Strategy; Agribusiness; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Argentina

16 May 2011
Research & Ideas

What Loyalty? High-End Customers are First to Flee

customers who are more valuable over time. "One prescription from all of this is that managers should avoid service complacency—or the tendency to rely on preexisting service advantages—and invest more... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

April 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Teaching Note

Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service (TN)

By: Youngme E. Moon and John A. Quelch

Teaching Note to (9-504-016). View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2001 (Revised October 2017)
Supplement

Pilgrim Bank (B): Customer Retention

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Banking Industry

04 Jan 2021
Working Paper Summaries

The Twofold Effect of Customer Retention in Freemium Settings

Keywords: by Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer, and Julian Runge; Video Game; Entertainment & Recreation

March 2000 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Hewlett Packard--Computer Systems Organization: Selling to Enterprise Customers

By: Das Narayandas and Robert C. Dudley

In late 1996, Manuel Diaz, head of Worldwide Sales for Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Computer Systems Organization (CSO), is reviewing the results of an audit of HP's enterprise customer management approach with the objective of identifying market and organizational... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Computer Industry

2012
Chapter

Firing Your Best Customers: How Smart Firms Destroy Relationships Using CRM

By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier

With incidences in the 20%–25% range, the practice of firing customers has become increasingly attractive as firms try to maximize the lifetime value of their customer portfolios. This chapter traces the relationship trajectory of a 30-year customer of Filene's... View Details

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

March 2011
Background Note

Customer Loyalty Schemes in the Retail Sector

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Aldo Sesia

Customer loyalty schemes (or programs) are explicit efforts by retailers to gain long-term patronage from customers. Loyalty schemes are developed for a variety of reasons: to reward loyal customers, to generate more robust information about customer behavior, to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Business Strategy; Retail Industry; United Kingdom; United States

21 Mar 2016
HBS Case

Can Customer Reviews Be 'Managed?'

actually booking and get a commission of that?” Q: You call the case “managing online reviews.” As I read it, I thought the notion of managing online reviews seems to be counter to the notion of providing unbiased information. Yet you do... View Details

Keywords: by Brian Kenny; Advertising; Travel

February 2024
Case

SundaySky: Changing Customer Experiences through Personalized Video

By: David C. Edelman and James Barnett

In June 2023, SundaySky CEO Jim Dicso considers growth strategies. The software-as-a-service company provided software to create advertising videos, customer service videos, and other videos, like employee training modules, and had begun to pilot a new generative... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Strategy; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Advertising Industry; Technology Industry; United States

September 2002 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Siebel Systems: Organizing for the Customer

By: Robert Simons and Antonio Davila

Siebel Systems is one of the fastest growing companies in America. Tom Siebel, the company's founder, has organized the business to accommodate growth and focus on the customer. Innovative information technology systems and clear accountability prove to be essential to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Applications and Software; Business Growth and Maturation; Information Technology; Performance Evaluation; Performance Expectations; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Management Teams; Information Technology Industry; North and Central America

February 2008
Case

Campbell Soup Company: Selling Channel Innovation to Customers

Campbell Soup, like most food manufacturers, faced grocery chain and wholesale demand for its goods driven by Campbell's own promotional pricing structure rather than retail consumer demand. Former policies to encourage overstock created huge swings in production and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

June 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Supplement

Hilti Fleet Management Video Supplements

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the construction industry by the premium power tools manufacturer Hilti in 2000. Following its customers’ needs, Hilti moved from selling power tools to leasing them as a service. The introduction of the new... View Details

28 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

How Racial Bias Taints Customer Service: Evidence from 6,000 Hotels

had a white name. Customers who sounded white were called by name 74 percent of the time, compared to 61 percent of customers assumed to be Black and 57 percent who were presumably Asian. The data indicates... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

13 Mar 2017
Research & Ideas

Hiding Products From Customers May Ultimately Boost Sales

portion of your full product catalog—and leaving customers to wonder what you’ll offer next? Or is it better to display all your wares at once, in hopes of encouraging a shopping spree? For example, is a View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Fashion

06 May 2002
Research & Ideas

A Toolkit for Customer Innovation

Thomke and Eric von Hippel Tapping into customer innovation can certainly generate tremendous value, but capturing that value is hardly a simple or straightforward process. Not only must companies develop the right tool kit, they must... View Details

Keywords: by Stefan Thomke & Eric Von Hippel

Customers As Innovators: A New Way to Create Value

Product R&D at many companies is a major bottleneck. The difficulty is that fully understanding the needs of just a single customer can be an inexact and costly process--to say nothing of the needs of all customers or even groups of them. In the course of... View Details

January 1997
Background Note

Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance

By: Benson P. Shapiro

Provides an integrated framework for creating customer value and managing the firm profitably. Focuses on the use of product/service line management and effective customer service to achieve customer satisfaction and high profitability. View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Framework; Performance Efficiency; Sales; Business Strategy; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Product Marketing; Business or Company Management