Publications

Read Now

February 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Local Motors: Designed by the Crowd, Built by the Customer

By: Michael I. Norton and Jeremy Dann

In the wake of the meltdown among U.S. auto manufacturers in 2009, Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, has a new approach for the automotive industry: decide which models are produced through online design competitions, and then allow customers to "build their own cars"... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Product Development; Creativity; Social and Collaborative Networks; Customization and Personalization; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

11 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

A Smarter Way to Reduce Customer Defections

Companies spend significant sums to acquire customers. Once hooked, marketers protect those investments by attempting to keep patrons happy, engaged, and most of all, loyal. Reducing customer attrition, or... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Service

January 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Amazon Shopper Panel: Paying Customers for Their Data

By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

This case introduces a new Amazon program that has consumers upload their receipts from transactions outside of Amazon, in exchange for money. Through the discussion, the case aims to explore issues in customers’ privacy in the digital age, the value of customers’ own... View Details

June 2016
Teaching Note

HubSpot: Lower Churn through Greater CHI

By: Jill Avery, Asis Martinez Jerez and Thomas Steenburgh

HubSpot, a web marketing startup selling inbound marketing software to small- and medium-sized businesses, is under pressure from its venture capital partners to rapidly acquire new customers and to maintain a low level of customer churn. The B2B SaaS company is in the... View Details

Keywords: CRM; Customer Acquisition; Customer Retention; Churn Management; SaaS Business Models; Customer Lifetime Value; Venture Capital; Startup; Software; Monitoring And Control; Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Accounting; Technology Industry; United States

27 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured

for relevant customization and adaptation to specific client needs. This is a significant aspect of maintaining ongoing client relationships. I observed that teams under heightened pressure tend to shut out... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

October 2016
Case

Turkasset: Bringing Customer-Centricity to Debt Collection

By: Dennis Campbell and Gamze Yucaoglu

In December 2014, in preparation for the year-end board presentation, Hilmi Guvenal (PMD 1993), shareholder and CEO of Turkasset, and Ilker Yoney, COO, sat down to discuss Turkasset’s five- and ten-year strategic plans. Since taking leadership of the company in 2009,... View Details

2002
Article

Personalization and Personality: Some Effects of Customizing Message Style Based on Consumer Personality

By: Youngme Moon

Keywords: Identity; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships

1 Nov 1993
Conference Presentation

Information Technology's Role in Transforming Customer Service

By: Jim I. Cash Jr.

Keywords: Information Technology; Customer Focus and Relationships

Forthcoming
Article

Engaging Customers with AI in Online Chats: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

By: Shunyuan Zhang and Das Narayandas

We examine how artificial intelligence (AI) affected the productivity of customer service agents and customer sentiment in online interactions. Collaborating with a meal delivery company, we conducted a randomized field experiment that exploited exogenous variation in... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Efficiency

10 Jul 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: It’s a Bad Idea to Ban Customers From Recording Videos

much better relationships with their customers than do airlines, they still can learn from United’s experience. The smart move is to avoid the problems—bad service, snarly employees, dangerous... View Details

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman; Food & Beverage; Air Transportation; Retail; Service

21 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It

With the advent of customer relationship management (CRM) in the late 1990s, companies came to believe that by using technology to tailor their offerings to individual consumers' needs, View Details

Keywords: by Jean Ayers

2009
Book

Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization

By: Ranjay Gulati

In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why?... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Cooperation

01 Apr 2024
In Practice

Navigating the Mood of Customers Weary of Price Hikes

businesses need to know in 2024. Alexander MacKay: Focus on finding balance Since 2021, as companies faced supply shocks and changes to demand in an inflationary period, executives have increasingly focused... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Retail; Consumer Products

September 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

National Australia Bank: Looking Out for the Customer

By: Mark R. Kramer and Hugh Foley

After learning that most defaults were due to health, job or marital problems, National Australia Bank revised its debt collection department to shift from penalizing people in default to assisting them in developing a work-out plan, enabling more than 90% to meet... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Borrowing and Debt; Customer Focus and Relationships; Success; Australia

May–June 2023
Article

Need for Speed: The Impact of In-Process Delays on Customer Behavior in Online Retail

By: Santiago Gallino, Nil Karacaoglu and Antonio Moreno

The impact of delays has been widely studied in various offline services. The focus of this study is online services, and we explore the impact of in-process delays—measured by website speed—on customer behavior. We leverage novel retail and website speed data to... View Details

Keywords: Online Retail; Quasi-experiments; Abandonment; Synthetic Control; E-commerce; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Policy; Retail Industry

June 1997
Article

Customization or Conformity? An Institutional and Network Perspective on the Content and Consequences of TQM Adoption

By: Ranjay Gulati, James Westphal and Steve Shortell

Keywords: Networks; Management

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ryan W. Buell

From creating flight itineraries online, to interacting with tellers to complete complex banking transactions, to engaging with the government to address civic problems, customers are playing an increasingly vital role in the performance of operations in a broadening... View Details

February 2017
Teaching Note

The Tate's Digital Transformation

By: Jill Avery

John Stack was the visionary Head of Digital Transformation at the Tate, a collection of four major art galleries in the UK, including Tate Modern, the most visited gallery devoted to modern and contemporary art in the world. Stack was the architect of the Tate’s... View Details

Article

The Business of Business Schools: Restoring a Focus on Competing to Win

By: Robert Simons

As business leaders worry about the decline of American competitiveness, business schools are responding by changing their curriculums. But are the topics and approaches taught in today's business schools part of the solution or part of the problem? In this paper, I... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools; Purpose Of Business Schools; Management Education; Business School Curriculum; Strategy Execution; U.S. Competitiveness; Capitalism; Management Profession; Innovation; Competing To Win; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Trends; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Design; Business Education; Curriculum and Courses; Innovation and Management