Publications

December 2000 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Achieving Customer Satisfaction at Pizza Hut (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Preeti Choudhary

Describes how Pizza Hut measures and monitors customer satisfaction, customer complaints, and the quality of its retail locations. View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Systems; Risk Management; Franchise Ownership; Performance Evaluation; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

January 2007
Case

Lou Pritchett: Negotiating the P&G Relationship with Wal-Mart

By: James K. Sebenius and Ellen Knebel

Describes several internal and external negotiations in the 1980s that led to a significant and growing partnership between Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Wal-Mart. From the perspective of Lou Pritchett, P&G's Vice President of Sales and Customer Development, the unfolding... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Negotiation; Distribution Channels; Partners and Partnerships; Sales

05 Aug 2010
What Do You Think?

What Is Customer Opinion Good For?

research and shoring up the weakest, all competitors' products take on the same characteristics. As she puts it, "Meanwhile, the very instruments that these managers are relying on to establish and reinforce differentiation—competitive... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Technology

September–October 2020
Article

Managing Churn to Maximize Profits

By: Aurelie Lemmens and Sunil Gupta

Customer defection threatens many industries, prompting companies to deploy targeted, proactive customer retention programs and offers. A conventional approach has been to target customers either based on their predicted churn probability or their responsiveness to a... View Details

Keywords: Churn Management; Defection Prediction; Loss Function; Stochastic Gradient Boosting; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Profit

SSRN

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February 2001 (Revised June 2002)
Case

Customer Value Measurement at Nortel Networks--Optical Networks Division

By: Das Narayandas

Since 1995, Nortel Networks' Optical Networks (ON) division has been incorporating customer satisfaction and loyalty measures into its business practices to increase customer value. Over the years, key process owners in various parts of the organization have become... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Management Teams; Marketing Strategy; Value Creation; Telecommunications Industry

July 2025
Exercise

Travelogo: Customer Segmentation Instructions

By: Eva Ascarza

Keywords: Algorithmic Decision Making; Marketing; Simulation; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships

June 2013
Case

Olympic Rent-A-Car U.S.: Customer Loyalty Battles

By: John Deighton and James T. Kindley

The marketing and operations managers for Olympic Rent-A-Car meet to decide how to respond to changes in the loyalty rewards program at the market-leading competitor. The competitor's program gives awards based on dollars spent instead of days rented and eliminates... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Competitive Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Auto Industry; Service Industry

February 1988
Case

General Electric: Customer Service

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships

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27 Jul 2022
News

Navigating Peer Relationships While Climbing the Ladder

April 2025 (Revised May 2025)
Background Note

Customer Acquisition and the Cash Flow Trap

By: E. Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups as well as existing firms recognize the need to invest in order to acquire customers for their new ventures. And as each customer is expected at some point to have generated sufficient gross margins to cover their CAC, management expects that, soon enough, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customers; Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management

01 Jul 2002
News

Mismanagement of Customer Loyalty

Keywords: Werner Reinartz, V. Kumar

December 2016
Article

Deal Process Design in Management Buyouts

By: Guhan Subramanian

Management buyouts (MBOs) are an economically and legally significant class of transaction: not only do they account for more than $10 billion in deal volume per year, on average, but they also play an important role in defining the relationship between inside and... View Details

Keywords: Management Buyout; Deal Structuring; Acquisition; Design; Fairness

Read Now

August 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Case

InsideSales.com (A)

By: Frank V. Cespedes

This case focuses on growth requirements for a company moving from its base in SMB customers (Small and Mid-Sized businesses) to Enterprise customers (companies with more than 500 employees). It examines the differences in buying processes, product requirements,... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change And Adaptation; Organizational Design; Talent; Talent Management; Organizations; Growth Management; Sales; Salesforce Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; United States

April 1995 (Revised April 1995)
Case

Pillsbury: Customer Driven Reengineering

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Pillsbury is transforming itself from an integrated producer of flour and bakery products to a value-added supplier of premium branded products. After initial successes applying activity-based costing to manufacturing operations, two senior executives decide to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Food and Beverage Industry

01 Sep 2008
News

Stanford Lets Students Customize

EXCHANGING IDEAS: HBS Dean Jay Light talks with Stanford Dean Robert Joss. Stanford describes its new MBA curriculum, launched last fall, as a “revolutionary change in management education.” It aims to remedy what the school viewed as a... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

2008
Book

Managing Up

By: Linda A. Hill

Managing up is not political game playing. Rather, it's a conscious approach to working with your supervisor toward goals that are important to both of you. Through managing up, you build a productive working relationship with your boss and create a way to use the... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Employees; Managerial Roles; Alliances; Value Creation

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17 Nov 2010
News

Putting the Customer First

Keywords: Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction; Construction; Specialty Trade Contractors; Construction

March 31, 2023
Article

What Is the Optimal Pattern of a Customer Journey?

By: Julian De Freitas

Even though customer experience (CX) leaders are becoming increasingly focused on optimizing their firms’ customer journeys, they face a clear challenge: Which touchpoints along the journey should they invest in? That is, which moments when the customer interacts with... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Customers; Brands and Branding