Publications

SSRN

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 dissenting points of view and... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

May 2016 (Revised September 2016)
Case

Hillside Beach Club: Delivering the Ultimate Family Vacation in the Mediterranean

By: Rajiv Lal and Gamze Yucaoglu

In 2015, Edip Ilkbahar, HBC’s founder and CEO, was looking over the plans for a new branch in Cyprus. Since the inception of the company by the Alarko Group of companies in 1994, Ilkbahar’s company had enjoyed high occupancy, high guest satisfaction, and high... View Details

19 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Supply Learning on Customer Demand: Model and Estimation Methodology

Keywords: by Nathan Craig, Nicole DeHoratius & Ananth Raman; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion

Web

Research Staff Services - Faculty & Research

graduate degrees. The diversity in the School’s RA pool truly exemplifies the global nature of the research work that is being pursued at HBS. Overview of Team The diversely trained individuals that comprise the five member staff of RSS are dedicated to providing... View Details

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 "churn" in marketing parlance,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Service; Service

May 2016
Case

OPET: Precision Marketing in Uncertain Times

By: Rajiv Lal, Esel Çekin and Eren Kuzucu

During Timucin Guler’s decade at OPET, a prominent fuel distributor in Turkey, he transformed the definition of marketing in the company. Under Guler’s lead, OPET, once a local player in the downstream distribution market, became the second largest fuel distributor in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Customer Service; Emerging Market; Focusing On Customers; Competition; Turkey; Loyalty Program; Marketing Strategy; Downstream Distribution; Customer Relationship Management; Energy Industry; Turkey

Article

How to Shift from Selling Products to Selling Services

By: Doug J. Chung

Only a few years ago, most software companies sold seat licenses for their products, charging customers on the basis of head count. But today, software is typically provided using cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models that charge customers fees for... View Details

Keywords: SaaS Business Models; Sales; Management; Business Model; Salesforce Management; Applications and Software; Customer Relationship Management

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2011
Case

The Haidilao Company

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming and Ziqian Zhao

Haidilao Hot Pot brings customers delightful dining experiences. Like most restaurants, its workforce is mostly composed of young employees born in underdeveloped suburban areas. Instilled with the founder's unique entrepreneurial values, they are enthused and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Customer Service; Employee Empowerment; Global Corporate Cultures; Organizational Values; Transformations; China; Restaurants; China

30 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

How Your Employees and Customers Drive a New Value Profit Chain

recognizes the involvement of sales, customer service, and field service personnel in this effort. It combines information obtained from the field along with that assembled at headquarters from other sources... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Mahoney

January 2001
Case

Achieving Customer Satisfaction at Pizza Hut (B)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Food; Customer Satisfaction; Quality; Marketing; Service Industry; Service Industry

Web

Managing Service Operations - Course Catalog

HBS Course Catalog Managing Service Operations Course Number 2120 Professor Ryan Buell Senior Lecturer Robert Markey Fall; Q1Q2; 3.0 credits 28 Sessions Paper/Project Service is the business of people... View Details

2016
Working Paper

Operations in the On-Demand Economy: Staffing Services with Self-Scheduling Capacity

By: Itai Gurvich, Martin Lariviere and Antonio Moreno

Motivated by recent innovations in service delivery such as ride-sharing services and work-from-home call centers, we study capacity management when workers self-schedule. Our service provider chooses capacity to maximize its profit (revenue from served customers minus... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Servers; On-demand Economy; Independent Capacity; Distributed Systems; Uber; Service Operations; Performance Capacity

SSRN

Web

Research Computing Services - Faculty & Research

Research Services Research Computing Services 9ms Research Computing Services (RCS) is a centralized service dedicated to assisting with faculty... View Details

June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Case

Babcom: Opening Doors

By: Ryan W. Buell, Joshua D. Margolis and Margot Eiran

Keywords: Leadership; Service Operations; Customer Service; Talent Management; Human Resources; Growth; Middle East

March 2007
Teaching Note

Understanding Customer Profitability at Charles Schwab (TN)

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez

Teaching note to 106002. View Details

Keywords: Customers; Profit; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Decision Making; Cost; System; Transformation; Budgets and Budgeting; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

Web

Tools & Services | Information Technology

leaders who make a difference in the world. We ’ re here to help you identify and implement flexible and easy-to-use tools that empower you to teach, learn, and work more effectively every day. Browse our services to discover what you can... View Details

13 Jul 2016
HBS Case

How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers

find first—the customer chicken or the service egg? “As a small company you cannot afford to focus on both with the same amount of effort. You may need to prioritize one side.” Preparing to teach a new... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Service; Service; Service

10 Jul 2017
Op-Ed

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

Consumers delight in using smartphones to record their experiences and surroundings, but for businesses, such devices present tricky challenges. Suppose a customer encounters a hair in her food, a spill in an aisle, or a rude clerk.... View Details

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman; Service; Service; Service; Service

2023
Working Paper

Targeting, Personalization, and Engagement in an Agricultural Advisory Service

By: Susan Athey, Shawn Cole, Shanjukta Nath and Jessica Zhu

ICT is increasingly used to deliver customized information in developing countries. We examine whether individually targeting the timing of automated voice calls meaningfully increases engagement in an agricultural advisory service. We define, estimate, and... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Knowledge Dissemination; Customization and Personalization; Performance Effectiveness