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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,279)
- News (260)
- Research (886)
- Events (4)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (361)
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- September 2020
- Article
Customer Supercharging in Experience-Centric Channels
By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno
We conjecture that for online retailers, experience-centric offline store formats do not simply expand market coverage, but rather, serve to significantly amplify future positive customer behaviors, both online and offline. We term this phenomenon “supercharging” and... View Details
Keywords: Retail Operations; Marketing-operations Interface; Omnichannel Retailing; Experience Attributes; Quasi-experimental Methods; Operations; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry
Bell, David R., Santiago Gallino, and Antonio Moreno. "Customer Supercharging in Experience-Centric Channels." Management Science 66, no. 9 (September 2020).
- Summer 2025
- Article
Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships
By: Cristian Chica, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas and Jorge Tamayo
A competitive two-period membership (subscription) market is analyzed. Two symmetric firms charge a “membership” fee that allows consumers to buy products or services at a given unit price for both periods. Firms can choose between long- or short-term memberships. When... View Details
Keywords: Competitive Price Discrimination; Membership; Dynamic Competition; Competition; Price; Consumer Behavior; Business Model
Chica, Cristian, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas, and Jorge Tamayo. "Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 34, no. 2 (Summer 2025): 525–556.
- May 1994
- Background Note
Segmenting Customers in Mature Industrial Markets: An Application
In mature industrial markets, segmenting customers by size, industry, or product benefits alone rarely is sufficient. Customer behavior regarding trade-offs between price and service also becomes an important criterion. This note offers a framework to enable such... View Details
Keywords: Segmentation; Framework; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Strategy; Industrial Products Industry
Rangan, V. Kasturi. "Segmenting Customers in Mature Industrial Markets: An Application." Harvard Business School Background Note 594-089, May 1994.
- 21 Apr 2008
- Research & Ideas
The New Math of Customer Relationships
customers. Has this concept taken hold in practice? A: When we observed a number of organizations leading to the original articulation of the service profit chain, we found a common behavior among the most successful ones. In various... View Details
Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne
- June 2016
- Teaching Note
Filene's Basement: Inside a Fired Customer's Relationship
By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier
How, in a business climate in which building relationships with customers has dominated both managerial thought and marketing budgets, could Filene's Basement have fired a loyal customer, one who was formally and informally recognized as a best customer? This case... View Details
- 18 Nov 2009
- HBS Case
Customer Feedback Not on elBulli’s Menu
customers like his product? HBS assistant professor Michael Norton's interest in what motivates seemingly irrational consumer behavior has found a perfect subject in Adrià. To eat at elBulli, View Details
- 13 Feb 2013
- Research & Ideas
5 Weight Loss Tips From Behavioral Economists
week in advance of delivery. Looking to determine how personal decisions made for tomorrow differ from decisions made for several days from now, researchers from Harvard Business School and the Analyst Institute evaluated a year's worth of View Details
Keywords: by Carmen Nobel
- 05 Aug 2010
- What Do You Think?
What Is Customer Opinion Good For?
or less important (because) customers had no sense when it came to entertaining tradeoffs (between features and cost)." Phil Clark commented that, regardless of method or purpose, "It is important to know your View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Operational Impact of Customer Location in On-Demand Services
By: Natalie Epstein, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno
The rapid growth of on-demand delivery services, particularly in the food and grocery sectors, has driven the expansion of hyperlocal fulfillment centers (FCs). This paper uses data from an on-demand grocery delivery platform in Latin America to assess how customer... View Details
Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Logistics; Geographic Location; Service Delivery; Quality; Retail Industry; Latin America
Epstein, Natalie, Santiago Gallino, and Antonio Moreno. "The Operational Impact of Customer Location in On-Demand Services." Working Paper, September 2024.
- May 2011
- Article
Think Customers Hate Waiting? Not So Fast...
By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton
Managers typically look for ways to reduce wait time to increase customer satisfaction. New research suggests there's a better approach: showing customers a representation of the effort, whether literal or not, being expended on their behalf while they wait. (The... View Details
Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Performance Effectiveness; Customer Satisfaction
Buell, Ryan W., and Michael I. Norton. "Think Customers Hate Waiting? Not So Fast..." Harvard Business Review 89, no. 5 (May 2011).
- August 2018 (Revised September 2018)
- Case
Predicting Purchasing Behavior at PriceMart (A)
By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler
This case follows VP of Marketing, Jill Wehunt, and analyst Mark Morse as they tackle a predictive analytics project to increase sales in the Mom & Baby unit of a nationally recognized retailer, PriceMart. Wehunt observed that in the midst of the chaos that surrounded... View Details
Keywords: Data Science; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Consumer Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction
Datar, Srikant M., and Caitlin N. Bowler. "Predicting Purchasing Behavior at PriceMart (A)." Harvard Business School Case 119-025, August 2018. (Revised September 2018.)
- December 2008
- Article
Behavioral Frontiers in Choice Modeling
We review the discussion at a workshop whose goal was to achieve a better integration among behavioral, economic, and statistical approaches to choice modeling. The workshop explored how current approaches to the specification, estimation, and application of choice... View Details
Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Integration; Goals and Objectives; Decision Choices and Conditions; Problems and Challenges; Business Processes; Customers; Behavior; Economics
Adamowicz, Wiktor, David Bunch, Trudy Ann Cameron, Benedict G.C. Dellaert, Michael Hanneman, Michael Keane, Jordan Louviere, Robert Meyer, Thomas J. Steenburgh, and Joffre Swait. "Behavioral Frontiers in Choice Modeling." Marketing Letters 19, nos. 3/4 (December 2008): 215–219.
- January 2003 (Revised September 2007)
- Background Note
A Note on Racing to Acquire Customers
Examines factors that motivate a firm's race to acquire customers in newly emerging markets and explores conditions under which racing strategies are likely to yield attractive returns. Provides a definition of racing behavior, introduces the notion of an optimal level... View Details
Keywords: Customers; Price Bubble; Network Effects; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Behavior; Competition
Eisenmann, Thomas R. "A Note on Racing to Acquire Customers." Harvard Business School Background Note 803-103, January 2003. (Revised September 2007.)
- 24 Feb 2014
- Research & Ideas
Busting Six Myths About Customer Loyalty Programs
percent price advantage. For Asda, short-term profits don't seem to top its list of objectives. Loyalty Systems And Infrequently Purchased Goods Another myth is that loyalty programs do not work in categories that are purchased infrequently or do not affect the View Details
- June 2016
- Teaching Note
Relating to Peapod
By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier
This case concerns the topics of relationship marketing, customer acquisition and retention, brand loyalty, service failure and recovery, new product introduction, and the use of consumer ethnography to study consumer behavior. Specifically, the case explores the... View Details
- 16 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
What Loyalty? High-End Customers are First to Flee
Businesses that offer their customers the highest levels of service might like to believe that all their efforts to pamper and please will pay off with an extremely loyal following. “Customers you might expect to be the most 'stuck' are... View Details
Keywords: by Julia Hanna
- 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
Alvarez, Jose B., and Aldo Sesia. "Customer Loyalty Schemes in the Retail Sector." Harvard Business School Background Note 511-077, March 2011.
- March 2000 (Revised January 2001)
- Background Note
Customers in Health Care, The
By: Richard M.J. Bohmer
Reviews the current literature on the consumers of health care, primarily patients. Discusses their stated preferences, the sources of information they use in making their selections of plan and provider, and their behavior. View Details
Bohmer, Richard M.J. "Customers in Health Care, The." Harvard Business School Background Note 600-118, March 2000. (Revised January 2001.)
- March 31, 2023
- Article
What Is the Optimal Pattern of a Customer Journey?
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
De Freitas, Julian. "What Is the Optimal Pattern of a Customer Journey?" Harvard Business Review (website) (March 31, 2023).
- 2025
- Working Paper
Dynamic Personalization with Multiple Customer Signals: Multi-Response State Representation in Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement learning (RL) offers potential for optimizing sequences of customer interactions by modeling the relationships
between customer states, company actions, and long-term value. However, its practical implementation often faces significant
challenges.... View Details
Keywords: Dynamic Policy; Deep Reinforcement Learning; Representation Learning; Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment; Latent Variable Models; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Foreign Direct Investment; Analytics and Data Science
Ma, Liangzong, Ta-Wei Huang, Eva Ascarza, and Ayelet Israeli. "Dynamic Personalization with Multiple Customer Signals: Multi-Response State Representation in Reinforcement Learning." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-037, February 2025.