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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(3,000)
- People (4)
- News (722)
- Research (1,826)
- Events (3)
- Multimedia (10)
- Faculty Publications (1,008)
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- March 2001 (Revised March 2002)
- Background Note
Service Recovery
Discusses the value of service recovery to service organizations working to enhance customer loyalty. Also provides practical advice to managers and examines strategies proven helpful to service organizations in their recovery objectives. View Details
Hallowell, Roger H. "Service Recovery." Harvard Business School Background Note 801-342, March 2001. (Revised March 2002.)
- April 1987
- Supplement
Inland Steel Co. Product Policy, Video 3: Customer and Technical Services
By: Benson P. Shapiro and Lawrence B. Levine
Shapiro, Benson P., and Lawrence B. Levine. "Inland Steel Co. Product Policy, Video 3: Customer and Technical Services." Harvard Business School Video Supplement 887-541, April 1987.
- February 19, 2018
- Article
The Parts of Customer Service That Should Never Be Automated
By: Ryan W. Buell
Buell, Ryan W. "The Parts of Customer Service That Should Never Be Automated." Harvard Business Review (website) (February 19, 2018).
- Research Summary
Dynamic Customer Relationship Management
Professor Lemon's work on dynamic customer relationships provides insight into how the customer's view of the relationship changes over time. Her research shows that current customers will adjust usage levels of a service in response to firm price changes in order to... View Details
- 2015
- Book
What Great Service Leaders Know and Do: Creating Breakthroughs in Service Firms
Based on decades of collective field experiences, the authors present anecdotal evidence in support of eight things that great service leaders know and do. Great service leaders know that (1) leading a breakthrough service is different, and they take steps to ensure... View Details
Heskett, James L., W. Earl Sasser, and Leonard A. Schlesinger. What Great Service Leaders Know and Do: Creating Breakthroughs in Service Firms. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2015.
- September 2015 (Revised March 2025)
- Technical Note
FIELD Global Capstone: Developing Customer Empathy
By: Jill Avery
The Design Thinking process begins with empathizing with potential customers. Empathizing, being aware of, interpreting, and understanding the thoughts of others, as well as being able to vicariously experience them oneself, requires the careful and deliberate study of... View Details
Keywords: Market Research; Design Thinking; Customer Behavior; Ethnography; Interviews; Surveys; A/B Testing; Experimentation; Marketing; Customer Focus and Relationships; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers
Avery, Jill. "FIELD Global Capstone: Developing Customer Empathy." Harvard Business School Technical Note 316-082, September 2015. (Revised March 2025.)
- June 2019
- Case
Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers
By: Thales S. Teixeira
By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were among the highest-growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products, or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details
Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-Sided Markets; Digital Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Two-Sided Platforms; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Customers; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation
Teixeira, Thales S. "Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers." Harvard Business School Case 519-087, June 2019.
- March 2002 (Revised May 2007)
- Case
Customer Profitability and Customer Relationship Management at RBC Financial Group (Abridged)
By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem
The Royal Bank of Canada uses customer relationship management and customer profitability tools to gain a competitive advantage in Canada's increasingly crowded financial services market. The case presents two pricing and customer management issues: one from the point... View Details
Keywords: Customers; Customer Relationship Management; Price; Perspective; Marketing; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada
Narayanan, V.G., and Lisa Brem. "Customer Profitability and Customer Relationship Management at RBC Financial Group (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 102-072, March 2002. (Revised May 2007.)
- February 2002 (Revised March 2002)
- Case
Customer Profitability and Customer Relationship Management at RBC Financial Group
By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem
The Royal Bank of Canada uses customer relationship management and customer profitability tools to gain a competitive advantage in Canada's increasingly crowded financial services market. The case presents two pricing and customer management issues: one from the point... View Details
Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Price; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing; Customer Value and Value Chain; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada
Narayanan, V.G., and Lisa Brem. "Customer Profitability and Customer Relationship Management at RBC Financial Group." Harvard Business School Case 102-043, February 2002. (Revised March 2002.)
- February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service
By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover
Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details
Keywords: Data As A Service; Monetization; Pricing; Business Startups; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Analysis; Business Model; Health Pandemics; Information Industry; United States
Nanda, Ramana, Abhishek Nagaraj, and Allison Ciechanover. "SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service." Harvard Business School Case 821-082, February 2021. (Revised May 2021.)
- July 1998 (Revised October 2004)
- Case
Custom Research Inc. (A)
By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Susan Harmeling
Custom Research is considering terminating service to many clients to eliminate unprofitable work and concentrate on the more profitable client projects. View Details
Bruns, William J., Jr., and Susan Harmeling. "Custom Research Inc. (A)." Harvard Business School Case 199-001, July 1998. (Revised October 2004.)
- 2013
- Working Paper
Where do the Most Active Customers Originate and How Can Firms Keep Them Engaged?
By: Clarence Lee, E. Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh
In this paper, we study how firms offering Web services can acquire and develop an active customer base. We focus on two basic questions. First, how does the method of customer acquisition affect the way customers use the service to meet their own needs and to interact... View Details
- March 2020 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Wachtell Lipton: Focused Excellence
By: Ashish Nanda and Margaret Cross
For years, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz—a small, New York City law firm—has consistently boasted the highest profits per partner and one of the highest “prestige” ratings among U.S.-based law firms. The firm has remained loyal to a distinctive strategy ever since its... View Details
Nanda, Ashish, and Margaret Cross. "Wachtell Lipton: Focused Excellence." Harvard Business School Case 720-396, March 2020. (Revised March 2022.)
- January 2005 (Revised June 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Influencing Customer Behavior
By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar
At Zipcar, customers share the use of cars and, as a result, rely on each other for their service experience. Customers are required to keep the car clean and the gas tank full and to return the car on time. Told from the perspective of two customers: Sal Fishman, who... View Details
Keywords: Information Technology; Governance Controls; Behavior; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Consumer Behavior; Leasing; Service Industry; Service Industry; United States
Frei, Frances X., and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar. "Zipcar: Influencing Customer Behavior." Harvard Business School Case 605-054, January 2005. (Revised June 2005.)
- January–February 2018
- Article
Some Customers Would Rather Leave Without Saying Goodbye
By: Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer and Bruce G.S. Hardie
We investigate the increasingly common business setting in which companies face the possibility of both observed and unobserved customer attrition (i.e., “overt” and “silent” churn) in the same pool of customers. This is the case for many online-based services where... View Details
Keywords: Churn; Retention; Attrition; Customer Base Analysis; Hidden Markov Models; Latent Variable Models; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior
Ascarza, Eva, Oded Netzer, and Bruce G.S. Hardie. "Some Customers Would Rather Leave Without Saying Goodbye." Marketing Science 37, no. 1 (January–February 2018): 54–77.
- Research Summary
How to Manage Customers for Increased Profits and Customer Satisfaction
By: Frances X. Frei
For many service firms, the customer plays an important role in contributing to the cost and/or quality of the service. This is very different than many manufacturing contexts, for example, where the firm has virtually complete control over product cost and quality. ... View Details
- April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity
By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery
This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the... View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Salesforce Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Information Technology Industry
Steenburgh, Thomas, and Jill Avery. "EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity." Harvard Business School Case 511-124, April 2011. (Revised May 2011.)
- Fall 2020
- Article
Competing on Customer Outcomes
By: Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg
Customers ultimately want to pay for meaningful outcomes, not the products and services that presumably deliver them. Today, companies can be increasingly accountable for those outcomes with three kinds of technologically-enhanced revenue models. Adopt one to better... View Details
Keywords: Market Positioning; Revenue Strategy; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Strategy; Business Model; Value Creation
Bertini, Marco, and Oded Koenigsberg. "Competing on Customer Outcomes." MIT Sloan Management Review 62, no. 1 (Fall 2020).
- 2008
- Working Paper
Contracting for Servicizing
Servicizing, a novel business practice that sells product functionality rather than products, has been touted as an environmentally beneficial business practice. This paper describes how servicizing transactions mitigate some problems associated with sales... View Details
Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Contracts; Market Transactions; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Sales
Toffel, Michael W. "Contracting for Servicizing." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 08-063, February 2008. (February 2008.)
- fall 1996
- Article
Internal Service Quality, Customer and Job Satisfaction: Linkages and Implications for Managers
By: Roger Hallowell, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Jeffrey Zornitsky