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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(2,490)
- People (2)
- News (547)
- Research (1,701)
- Events (3)
- Multimedia (9)
- Faculty Publications (947)
- 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
- 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.)
- 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.)
- 19 Feb 2014
- News
Choosing the Right Customer
- 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
- 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).
- April 2006
- Background Note
Designing Sustainable Service Models
By: Frances X. Frei
Taught as the second module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations. Addresses the challenge of designing service models that effectively incorporate a customer operating role, as well as how to align operations to deliver value to both the... View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Customers; Design; Managerial Roles; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Power and Influence; Value
Frei, Frances X. "Designing Sustainable Service Models." Harvard Business School Background Note 606-031, April 2006.
- 21 Sep 2011
- News
Innovators don't ignore customers
- 03 Feb 2003
- Research & Ideas
Web Services
service technologies from a provider, customer, and investor perspective. Customers are concerned with integration and driving down costs, said Steven Lewis, Microsoft's general manager of .net market... 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.
- 31 Jul 2012
- News
When to Disappoint Your Customers
- Research Summary
Managing Customer Information
By: Frances X. Frei
After a service offering is implemented, firms routinely collect significant
amounts of data, including customer, employee, and firm financial data. However,
service firms are not nearly as effective as they could be in taking advantage
of these data. This research... View Details
- Research Summary
Service Excellence by Design
By: Frances X. Frei
This research addresses how to design sustainable service models that deliver ongoing value to both customers and the firm. In particular, the research reveals three principles of effective service management (see
View Details
- Research Summary
The Value Profit Chain: Treat Employees Like Customers and Customers Like Employees
By: W. Earl Sasser
W. Earl Sasser, Jr., Leonard A. Schlesinger, and James L. Heskett complted a multi-firm study that provides further empirical verification of relationships established in their earlier examinations of 'breakthrough' service and the service profit chain.... View Details
- June 2018
- Article
Personal and Social Usage: The Origins of Active Customers and Ways to Keep Them Engaged
By: Clarence Lee, Elie Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh
We study how digital service firms can develop an active customer base, focusing on two questions. First, how does the way that customers use the service postadoption to meet their own needs (personal usage) and to interact with one another (social usage) vary across... View Details
Keywords: Customer Engagement; Adoption Routes; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Marketing; Bayesian Estimation; Customers; Communication; Consumer Behavior; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science
Lee, Clarence, Elie Ofek, and Thomas Steenburgh. "Personal and Social Usage: The Origins of Active Customers and Ways to Keep Them Engaged." Management Science 64, no. 6 (June 2018): 2473–2495. (Lead Article.)
- Program
Transforming Customer Experiences
Summary Superior customer service can differentiate your business in the marketplace—if you design the right offerings and execute flawlessly. Led by HBS thought leaders who are experts in View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Are You a Guest Here? Field Experiments on Racial Discrimination in Customer Service
By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim
- 11 Apr 2000
- Research & Ideas
Financial Services 24/7
financial services. Its user-friendly interface is designed so that customers only need to fill out one application for all the products it offers. The services that Wingspanbank offers include checking and... View Details
Keywords: by Susan Young
- 21 Aug 2019
- Working Paper Summaries