Publications

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14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Keeping Your Balance With Customers

From product push to customer pull, technology has vastly reshaped the business transaction—and in turn, the customer's place in the value chain. Today, managing the customer relationship has become the... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

Research Summary

Customer Management in Business-to-Business Markets

By: Das Narayandas

Das Narayandas is engaged in ongoing research on vendor firms' management of long-term customer relationships. The initial phase of his research involved identifying vendors that stood to benefit from long-term relationships with select sets of customers and... View Details

04 Jan 2021
Working Paper Summaries

The Twofold Effect of Customer Retention in Freemium Settings

Keywords: by Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer, and Julian Runge; Video Game; Entertainment & Recreation

13 May 2013
News

The Personal Touch

Alex Timken has led all three Class of 1996 Reunion Campaigns, including a record-breaking 15th Reunion. That campaign raised more than $3 million, with Timken’s Section H achieving 57 percent participation, the highest in the class. Timken’s face-to-face meetings with... View Details

23 May 2012
News

Start-Up Customer Service 101

June 2002
Background Note

Note on Customer Management

By: Das Narayandas

Lays out a framework for the management of customers using examples of forms in a variety of industries. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Framework

October 2000 (Revised December 2002)
Background Note

Note on Customer Management

By: Das Narayandas

Describes a process for managing customers for profit. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Value

2001
Article

Customizing Careers

By: James Waldroop and Timothy Butler

Keywords: Personal Development and Career

20 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

How to be a Customer

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.99 percent of marketing focuses on how to sell to customers. Very little attention is paid... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

16 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Your Customers Have Changed. Here's How to Engage Them Again.

The coronavirus shock has disrupted more than jobs, supply chains, and financial markets. Your customer has changed fundamentally, too. The number one task for many companies now is discovering where their... View Details

Keywords: by Rohit Deshpandé, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim; Retail; Service

January 2013
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture (MM)

By: Frances X. Frei and Robin J. Ely

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately-held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft-line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its Board of Directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

June 2007
Article

Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them

By: Gail McGovern and Youngme Moon

Keywords: Customers; Business Ventures

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February 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Teaching Note

Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys

By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang

Teaching Note for HBS Exercise 524-044. The exercise aims to teach students about 1) Customer Segmentation; and 2) constructing buying personas, 3) Get actionable insights from clickstream data. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Analysis; Analytics and Data Science; Marketing Strategy; Segmentation; Consumer Behavior; Travel Industry; United States

1980
Chapter

Consumer Satisfaction with Appliances and Personal Care Equipment

By: S. Ash, M. Grant and J. Quelch

January 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Citibank: Global Customer Management

By: Michael Y. Yoshino and Thomas W. Malnight

Describes Citibank's worldwide operations, which include activities in developing and developed markets. The bank's structure also varies across markets and regions, varying from autonomous national affiliates to an industry/product-based structure in its domestic U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Global Range; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; SWOT Analysis; Emerging Markets; Banking Industry; United States

September 1996 (Revised March 1999)
Background Note

Sustaining Superior Profits: Customer and Supplier Relationships

Explains relationships between asset specificity, holdup, and vertical integration. In particular, it emphasizes solutions to the holdup problem through vertical integration and contracting. View Details

Keywords: Competition; Vertical Integration

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

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December 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

ACTC Customer Service Department

Focuses on the young general manager of a new cable TV system and on its customer service department. Jeanne LaFrance, the general manager, has an uneasy feeling about the way in which the department is being managed. She sees symptoms of what she suspects are serious... View Details

Keywords: Management; Problems and Challenges; Planning; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Telecommunications Industry