Filter Results:
(5,760)
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(10,650)
- People (28)
- News (2,535)
- Research (5,760)
- Events (71)
- Multimedia (100)
- Faculty Publications (3,949)
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(10,650)
- People (28)
- News (2,535)
- Research (5,760)
- Events (71)
- Multimedia (100)
- Faculty Publications (3,949)
Sort by
- 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
- 21 Jan 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Learning from Customers in Outsourcing: Individual and Organizational Effects
- 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.
- 11 Nov 2013
- Research & Ideas
A Smarter Way to Reduce Customer Defections
often fail to take into account the complete value of the customers they are trying to retain. "What's missing from traditional methods is that they focus only on a customer's likelihood to churn, but not... View Details
- July 2008
- Case
Hilton Hotels: Brand Differentiation through Customer Relationship Management
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Gabriele Piccoli and Chekitan Dev
This case analyzes the Hilton Hotels Corporation's CRM strategy at a key juncture in its history, immediately after the firm has been taken private by Blackstone. The case provides students with a comprehensive history of the evolution and IT enablers of Hilton's CRM... View Details
Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Privatization; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology; Accommodations Industry
Applegate, Lynda M., Gabriele Piccoli, and Chekitan Dev. "Hilton Hotels: Brand Differentiation through Customer Relationship Management." Harvard Business School Case 809-029, July 2008.
- 24 Oct 2023
- Research & Ideas
When Tech Platforms Identify Black-Owned Businesses, White Customers Buy
Democratic-leaning areas. And new customers of Black-owned businesses were more likely to be white, based on an analysis of reviewers’ profile photos, relative to prior customers. Luca and his coauthors also... View Details
- 21 Oct 2002
- Research & Ideas
The Parable of the Bungled Baggage And the Unhappy Customer
program identifies our very best customers. And our very best customers often fly one or two times a week. Now, you're not in that category of frequent flyers, but because you're talking with the top... View Details
Keywords: by W. Earl Sasser
- 07 Apr 2020
- Research & Ideas
What Customers Need to Hear from You During the COVID Crisis
empathy, to act based on facts, and to be part of the global solution. About the Authors Dr. Jill Avery is an authority on brand management and customer relationship management... View Details
Keywords: by Jill Avery and Richard Edelman
- 2019
- Working Paper
Relative Performance Transparency: Effects on Sustainable Choices
By: Ryan W. Buell, Shwetha Mariadassou and Yanchong Zheng
We study how transparency into the levels and changes of relative sustainability performance affects consumer choices. Our work considers two forms of transparency: process transparency, in which customers receive information about the company's sustainability... View Details
Keywords: Relative Performance Tranparency; Process Transparency; Customer Transparency; Levels; Changes; Reflectiveness; Self-serving Attribution Biases; Sustainability; Consumer Choice
Buell, Ryan W., Shwetha Mariadassou, and Yanchong Zheng. "Relative Performance Transparency: Effects on Sustainable Choices." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-079, January 2019.
- 2009
- Book
Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization
By: Ranjay Gulati
In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why?... View Details
Keywords: Competency and Skills; Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Cooperation
Gulati, Ranjay. Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization. Harvard Business Press, 2009.
- 21 Jul 2003
- Research & Ideas
Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It
Future (Currency/Doubleday), focuses on share of customer: Using the insights about what makes your most loyal customers different to maximize the value of those relationships.... View Details
Keywords: by Jean Ayers
- 25 Oct 2012
- Research & Ideas
10 Reasons Customers Might Resist Windows 8
prove successful. "Competitors certainly resist the change," Kanter says. "They are going to do everything they can to try to capitalize on any wary customer and fan the flames of user... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets
By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu
We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to more product returns in the online retail industry. Using detailed sales data of more than two million transactions from the Indian online retail market, where price promotions are very common, we document two types of... View Details
Keywords: Cash On Delivery; Dynamic Pricing; Online Retail; Payment Methods; Strategic Customer Behavior; Opportunistic Returns; Price; Policy; Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Retail Industry
Bandi, Chaithanya, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe, and Zhiji Xu. "Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-030, September 2018.
- 30 Mar 2003
- Research & Ideas
How Your Employees and Customers Drive a New Value Profit Chain
same. Allocating resources to retain the most profitable and to induce customer behaviors that lead to greater profitability is the key to survival. Typically, 20 percent of the customers or clients are... View Details
Keywords: by Manda Mahoney
- June 1997
- Article
Customization or Conformity? An Institutional and Network Perspective on the Content and Consequences of TQM Adoption
By: Ranjay Gulati, James Westphal and Steve Shortell
Gulati, Ranjay, James Westphal, and Steve Shortell. "Customization or Conformity? An Institutional and Network Perspective on the Content and Consequences of TQM Adoption." Administrative Science Quarterly 42, no. 2 (June 1997): 366–394. (Winner of Academy of Management. Organization and Management Theory Division. Best Paper Award For the empirical or conceptual paper submitted to the Academy of Management annual meeting that offers a significant contribution to the field of organization and management theory presented by Academy of Management. Also appeared in the Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings.)
- 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
- 2012
- Book
Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business
By: Frances Frei and Anne Morriss
Most companies treat service as a low-priority business operation, keeping it out of the spotlight until a customer complains. Then service gets to make a brief appearance—for as long as it takes to calm the customer down and fix whatever foul-up jeopardized the... View Details
Frei, Frances, and Anne Morriss. Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business. Cambridge: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
- 13 Jul 2016
- HBS Case
How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers
who have rides to offer. (Same idea as Airbnb, which connects people needing rooms with home-owners.) So to launch as a platform service, these companies need to find users on both the supply and demand sides. “Poaching View Details
- 01 Apr 2024
- In Practice
Navigating the Mood of Customers Weary of Price Hikes
businesses need to know in 2024. Alexander MacKay: Focus on finding balance Since 2021, as companies faced supply shocks and changes to demand in an inflationary period, executives have increasingly focused... View Details
- August 2009
- Case
The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien, Chintay Shih and Jack Chang
When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details
Keywords: Disruption; Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Production; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan
Shih, Willy C., Chen-Fu Chien, Chintay Shih, and Jack Chang. "The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co." Harvard Business School Case 610-003, August 2009.