Publications

January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Course Overview Note

Managing Customers for Growth: Course Overview for Students

By: Eva Ascarza

Managing Customers for Growth (MCG) is a 14-session elective course for second-year MBA students at Harvard Business School. It is designed for business professionals engaged in roles centered on customer-driven growth activities. The course explores the dynamics of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Decision Making; Analytics and Data Science; Growth Management; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

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

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

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: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

January 1997
Background Note

Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance

By: Benson P. Shapiro

Provides an integrated framework for creating customer value and managing the firm profitably. Focuses on the use of product/service line management and effective customer service to achieve customer satisfaction and high profitability. View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Framework; Performance Efficiency; Sales; Business Strategy; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Product Marketing; Business or Company Management

17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Let Customers Call the Shots

technologies could be used to create a captive one-to-one relationship between firms and consumers, so that customers could literally be viewed as assets. We should start to realize that things are not that simple. Ultimately, a... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

21 Mar 2016
HBS Case

Can Customer Reviews Be 'Managed?'

This is a lesson that actually applies to any consumer category really. I would say with pretty much any product or service that somebody is selling, word-of-mouth is always going to be important. So for the marketers that are out there... View Details

Keywords: by Brian Kenny; Advertising; Travel

16 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

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

further forced changes to customers and hence firm-based behaviors. The outcome of customers’ health and fears has resulted not in a traditional recession but a “deaccession,” where supply and demand exist, but customer-access to products... View Details

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

Research Summary

The Role of the Internet in Enhancing Service and Reducing Cost

Is delivering service (both internal and external) facilitated by the Internet a zero sum game in which costs associated with delivering superior service must always be passed on to customers in the form of higher prices? Does the quantity and type of service... View Details

25 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

How Do Incumbents Fare in the Face of Increased Service Competition?

Keywords: by Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell & Frances X. Frei; Banking

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rob Markey

Most companies' leaders declare their commitment to delivering value to customers. Many have adopted language such as "customer-centric" or "customer-obsessed." Companies that consistently earn top marks for customer loyalty in their industry deliver total shareholder... View Details

Keywords: Customer Base Analysis; Customer Lifetime Value; Customer Experience; Customer Loyalty; Service Profit Chain; Management Accounting; Project Evaluation And Resource Allocation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Satisfaction; Valuation; Customer Focus and Relationships

September 2000
Background Note

Professional Services Module Five: Serving Clients Effectively

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Ashish Nanda and Scot H. Landry

It is imperative for the internal systems and processes to be connected to the external processes of client management, competitive adaptation, and service delivery. View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Service Delivery; Performance Effectiveness; Adaptation; Competitive Strategy

December 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Managing Diversity at Cityside Financial Services

By: Robin J. Ely and Ingrid Vargas

Cityside Financial Services, a disguised consumer bank, serves both a largely African-American urban community and a more affluent, predominantly white clientele. To match the gender and racial makeup of its staff to that of its customers, Cityside's sales division... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Situation or Environment; Race; Employees; Gender; Customer Satisfaction; Diversity; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

2015
Working Paper

Customers and Investors: A Framework for Understanding Financial Institutions

By: Robert C. Merton and Robert T. Thakor

Financial institutions have both investors and customers. Investors, such as those who invest in stocks and bonds or private/public-sector guarantors of institutions, expect an appropriate risk-adjusted return in exchange for the financing and risk-bearing that they... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions

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November 2007
Article

A Model of Consumer Learning for Service Quality and Usage

By: Raghuram Iyengar, Asim Ansari and Sunil Gupta

In many services, e.g., the wireless service industry, consumers choose a service plan based on their expected consumption. In such situations, consumers experience two forms of uncertainty. First, consumers may be uncertain about the quality of their service provider... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Customer Value and Value Chain; Learning; Price; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Service Delivery; Quality; Risk and Uncertainty; Service Industry

Read Now

26 Mar 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

Keywords: by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell; Health

09 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

The Manager’s Guide to Communicating with Customers Collection

Are you reaching your customers? The key is knowing who they are and what they want To appeal to retail customers you need to understand what makes them tick. What better way to do that than by studying actual consumer behavior? A great... View Details

Keywords: by Richard Bierck; Retail

August 2022 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Bajaj Finance: Building an Omnipresent Financial Services Firm

By: Das Narayandas and Rachna Tahilyani

Bajaj Finance, India’s largest consumer finance firm with $20.9 billion of assets across 50.5 million customers, is on a journey to transform itself from a traditional firm that sells loans and other financial products through brick-and-mortar outlets to an omnipresent... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Transformation; Financial Instruments; Customer Satisfaction; Internet and the Web; Customer Focus and Relationships; India

Forthcoming
Article

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

By: Michelle A. Kinch and Ryan W. Buell

Prior research in social psychology has shown that when people feel anxious, they seek advice from others. However, companies that operate in high-anxiety settings (like financial services, health care, and education) are increasingly deploying self-service... View Details

Keywords: Anxiety; Self-service; Empirical Operations; Behavioral Operations; Communication Technology; Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; Trust; Satisfaction; Financial Services Industry

June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Growing from One Thousand to One Million Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive 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 Platforms; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Growth Management; Service Industry