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-
All HBS Web
(2,533)
- People (2)
- News (534)
- Research (1,643)
- Events (3)
- Multimedia (9)
- Faculty Publications (908)
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- 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...
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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.)
- 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...
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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.
- 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...
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- 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...
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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.)
- 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...
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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. ...
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- 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...
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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).
- fall 1996
- Article
Internal Service Quality, Customer and Job Satisfaction: Linkages and Implications for Managers
By: Roger Hallowell, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Jeffrey Zornitsky
- 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...
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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.)
- 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...
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- 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...
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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.)
- 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....
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- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Technical Note
Customer Data Privacy
By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang
This note provides an overview of the evolving landscape of customer data privacy in 2023. It highlights two pivotal aspects that make privacy a central concern for businesses: building and maintaining customer trust and navigating the intricate regulatory...
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Keywords:
Customer Relationship Management;
Governance Compliance;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Reputation;
Trust;
Information Management;
Financial Services Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Europe;
United States
Ascarza, Eva, and Ta-Wei Huang. "Customer Data Privacy." Harvard Business School Technical Note 524-005, November 2023. (Revised March 2024.)
- March 1993 (Revised April 1995)
- Case
IBM After-Sales Service
IBM has established a service delivery system to provide service and maintenance parts for its installed base of computers. The case outlines the competitive pressures IBM faces from alternative providers of maintenance services (e.g. other OEMs, third-party...
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Keywords:
Service Delivery;
Service Operations;
Supply Chain;
Supply Chain Management;
Logistics;
Operations;
Distribution;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Competitive Strategy;
Computer Industry
Hammond, Janice H. "IBM After-Sales Service." Harvard Business School Case 693-001, March 1993. (Revised April 1995.)
- 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...
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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 Aug 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Improving Customer Compatibility with Operational Transparency
- 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...
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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.
- 2017
- Working Paper
Are You a Guest Here? Field Experiments on Racial Discrimination in Customer Service
By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim
- Research Summary
Overview
By: Ryan W. Buell
From creating flight itineraries online, to interacting with tellers to complete complex banking transactions, to engaging with the government to address civic problems, customers are playing an increasingly vital role in the performance of operations in a broadening...
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Keywords:
Service Operations;
Customer Satisfaction;
Customer Retention;
Customer Behavior;
Operational Transparency;
Customer Compatibility;
Engagement;
Customers;
Decision Making;
Design;
Management;
Operations;
Quality;
Relationships;
Social Psychology;
Technology;
Value;
Service Industry;
Service Industry;
Service Industry;
Service Industry;
Service Industry;
Service Industry
- March 2001 (Revised May 2001)
- Case
&Samhoud Service Management
By: Thomas J. DeLong, Ashish Nanda and Monica Mullick
&Samhoud, a small service management consulting firm in the Netherlands, grapples with the dilemma of firing its largest client while introducing Heskett's theory of the service profit chain.
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Keywords:
Mission and Purpose;
Management Practices and Processes;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customer Relationship Management;
Consulting Industry;
Netherlands
DeLong, Thomas J., Ashish Nanda, and Monica Mullick. "&Samhoud Service Management." Harvard Business School Case 801-398, March 2001. (Revised May 2001.)