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New research on customers from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including customer focus, customer relationship management, and measuring customer satisfaction.
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Delivering a Personalized Shopping Experience with AI

Re: Jill J. Avery

THE YES, a shopping app for fashion brands, uses a sophisticated algorithm to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on her style preferences, size, and budget. After launching the app in 2020, the founders had to decide whether to continue developing the algorithm to deliver on the company’s customer value proposition or to focus their resources on new customer acquisition, with the idea that more users on the app would improve the algorithm's performance. Senior Lecturer Jill Avery and The YES co-founder and CEO Julie Bornstein discuss this make-or-break dilemma in the case, The YES: Reimagining the Future of e-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI). This episode was recorded live at Harvard Business School on March 30, 2022 as part of our Case Method 100 celebration.

How Racial Bias Taints Customer Service: Evidence from 6,000 Hotels

by Pamela Reynolds

Hotel concierges provide better service to white customers than Black and Asian customers, says research by Alexandra Feldberg and colleague. They offer three strategies to help companies detect bias on the front line. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Good News for Disgraced Companies: You Can Regain Trust

by Lane Lambert

Companies skilled at building trust focus on four key elements, say Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta in their book, The Power of Trust. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Do Companies Really Need Chief Experience Officers to Know Their Customers?

by James Heskett

Does it take a CXO or chief customer officer to bring executives closer to the customer experience? James Heskett ponders the value of this increasingly popular role. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Best Buy: How Human Connection Saved a Failing Retailer

by Michael Blanding

In The Heart of Business, former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly shares how he revived the ailing electronics chain, offering a guide to leaders facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Twofold Effect of Customer Retention in Freemium Settings

by Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer, and Julian Runge

Many digital products offer “freemiums”: that is, part of the product for free, often with advertising, and an enhanced customer experience for payment. This research, in a mobile game context, shows the importance of recognizing the short- and long-term effects on customer retention when managing the tradeoffs between free and paid aspects of freemium products.

Can Shared Service Delivery Increase Customer Engagement? A Study of Shared Medical Appointments

by Ryan W. Buell, Kamalini Ramdas, and Nazlı Sönmez

Shared service delivery means that customers are served in groups rather than individually. Results from a large-scale study of glaucoma follow-up appointments at a major eye hospital indicate that shared service delivery can significantly improve patients’ verbal and non-verbal engagement.

The Right Way to Manage Customer Churn for Maximum Profit

by Michael Blanding

Many companies actively manage customer churn but aren't seeking out the best customers to retain, warns Sunil Gupta. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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

by Rohit Deshpandé, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim

The coronavirus makes your customers less able and less willing to spend than before. How should you re-engage with them? Advice from Rohit Deshpandé and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Will Challenged Amazon Tweak Its Retail Model Post-Pandemic?

by James Heskett

James Heskett's readers have little sympathy for Amazon's loss of market share during the pandemic. Has the organization lost its ability to learn? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Following Best Business Practices Can Improve Health Care

by Sean Silverthorne

Why do Harvard Business School scholars spend so much time and money analyzing health care delivery? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Entrepreneurs Can Find the Right Problem to Solve

by Julia Austin

Identifying a customer's pain points is the first step for entrepreneurs in developing a new product. Julia Austin offers tips for choosing the right "job to be done." Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Upside of Highlighting a Product's Downsides

by Danielle Kost

Companies want to show their offerings in the best light. Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi find out what happens when they also embrace transparency, accentuating the positive—and the negative. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Identify Great Customers from Their First Purchase

by Kristen Senz

Using data from their very first transaction, companies can identify shoppers who will create the best long-term value, says Eva Ascarza. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Making a Comeback

by Jen McFarland Flint

Left for dead alongside the retail highway, physical stores are suddenly finding new ways to compete, say Jill Avery and Antonio Moreno. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market

by Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan, and Francesco Franzoni

Despite the rise of alternative trading platforms, high-touch broker trading remains prominent in institutional equity markets. The authors analyze how fees, research, quality of execution, and information can help explain how execution decisions and preferences vary across investors.

Improving Customer Compatibility with Operational Transparency

by Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi

Service firms seeking prospective customers usually highlight the advantages of their offerings and downplay the tradeoffs. This study suggests a different approach: Provide transparency into advantages as well as tradeoffs. The transparency helps customers make informed decisions and can lead to better outcomes for both firms and customers over the long run.

Deconstructing 'Customer Experience'

by Sean Silverthorne

Providing great customer service is no longer the responsibility of just one department. Today it's called "customer experience," and everyone in the company is responsible for exceeding expectations. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Airbnb Lesson for Startups? Success Takes More Than Technology

by Danielle Kost

As investors speculate about the timing of an Airbnb IPO, Thales S. Teixeira discusses the analog tactics and economic conditions that helped catapult the company. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Infographic: Can I Please Speak to an Actual Person?

by Katherine Vizcardo and Danielle Kost

Customers still want the option to access human help in automated service—even if they don't use it, says research by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell. Open for comment; 0 Comments.