Customers
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- 16 Jun 2020
- COVID-19
Your Customers Have Changed. Here's How to Engage Them Again.
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 01 Jun 2020
- What Do You Think?
Will Challenged Amazon Tweak Its Retail Model Post-Pandemic?
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 27 Feb 2020
- Sharpening Your Skills
How Best Business Practices Can Improve Health Care
Why do Harvard Business School scholars spend so much time and money analyzing health care delivery? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 17 Feb 2020
- Sharpening Your Skills
How Entrepreneurs Can Find the Right Problem to Solve
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 30 Jan 2020
- Research & Ideas
The Upside of Highlighting a Product's Downsides
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 09 Dec 2019
- Research & Ideas
Identify Great Customers from Their First Purchase
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 28 Oct 2019
- Research & Ideas
Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Making a Comeback
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 05 Sep 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market
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.
- 21 Aug 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Improving Customer Compatibility with Operational Transparency
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.
- 11 Jul 2019
- Sharpening Your Skills
Deconstructing 'Customer Experience'
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 01 Jul 2019
- Research & Ideas
The Airbnb Lesson for Startups? Success Takes More Than Technology
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 15 Apr 2019
- Research & Ideas
Infographic: Can I Please Speak to an Actual Person?
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 04 Apr 2019
- Cold Call Podcast
Can Mark Zuckerberg Rebuild Trust in Facebook?
Bill George discusses his case study, "Facebook Confronts a Crisis of Trust," including why Zuckerberg handled the crisis as he did, the role of companies in protecting privacy, and the pros and cons of regulation. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 26 Mar 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact
Firms increasingly deploy self-service technologies (SSTs) to manage customer interfaces that are inherently stressful. For example, patients may be asked to use kiosks to check themselves into hospitals. This study finds that customer anxiety during SST transactions can reduce customers’ trust in the service provider. Operational design choices may help.
- 04 Mar 2019
- What Do You Think?
What’s the Antidote to Surveillance Capitalism?
SUMMING UP: As companies increasingly build business models around our personal data, what can be done to fight back? James Heskett's readers suggest there are no easy answers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 20 Dec 2018
- Cold Call Podcast
Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within
When Eastern Bank decided to battle a threat from new competitors, it hired a fintech executive to set up Eastern Labs and start innovating. Karen Mills discusses her case study on what happened next. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 10 Oct 2018
- Research & Ideas
The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote
Companies that encourage consumers to vote online should be forewarned—they may expect more than you promise, according to research by Michael Norton, Leslie John, and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 27 Sep 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data
Online retailers face the challenge of leveraging the rich data they collect on their websites to uncover insights about consumer behavior. This study proposes a practical and tractable model of economic behavior that can reveal helpful patterns of cross-product substitution. The model can be used to simulate optimal prices.
- 12 Feb 2018
- Research & Ideas
Customers at the Back of the Line Are Anxious—Can You Keep Them from Leaving?
The irrational anxiety associated with being last in line can lead to unhappy customers, according to new research by Ryan Buell. But there are ways to make people happier while they wait—and keep them from abandoning the queue. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
The Right Way to Manage Customer Churn for Maximum Profit
Many companies actively manage customer churn but aren't seeking out the best customers to retain, warns Sunil Gupta. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.