I am sure you have heard of customer experience, aka CX. A quick search on LinkedIn shows a proliferation of open job positions such as customer experience manager, customer journey expert, and customer experience agent. Likewise, CX consultancies, CX certifications, and CX professional courses are everywhere. Managers of top companies always consider CX among their…
Category: cers-blog
The passing of a legend – Professor Evert Gummesson in memoriam
In Memoriam – Professor Evert Gummesson
Christmas traditions
My late grandmother used to tell us children about how her own mother was Father Christmas and how they got toys as gifts. After two weeks those toys disappeared just to come back next Christmas again. These memories were dear to my grandmother without her mentioning anything about scarcity or such. Even today, rather than…
What is Grounded Theory?
Have you ever wondered what Grounded Theory (GT) is all about? If so, here is a short overview of this qualitative research method. In a nutshell, GT is a framework for analysing qualitative data. The method offers a set of flexible guidelines that help researchers to focus their data collection and analysis with the aim…
I watched hundreds of flat-Earth videos to learn how conspiracy theories spread – and what it could mean for fighting disinformation
Darryl Fonseka / Shutterstock Carlos Diaz Ruiz, Hanken School of Economics Around the world, and against all scientific evidence, a segment of the population believes that Earth’s round shape is either an unproven theory or an elaborate hoax. Polls by YouGov America in 2018 and FDU in 2022 found that as many as 11% of…
Students as customers – what would service researchers say?
A marketing logic is becoming more common in universities, as higher education is becoming increasingly competitive and marketized. Universities develop strategies for differentiation, compete in rankings, and seek to attract the best and brightest students. As a result, concepts that are familiar to us service researchers, such as value, experience, and customer orientation, have become…
The survival guide to the conference journey
From Hanken to the QUIS17 symposium (and back) Before getting further, I wish to share some tips for reading this blog text. The following provides key learnings from my first academic conference presentation at the 17th International research symposium on service excellence in management (QUIS17) in Valencia. Take this as a subjective journey and self-reflection…
Impressions from the QUIS symposium on Service Excellence in Management
The 17th International research symposium on service excellence in management (QUIS17) was arranged on 12-15 January in Valencia, Spain. In 1988 a small group of researchers from Sweden and US decided that they would meet and talk about their challenges in terms of research on service organizations. Service was, back then, a niche topic with…
The Covid-19 pandemic – A friend or foe?
The Covid-19 pandemic is the accelerator in both good and bad.
The Marketing Archipelago – a reflection on how we understand the concept of marketing
If somebody would ask you to explain marketing what would you say? Those of you who are marketing students, scholars, or professionals probably have an understanding of what marketing is, grounded in your own experiences and use of marketing. But marketing has some meaning for many others too, including consumers. Here is the problem: marketing…