On 18-19 January 2016, we were honored to host the 1st Academic-Practitioner Research with Impact Workshop “Customer Experience Management (CEM) and Big Data” which was organized by The Customer Management Leadership Group (CMLG) at Alliance Manchester Business School (Alliance MBS), University of Manchester, UK, in conjunction with Alliance MBS Big Data Forum and the Centre for Service Management (CSM) at Loughborough University’s School of Business and Economics.
The Customer Management Leadership Group (CMLG), led by Professor John Murphy at Alliance MBS, University of Manchester, UK, has been sharing the latest academic thinking around customer experience issues with practitioners from blue-chip companies in workshop settings for over 13 years. This year, we proposed an innovative format: a 2-day invitational workshop to help academics work with companies and academics across disciplines to tackle topics identified by CMLG member companies working in various service sectors.
The preparation for the workshop started by us identifying with interested companies the range of CEM & Big Data topics important to them. We consolidated the identified topics within 5 themes (see Table 1 below). We then worked on approaching leading academics and experts within the identified themes to act as chairpersons. We were delighted to confirm the following chairpersons: Timothy Keiningham, Lerzan Aksoy, Werner Kunz, Gianfranco Walsh, Judith Zolkiewski, Vicky Story and Martin Wetzels.
- Service and customer experience measurement: metrics, processes and operations and customer perceived value in their experience; Chairperson: Timothy Keiningham
- CRM, customer engagement and Big Data; Chairpersons: Lerzan Aksoy and Werner Kunz
- Employee recruitment and training to improve the customer experience; Chairperson: Gianfranco Walsh
- Developing capabilities to switch from goods-dominant logic to a service-dominant logic; Chairpersons: Judith Zolkiewski and Vicky Story
- Change for customer experience research in a Big Data future in order to infer customer feelings and identify key weaknesses & opportunities; Chairperson: Martin Wetzels
The innovative format of the workshop attracted a large number of applicants. The chairpersons worked on selecting the candidates whose research interests best fit with the potential research routes to work on their teams. In total, 34 researchers and nine company representatives participated in the event.
We kicked off the workshop with an opening reception on Monday January 18, followed by company presentations on their topic(s) and a Q&A. Academics then worked on their themes during Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning
On Tuesday afternoon, the chairpersons lead presentations of their progress detailing key implications of the research for companies followed by Q&A from the practitioners and the rest of the groups. The research teams will continue working on their themes after the workshop, with the aim of developing a number of academic papers. Practitioner reports will be also developed and shared with the companies involved.
We were delighted by the participation of Professor Steve Baron, Co-Editor of the Journal of Services Marketing, who attended the workshop and lead the review of the closing presentations. Full papers emerging from the workshop will be considered for publication in a potential special section of the Journal of Services Marketing.
We, the organizing committee, would like to take this wonderful opportunity to thank the chairpersons for their hard work, the companies for sharing with us their latest practices and insights, Professor Steve Baron for the opportunity to move this initiative forward, as well as all the participants for their dedication and involvement!
Jamie Burton,
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) and Research Director for the CMLG, Alliance Manchester Business School
Linda Nasr,
Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Alliance Manchester Business School
Victoria Mansfield,
CMLG Administrator
See below some impressions of the workshop (for mobile click here)
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