Abstract/Summary

The importance of customer management as an area for research inspired the formation of the Henley Centre for Customer Management in 2006. The Centre is a unique collaboration between business and academia, which aims to promote excellence in customer management. Together its members discuss and share current challenges to create a genuine opportunity that harnesses the forward thinking to deliver growth, build transferable knowledge, and turn it into effective practice. This paper reports the findings of a ten year longitudinal study of customer management issues identified by businesses that have collaborated with the research centre. The purpose is to review emerging trends in marketing that provide opportunities for future research and best practice case studies. Over the last decade the Centre has researched many themes - topics in areas such as on-line and off-line customer experiences, managing out-sourced relationships, multi-channel marketing, and dealing with service recovery through effective complaint handling. Using social media for innovation, collaboration and commercialization have also been key themes. One area that members have identified as an emerging focus for research is managing the customer journey more effectively, so that organizations can make it easier to attract customers and add value to the customer experience. A further research opportunity is exploring how organizations can effectively develop the softer side of their business to improve customer management for example, by developing an engaged culture and climate so that it improves business performance. Other areas include actionable insight and internationalization. Emerging business trends suggest a research agenda that will help companies continuously to innovate and adapt, leading to an improved customer-centric focus and sustaining a competitive edge.