Customer Science: Behavioral Insights for Creating Breakthrough Customer Experiences

Alexander Chernev

Aug 2022 · Cerebellum Press

About this ebook

This book examines the strategic principles that define the customer experience. Building on the recent findings in the domains of behavioral economics and social psychology, Customer Science discusses the customer experience from three different perspectives: what customers do—how they identify a problem, seek a solution, and interact with the offering; what they think and feel during this process—how they evaluate different market offerings; and what motivates their behavior—why they act the way they do. In this context, it examines all components of the customer experience—from activating a need to buying a company’s offerings, to becoming a loyal customer and advocate for the company. The different stages of customer interaction with the company and its offerings are presented in the form of a customer experience map, which functions as the organizing principle for this book. The customer experience map is the blueprint for understanding the different stages of the customer experience and facilitating managerial decision making at each stage. The customer experience map is also the foundation of the customer experience canvas, a practical tool to identify the key questions managers should ask as they strive to create impactful customer experiences.

About the author

Alexander Chernev is a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He holds a PhD in psychology from Sofia University and a second PhD in business administration from Duke University.

Dr. Chernev has written numerous articles focused on business strategy, brand management, consumer behavior, and market planning. His research has been published in the leading marketing journals and has been frequently quoted in the business and popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, Associated Press, Forbes, and Business Week.

Dr. Chernev has served as an area editor for the Journal of Marketing and Journal of Retailing, and on the editorial boards of leading research journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Behavior. He was ranked among the top ten most prolific scholars in the leading marketing journals by the Journal of Marketing and among the top five marketing faculty in the area of consumer behavior by a global survey of marketing faculty published by the Journal of Marketing Education.

Dr. Chernev‘s books—Strategic Marketing Management: Theory and Practice, Strategic Marketing Management: The Framework; Strategic Brand Management, The Marketing Plan Handbook, and The Business Model—have been translated into multiple languages and are used in the top business schools around the world. He is also a co-author—with Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller—of the new edition of the seminal Marketing Management textbook, which is commonly referred to as the “marketing bible.”

Dr. Chernev teaches marketing strategy, brand management, and behavioral science in MBA, PhD, and executive education programs at the Kellogg School of Management. He has also taught in executive programs at INSEAD in France and Singapore, at IMD in Switzerland, and at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has received numerous teaching awards, including the Core Course Teaching Award, Faculty Impact Award, and the Top Professor Award from the Kellogg Executive MBA Program, which he has received fourteen times.

In addition to research and teaching, Dr. Chernev is an Academic Trustee of the Marketing Science Institute and advises companies around the world on issues of marketing strategy, brand management, behavioral science, consumer behavior, pricing, strategic planning, and new product development. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies on ways to reinvent their business models, develop new products, and gain competitive advantage. He has also helped multiple startups uncover market opportunities, discover new business models, and craft market strategies.