Companies like to implement self-service technologies because of the potential cost savings and the appeal of the cutting-edge.

Progressive American universities will need to create a new academic discipline, services sciences, management and engineering, to provide the necessary high-value, services-centric graduates of the future.

In 1997, Yellow Transportation landed in Fortune magazine's least-admired companies list. "We were a $2.5 billion company," says Greg Reid, senior vice president. "But we kept operating the same old way.

Businesses rely on research to gather data and process it into the knowledge needed to identify markets and satisfy customers. When exploring questions about attitudes, beliefs and other intangibles, researchers use Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze data.

Seventy percent of American consumers report having a bad customer-service experience that left them "upset" or "extremely upset" in the last 12 months, according to a new national survey.

For major marketers, competing and winning in the sports arena means more than simply affiliating a product with the team that posts the most points or the athlete who stands out in the draft picks.

Imagine a software strategy that allows an organization to combine the disparate data threads it collects about customers, then, using the Web and other technologies as well as non-technical methods, put the data to work to develop closer ties with customers.

A company is unlikely to gain satisfied and loyal customers when they feel they've been duped. Companies that employ stealth marketing — otherwise known as undercover or guerilla marketing — hire shills to pitch products or services to potential but unsuspecting consumers.

A smart customer service employee knows there is a fine line between a pleasant, efficient discussion of the customer's needs leading to the discovery that she would be better served with the company's upgraded service ...

Since 1980, the proportion of overweight U.S. children ages 6 to 11 has more than doubled, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Childhood obesity doesn't stop at our nation's borders; it's a global trend.