The Customer Engagement Specialization
Customer Engagement is a four-course specialization within the Marketing concentration for Full-Time MBA candidates in both the one-year and two-year programs. Although grounded in Marketing, the courses also serve as valuable electives for candidates concentrating in Finance, Strategy, or Management, as well as those pursuing interests in Business Analytics, Consulting, and other analytically focused areas of study. Integrating strategic frameworks, analytical methods, and emerging technologies, the curriculum connects academic theory with applied learning while examining how effective customer relationship management strengthens loyalty, improves profitability, and creates long-term business value.
MKTG 6230 - Customer Engagement and Loyalty Management
Co-taught by Hal Brierley, Institute benefactor, Executive in Residence, and a pioneer in customer engagement, this course explores key principles, metrics, tactics, and strategies for engaging customers to drive loyalty and value. The course balances creative thinking with analytical rigor, helping students identify opportunities to engineer changes in customer behavior that make existing customer relationships dramatically more profitable. Using a customer engagement model, students learn to evaluate the effectiveness of customer engagement programs across industries and apply practices that build relationships, create the right incentives for desired behavior change, and employ effective tactics and strategies to drive incremental profit from the customer base. The course includes case analyses, lectures, corporate speakers, and hands-on exercises.
MKTG 6247 -AI Applications in Marketing
This course introduces students to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and examines their impact on the marketing landscape. Emphasizing core marketing principles, the course explores how AI enablement, including machine learning, neural networks, and generative models, shapes the tools and strategies used in contemporary marketing. Students explore how AI gathers and analyzes data, delivers personalized advertising and recommendations, automates routine marketing tasks, and produces rapid insights. The course highlights real-world examples, including Sephora’s use of AI-enabled Virtual Artist and chatbot experiences as part of a broader digital strategy during a period when the company’s e-commerce net sales grew from approximately $580 million in 2016 to more than $3 billion in 2022. Students gain hands-on experience with AI tools relevant to research, analysis, and marketing innovation while examining the critical risks, ethical challenges, and governance issues associated with AI in marketing.
MKTG 6236 - Customer Engagement and Loyalty Management Practicum
This course provides hands-on experience in customer engagement through a consulting project for one or more corporations. Students apply customer engagement concepts, metrics, strategies, and tactics to drive loyalty and profit. Students analyze real-time customer data using regression analysis and summary statistics, calculate customer lifetime value for individual customers, and segment customers based on those values. In a final group presentation to corporate sponsors, students derive insights from their analyses and propose strategic and tactical recommendations for profitable growth.
For more than 15 years, the American Airlines AAdvantage® program has sponsored course projects through which students develop proficiency in analyzing customer data, interpreting results to enhance decision-making, and applying insights to customer engagement and loyalty decisions. This experience is relevant to careers in marketing, consulting, and business analytics.
MKTG 6233 -Customer Preference Management
This course provides a rigorous, applied foundation in methods for quantifying consumer preferences and predicting market behavior. Students learn conjoint analysis, survey and experimental design, model specification and estimation, validation, and competitive market simulation. Topics include ratings-based and choice-based conjoint, with an emphasis on choice-based methods used in commercial applications, as well as hierarchical and latent class models, MaxDiff scaling, and simulations based on estimated part-worths. A distinguishing feature is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools into research design and data collection. Students use AI-assisted prompting to identify attributes and levels and to generate and evaluate orthogonal and D-optimal designs. They also explore synthetic respondents generated by large language models as a complement to or pilot for primary survey research and critically examine the methodological and managerial implications. Working with real datasets, students translate analytical results into insights that inform managerial decisions. In a final team-based project, students design, field, estimate, and present a complete preference measurement study.
For more information or to get involved, please contact Julie Maass, Assistant Dean Graduate Student Enrollment and Engagement, Brad Harraman, Director of the Brierley Institute for Customer Engagement, or Professor Venky Shankar, Academic Director of the Brierley Institute and Marketing Department Chair.
Co-taught by Hal Brierley, Institute benefactor, Executive in Residence, and a pioneer in customer engagement, this course explores key principles, metrics, tactics, and strategies for engaging customers to drive loyalty and value. The course balances creative thinking with analytical rigor, helping students identify opportunities to engineer changes in customer behavior that make existing customer relationships dramatically more profitable. Using a customer engagement model, students learn to evaluate the effectiveness of customer engagement programs across industries and apply practices that build relationships, create the right incentives for desired behavior change, and employ effective tactics and strategies to drive incremental profit from the customer base. The course includes case analyses, lectures, corporate speakers, and hands-on exercises.
MKTG 6247 -AI Applications in Marketing
This course introduces students to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and examines their impact on the marketing landscape. Emphasizing core marketing principles, the course explores how AI enablement, including machine learning, neural networks, and generative models, shapes the tools and strategies used in contemporary marketing. Students explore how AI gathers and analyzes data, delivers personalized advertising and recommendations, automates routine marketing tasks, and produces rapid insights. The course highlights real-world examples, including Sephora’s use of AI-enabled Virtual Artist and chatbot experiences as part of a broader digital strategy during a period when the company’s e-commerce net sales grew from approximately $580 million in 2016 to more than $3 billion in 2022. Students gain hands-on experience with AI tools relevant to research, analysis, and marketing innovation while examining the critical risks, ethical challenges, and governance issues associated with AI in marketing.
MKTG 6236 - Customer Engagement and Loyalty Management Practicum
This course provides hands-on experience in customer engagement through a consulting project for one or more corporations. Students apply customer engagement concepts, metrics, strategies, and tactics to drive loyalty and profit. Students analyze real-time customer data using regression analysis and summary statistics, calculate customer lifetime value for individual customers, and segment customers based on those values. In a final group presentation to corporate sponsors, students derive insights from their analyses and propose strategic and tactical recommendations for profitable growth.
For more than 15 years, the American Airlines AAdvantage® program has sponsored course projects through which students develop proficiency in analyzing customer data, interpreting results to enhance decision-making, and applying insights to customer engagement and loyalty decisions. This experience is relevant to careers in marketing, consulting, and business analytics.
MKTG 6233 -Customer Preference Management
This course provides a rigorous, applied foundation in methods for quantifying consumer preferences and predicting market behavior. Students learn conjoint analysis, survey and experimental design, model specification and estimation, validation, and competitive market simulation. Topics include ratings-based and choice-based conjoint, with an emphasis on choice-based methods used in commercial applications, as well as hierarchical and latent class models, MaxDiff scaling, and simulations based on estimated part-worths. A distinguishing feature is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools into research design and data collection. Students use AI-assisted prompting to identify attributes and levels and to generate and evaluate orthogonal and D-optimal designs. They also explore synthetic respondents generated by large language models as a complement to or pilot for primary survey research and critically examine the methodological and managerial implications. Working with real datasets, students translate analytical results into insights that inform managerial decisions. In a final team-based project, students design, field, estimate, and present a complete preference measurement study.
For more information or to get involved, please contact Julie Maass, Assistant Dean Graduate Student Enrollment and Engagement, Brad Harraman, Director of the Brierley Institute for Customer Engagement, or Professor Venky Shankar, Academic Director of the Brierley Institute and Marketing Department Chair.