CBS students are invited to submit marketing thesis proposals that focus on customer referrals and their effectiveness. This is an opportunity to become part of an ongoing international research project and work on managerially relevant and academically rigorous marketing research. Successful applications will receive thesis supervision and training to conduct relevant marketing research in the customer referral domain and beyond.

Customer referrals are targeted and deliberate positive endorsements from existing customers to prospective customers. Companies are increasingly looking for ways to leverage the power of referrals, and many well-known companies (e.g., Tesla, HelloFresh, Dropbox) have successfully implemented referral programs that reward existing customers for bringing in new ones.

This has not gone unnoticed by academic researchers, and there is a growing body of literature in the marketing domain that focuses on the antecedents and consequences of referrals, as well as the design of interventions (such as referral reward programs) that aim to stimulate referrals and their effectiveness.

You are invited to submit a proposal for a marketing thesis project that focuses on customer referrals. Students are free to develop their projects based on their interests and preferences, with advice from the supervisor. Students with company connections that can provide data access on customer referrals and/or referral programs (or company connections that might otherwise aid in data collection) are particularly invited to submit a proposal. Students can however also propose a rigorous plan to collect their own data. Quantitative approaches are preferred by the supervisor.

If you require more information, please do not hesitate to contact Constant Pieters via cpi.marktg@cbs.dk.