Faculty & Research

Virtual Customer: John Hauser

The “Listening In” model unfolds according to a five-step process:

(1) First, a Bayesian virtual advisor selects questions adaptively to provide recommendations.
(2) Next, an opportunity trigger tracks recommendations to identify opportunities based on new combinations of customer needs.
(3) A virtual engineer then steps in to explore the opportunity with directed quantitative and qualitative questions.
(4) The customer is now presented with a design palette, giving them the opportunity to redesign a pick-up truck, for example, according to their own specifications.
(5) Finally, a market-sizing mechanism estimates the share of customers who desire the new combinations of needs.