Brierley Institute for Customer Engagement

The Art & Science Of Engagement

The Brierley Institute for Customer Engagement at SMU Cox is the first academic institute of its kind. A community of students, academics and corporate leaders, the institute examines and explores why customers engage with brands, and how that engagement drives loyalty and value. The institute introduces proven strategies for establishing and sustaining profitable customer relationships, engineering behavior change, and understanding the role consumer psychology plays. It addresses a critical and growing business need: capturing customer attention in what Hal has described as “a time-starved, social media-obsessed environment.”

Launched in 2016 with a gift from customer engagement pioneer Hal Brierley, we offer an MBA specialization taught by stellar faculty, corporate projects with incredible companies, and annual events that host faculty from top business schools that advance knowledge and improve business practice globally.

I'm enthusiastic to have Dallas and SMU viewed as a center of excellence in customer engagement. SMU Cox stepped up to create effective curricula to teach tomorrow's marketers the techniques essential to design and manage successful customer engagement programs.

Hal Brierley, Founder and Executive in Residence



A One of a Kind Student Experience

Set yourself apart with a competitive edge as an MBA student as you learn from leaders in the field who immerse you in projects to tackle various customer engagement challenges. Students gain access to real data or collect their own, lead analytically-driven projects, and present insights to business clients who represent a vast set of industries including technology, travel, fashion, and sports. These immersive experiential learning opportunities equip you with analytical skills and deep knowledge of customer engagement that transcend the classroom and prepare you for the next step in your professional career.

Adding Value and Insight for Corporate Partners

When you work with the Brierley Institute, you collaborate with a passionate community that's propelling the customer engagement field — including talented students eager to apply the latest research and tools to advance customer engagement. Through student-led project based learning, your company can gain new insight and customized recommendations to create or improve upon specific customer engagement objectives. Corporate projects also offer an opportunity to engage with top-tier MBA talent to support recruiting initiatives.

Advancing Customer Engagement Through Academic Research

Our invitational Professors Institute convenes marketing faculty from the nation's top academic institutions to develop research agendas, influence curricula, solve current business challenges and hear leading practitioners share thought leadership and evoke curiosity in the field of customer engagement.

SMU students consistently bring insightful and relevant recommendations to the AAdvantage team. Their MBA coursework combined with their perspectives as traveling consumers are a great combination to provide us with insights for capturing loyalty that reflects their preferences as a primary demographic.

Meghan Jordan, Director of Customer Insights, American Airlines



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Too Many Loyalty Programs Miss the Point

From the mundane to the sublime, points-based loyalty programs are ubiquitous today. But are they driving real loyalty? Marketers who use points to build behavioral loyalty may drive incremental sales, but they're missing an opportunity to foster far more profitable attitudinal loyalty.
panel of speakers at brierley event

Premier Marketing Experts Opine about Engaging Customers in a World of Disruption

How do businesses use customer engagement as a competitive tool to combat disruption? A panel of marketing experts pondered that question at a recent symposium titled "Engaging Customers in a World of Disruption," hosted by the Brierley Institute for Customer Engagement at the SMU Cox School of Business.
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Preparing Tomorrow's Marketing Students Begins with Well-Prepared Educators

The rapidly changing field of customer engagement – how marketers attract long-term customer brand loyalty – was the focus of the third annual Professors Institute at SMU Cox. The school's Brierley Institute for Customer Engagement hosted the event in January, in partnership with Marketing EDGE, a national nonprofit with a track record of connecting students, academics, and professionals to the resources they need to stay ahead.

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