Thomas Burnham

Biography

Thomas Burnham joined the faculty at University of Nevada, Reno in 2014. Prior to joining the University, Thomas taught at Santa Clara University, spent a decade growing a company that he co-founded that manufactured solar-powered, wirelessly-activated crosswalk warning light systems, worked in executive performance reporting for MCI Telecommunications and consulted with the management of an agricultural cooperative in rural Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Research Interest

Thomas' academic research focuses on customer loyalty and customer feedback. His dissertation resulted in a much-cited paper offering a typology of switching costs that lead consumers to exhibit loyal behavior with services despite their level of satisfaction with the service provider. His recent research has delved into the use and meaning of the ubiquitous survey question "How likely are you to recommend X to a friend or colleague?" (the ‘Net Promoter Score' customer feedback metric). He is exploring the topic of customer feedback broadly: Why and when consumers provide feedback to firms, how firms learn from customer feedback, and what types of feedback are used by what types of firms for what purposes. He is particularly interested in firm use of unstructured, unsolicited customer feedback such as suggestions, requests and complaints.