Thanks for the Complaint – 4 Tips for Jaw-Dropping Customer Experience Fixes
I’m not a fan of the line, “a customer complaint is a gift.” I understand the research that supports that utterance (as few as 4% of upset customers complain directly to a business representative). However, the gifts I want to receive come from positive experiences. Those gifts are loyalty and referrals – not complaints. Accordingly,…
Do Reward Programs Produce Loyalty? – Tips for Creating Incentives That Drive Business
In prehistoric days – before Starbucks had a loyalty program – I asked, then CEO Howard Schultz, why Starbucks didn’t incentivize repeat business. Essentially, he answered, “why would we decrease organic loyalty when high volume customers return 28 times a month and, in the process, diminish perceived product value.” Fast forward to the 2008 recession, and Starbucks…
Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered: Deliver a Flourish of Humanity
Thank you for joining me for this series titled “Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered.” This series provides tools to help you position your customer and employee experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. This is the final installment in this series. In my last post, I focused on creating, at minimum, two customer journeys –…
Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered: Map the Hybrid Journey
Thank you for joining me for this series titled “Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered.” This series will provide tools to help you position your customer and employee experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. This installment is titled “Map the Hybrid Journey.” I now know how my mom felt when I lost my driver’s license…
Better Than Normal | The Entrepreneurial New Days
This is the sixth and final installment in a series titled “Better Than Normal – Designing Transformative Experiences,” which will provide tools to help you position your employee and customer experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. Have you ever wanted to have a business do-over? In golf, we call it a mulligan. It’s…
It’s Emotional – Listen to the Feelings Behind the Words
Thank you for joining me on this third installment in my series “It’s Emotional – Creating an Unprecedented Team and Customer Experience in the Pandemic.” This series is designed to offer tools to manage your emotions as well as support the emotional journey of your prospects and customers. A couple of installments back I talked about…
Leadership is NOT Waiting to Follow – Be Thoughtful, Proactive, Humble, and Courageous
As I start this blog, let’s take a collective breath. No really let’s pull the air in through our diaphragm, fill-up the lower lobes of our lungs, and continue that process into the upper lobes. Now let’s be thankful that we can! Ok, on to lessons from the most challenging week of my career (and…
Experiencing Collaboration The Airbnb Way
Success is a Patient, Team Sport – Experiencing Collaboration The Airbnb Way If you are someone who doesn’t like to wait, writing a book is not for you! This week my book, The Airbnb Way – 5 Leadership Lessons for Igniting Growth through Loyalty, Community and Belonging will be released! The journey for this book began…
Optimal Customer Visioning [Infographic]
Over the past decade, I began using customer journey maps as a way to envision the optimal future customer experience. As part of SWOT analyses and other strategic planning activities or as a free-standing tool, I often work with leaders to not only see the current state of their customer experience and their initiatives to drive incremental…
Lessons from South African Entrepreneurs [Infographic]
As you may know, I work predominantly as a consultant to senior leaders in Fortune 500 companies but occasionally choose to participate in public or private events for entrepreneurs and small business owners. As a small business owner myself, I realize the importance of accessing thought leaders who can help me with my business and…