Authenticity beats Trendy!
First a personal note… Please accept my apologies for not blogging more regularly. Every waking hour (that is not dedicated to consulting, speaking, or family) is being and will be spent writing my newest book about Starbucks. I hope the smoke will clear to blog more regularly in early 2013. On to a quick blog…
Connecting People to a Culture of Connection
In an interview recently, I was asked what is the biggest “small detail” business leaders overlook today. How would you answer that question? For what it’s worth, here’s my response: “I think many business leaders fail to teach their staff that true success hinges on emotionally engaging and not merely satisfying customers. Few leaders inspire their…
Gummy Worms and Customer Experience Excellence!
July 15th was National Gummy Worm day and while that might not be the type of information you would expect from this blog, it turns out to have significance in our office. Specifically, National Gummy Worm day served as an opportunity to “surprise and delight” many of our clients and business partners. Additionally, it allowed…
Do you want return calls from sales prospects? Focus on the personal!
I’ve long championed a simple truth “all business is personal.” That’s why I believe customer experience is as much about relationship building as it is about product and transactional excellence. A recent study conducted by Reachable powerfully demonstrates the criticality of relationship building when it comes to gaining access to make sales. Here’s the big payoff…
A swing and a miss – wait it’s a home run?
Would you believe me if I told you that a company which experienced a data breach affecting twenty-four million customers was later determined to be one of America’s most highly rated on-line retailers? Well consider yourself told! The story is that of Zappos -the albeit unconventional but world class customer experience provider profiled in my…
Should You Ask for Complaints? Yes, No, Maybe?
During a consulting visit with one of my clients, a senior level leader stated “we don’t hear much negative from our customers.” He then asked an interestingly odd question, “should we be asking for complaints?” Like most questions of this nature, there are no easy answers! However, here were just a few of the highlights…
Giving Back – More than a Marketing Strategy
I’m fairly simple minded when it comes to business. I believe justice ultimately prevails and inevitably companies reap what they sow. So when people insert hidden fees, fail to be transparent in their pricing, or grab for more than what they deserve I assume those behaviors will ultimately be their undoing. Similarly, I contend that…
Service Excellence – A matter of Equality AND Inequality
While George Orwell’s 1945 book Animal Farm was intended to be an allegorical critique of Stalinism, one of the commandments which evolves during the book’s journey has always intrigued me from the perspective of client service and customer experience. That commandment reads as follows: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”…
Don’t Check Your Text! Serve ME
Former Apple & Microsoft executive Linda Stone coined the term “continuous partial attention” to describe the growing phenomena whereby we split attention between multiple sources of interaction such as pulling out our iPhone to check a text message chime instead of continuing to interact with friends or customers. There is something about a phone call, text…
Scoreboard: Company Interests 1 – Customer Needs 0
What a week! Amid a travel filled 5 days of consulting and speeches, I had the good fortune to speak at a conference for a large American Banking Association conference. The timing of my presentation could not have been better (or worse depending upon your perspective) as it followed a scathing op/ed article that was…
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