Baking customer loyalty into your overall business strategy
While working on the manuscript for my new book about Starbucks, I’ve been revisiting what Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School framed as the “five forces analysis” of business strategy. While you probably know Porter’s five forces model, I think it is worth examining it from the perspective of building customer engagement and loyalty. …
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…
Can you “Gamify” your Customer Experience? Lessons from the Highway
Have you thought about “gamifying” your customer experience? Over the past number of months, I’ve been spending time with senior leaders on the Starbucks Digital Ventures team. Given the rise of popularity of mobile technology, Starbucks has “gamified” such things as Foursquare check-ins at Starbucks cafes. Designers have also developed a customer reward program interface…
Customer Experience – Understanding Emotional Economics
While working on the new book I am writing about Starbucks, to be released in 2013, I have been digging deeply into research on emotional economics. As you are aware economics is the branch of the social sciences that looks at the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Through much of the history…
You look like a curator…a key to adding customer experience value
Are you are a curator? In today’s time-pressured, information-laden world you should think about adding “curator” to your title! In my youth, I thought of curators as old sophisticates who went around the world securing art works for museums. Today, I think of them as smart business leaders who add value for customers by filtering…
Customer Experience – Art or Science? The answer is YES
Crafting engaging customer experiences requires a blend of art and science. The science often hinges on effective use of empirical data concerning consumer need states, use patterns, and changing trends. To that end, I offer some recent results from Bitly’s research’s on viral social media content. As you probably know, Bitly is a service that…
Giraffes are ESSENTIAL to your customer experience!
I ran across a very interesting video blog by Chris Hurn, the CEO and co-founder of Mercantile Capital, so I had my Social Media and IT director, Andrew, post it on our Facebook page. Since I wrote a book about service excellence at the Ritz-Carlton, Chris’ blog post, “Joshie at the Ritz-Carlton: An Extraordinary Customer…
More to Business than Money!
My mother often exhorted me to appreciate that “if I couldn’t say something nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all.” I typically adhere to that motherly wisdom and it has served me well. On this occasion, however, I have to sidestep Mom’s sage input. Spirit Airlines, a low-fare, no-frills, air carrier based out of Ft…
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…
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