Starbucks: Greatness Personified/Excellence Diversified – What About You?
I met him while working with Starbucks around the time I wrote my first book about the company titled The Starbucks Experience. I’d venture to say that Starbucks might have been little more than one man’s vision if it wasn’t for his leadership strengths. He was one of the original architects of the brand – a…
When It Matters Most: Customer Experience With the Fury of a Hurricane
Despite all of the great accomplishments achieved by women and men, we have yet to match the raw force of nature fully. I was reminded of this when I met Hurricane Irma this week shielded from her wrath only by stone, glass, and metal. Blessed in a Storm On balance I was lucky (as were…
Leading with the GOOD: A must have for customer experience success
I am convinced that if you want to offer consistently outstanding customer experiences, you will need to align your organization around a fundamental belief. Namely, that “people are intrinsically good.” Philosophical and Practical Okay, this blog may seem a bit esoteric and in the purview of philosophers, not business leaders. We all know that philosophers,…
Guilt or Greatness? Associations that Affect Customer Perception
When I was a kid, one of my mother’s favorite “mom-isms” was…tell me who you run around with and I will tell you what you are. Like many of my mom’s seemingly esoteric pearls of wisdom, that phrase was probably lost on me in my youth. Today, however, I understand the power of associations –…
Customer Value: Expanding Across the 12 Standard Forms of Value
Great leaders often ask me to help them create “customer value”, while others ask me to help them create “profit.” For me, the only way to generate sustainable profit is by developing a core competency for customer value creation. Chasing profits is a tiring and stressful endeavor – creating value is an innovative and energizing pursuit.…
Out With The Old, In With The New And Not So New: 3 Trends to Consider In Customer Experience Delivery
Are you ready for conversational commerce, digital gifting, and secondhand markets? Great customer experience brands are constantly tracking macro-changes in consumer behavior and trying to determine if an emerging trend is simply a fad (hot for the short run but soon to fizzle) or a meaningful pattern worthy of infrastructure investment. Here are three trends…