Walk A Mile In Their Shoes – Mapping Your Customers’ Journey
Sometimes we are too close to something – a process, an idea, a product or service – to see it with true, objective clarity and perspective. This can be especially (and paradoxically) true when a notion is born from our own brains. We think we know what it looks, smells and feels like to be…
Easy Wins
Ahhh, summer – a season of sunshine, valiant efforts to slow one’s life down, and vacation travel. It’s hard not to notice, however, how our great escape efforts are often marked by so much preparatory and participatory stress. Marketing guru (and a man who was kind enough to endorse my Zappos Experience book) Seth Godin recently posted…
My First (and possibly my last) Book Review – Hooked on Customers by Bob Thompson
As an author, it seems I am always on deadline with my own manuscripts. This leaves me little more than the opportunity to write business related correspondence and a weekly blog. Through the years, friends have asked me to provide reviews of their books and I have always apologetically declined. If I feel strongly about…
Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy – Loving your Customer and your Message
Here’s an exercise for you. Try to go one day without seeing an advertising message. Ok, how about an hour? Some subtle, others overt, marketers are finding us in as unsuspecting of places as the bottom of golf holes. Every business is talking at customers. But what makes that chatter banal or brilliant? For a…
Why it’s in your own interest to forget your self-interest
The modern world inundates us with a constant flow of information. Not wanting to miss anything, our tendency is to scan the clutter for ways to improve our businesses. Studying best practices, following experts on Twitter, regularly checking in with our favorite bloggers, we ultimately seek to be better and do better by our customers. …
How to Balance Service Standards with Empowerment
I recently had a conversation with someone who just changed customer-facing jobs. Beyond the dynamics of salary, benefits, and the myriad of other factors that influenced her decision to move on to the next professional opportunity, the way she described her former position stuck with me: “I didn’t like that I couldn’t see customer issues…
True or False? Measuring Performance Leads to Better Service
If you said “Yes” – you are either amazingly astute or you had a chance to look at the recently released Q1 Zendesk Benchmark report. In either case – Congratulations! Zendesk, the maker of customer service software that streamlines customer support and fosters self-service and engagement, studied the use of analytics and their impact on…
Beloved Brands Think Differently
Working remotely, I am sitting in a Starbucks with my laptop. (As you may have surmised, I’ve been having a substantive long-term relationship with the brand.) Across the way, a woman was also working away on her computer when…it happened. A keystroke run amok sends her beverage sailing across the table and onto the floor,…
How to turn problems into customer loyalty
I recently visited a store to make a return. I suspect that few people relish this particular type of retail encounter – not the employees, not the customers. Both sides often seem prepared for a debate at best and an argument at worst. It is an unexpected relief when the experience is seamless. The product…
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The Starbucks Experience: Leadership Tips eBook
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