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…
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 Float a Complaint
Imagine – a picturesque resort retreat near a lake. To take full advantage of its serene surroundings, the resort offers canoes in which guests can paddle onto the lake to enjoy nature’s splendor. You are all set to hop in a canoe and enjoy the nature at her best but despite unused canoes at the…
Guest blog by Bradley Taylor: Is lack of marketing education letting your firm down?
It is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest blogger from over the pond. Bradley Taylor joins us from Derby, England to discuss the risks of limited marketing knowledge…. Is lack of marketing education letting your firm down? Many firms lose potential clients and business partners as a result of poor marketing strategies. In…
Who Are Your Customers?
We don’t often think of Starbucks as being the new kid on the block. Yet, India Real Time, a blog published by the Wall Street Journal, fairly recently reported that the majority of India’s population of 1.2 billion people have never heard of it. Rather, their equivalent café experience is with Café Coffee Day (CCD)…
FREE RESOURCES
The Starbucks Experience: Leadership Tips eBook
Elevating Care in Healthcare: Lessons from the UCLA Health System eBook
