What do you think of the Starbucks decision to serve alcohol?
The QSR magazine article I referenced in a blog last week was published today. Check it out, https://bit.ly/aREEKX share it with others, and offer your opinion about Starbuck’s decision to serve alcohol
5 Ways Customer Service Should NOT be like Politics
As we come to the end of yet another vicious campaign cycle, I couldn’t help thinking about how “would-be public servants” demonstrate the worst of servant leadership. Service should not be like politics, in that service is: 1) about people not power 2) emphasize those being served not the one serving 3) occurs without making…
Is your service visionary or just your hallucination?
My friend Terry Paulson, author of the Optimism Advantage, says the difference between a vision and a hallucination “is how many people see it.” In order for service to be “real,” leaders need to create a roadmap for its delivery. At the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company that vision starts with a”credo” which is placed on a “credo…
Rude and Slow – The plight of service
RightNow’s Customer Experience Impact 2010 report shows that 82 percent of consumers in the U.S. said they’ve stopped doing business with a company because of a poor customer service experience. The main reason for that defection in 73 percent of cases was rude staff and in 55 percent of situations it was the company’s failure…
Quality Toilet Paper
I am interrupting my usual blog to playfully participate in Bathroom Blog Fest 2010. To keep with the theme of blogging about “bathrooms” and given my customer experience focus, here is an archived blog…. Quality Toilet Paper They could save a small fortune if only they would buy single ply toilet paper …. But single…
How to Deliver Service plus Chocolate!
Having recently consulted or spoken in 6 countries in less than 30 days (ranging from Bolivia to Hong Kong), I keep facing questions that center around the distinction between operationally consistent service and emotionally-engaging customer experiences. While I’m not convinced that these two service approaches need to be mutually exclusive, I do know that without…
5 Categories of Customer Preferences You Should Know
While recently consulting with a client about ways to determine customer preferences, I had a random neuronal firing and from the deep recesses of my brain I recalled the work of Professor Noriaki Kano. In the 1980’s Dr. Kano, known for creating the Kano model, differentiated between 5 groups of customer preferences. As best I…
Customer Connections by the Facts Not by Total Nonsense
While researching the book I just completed about elevating the “patient experience” in healthcare, I encountered a powerful quote about the “lemming mentality” of business leadership. In their book entitled “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense,” Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton note, “Business decisions, as many of our colleagues in business and your own…