Book Review – “Answering the Ultimate Question”

Since I have written in the past about Net Promoter Score (NPS) the publishers of this most recent book sent me a copy and it’s about time I posted my review.
There has been much criticism of NPS as a single measure of loyalty.  With most of the criticism centered around the disbelief that a single [...]

Why Customer Feedback Fails

With it so easy to collect customer feedback these days you’d think most companies would have an excellent “read” on their customers.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case (in my consulting practice).  While the increase in customer contact points (a.ka. listening posts) such as blogs, social media sites, online communities, and word-of-mouth [...]

Starbucks Has a New (Old) Logo! Will Customers Care?

  I have been participating in the Re-Experiencing Starbucks Project, and this had pushed me to keep a closer eye on the company and the strategy being put into play by returning CEO Howard Shultz.  I was in Starbucks the other day – doing some research – and noticed they have a new logo!  Well, [...]

15% of Companies Don’t Want You on Their Email Lists

  As you can see from my last post, I am in the process of changing my email address.  I get emails from about 100 providers – from major and not-so-major online retailers, to industry news providers, to advisory services, to stuff I just find interesting.  It’s been an interesting, enlightening, and at times, a downright [...]

Great Expectations – Customers as Competitors

I’m seeing an interesting trend in my client work. The metrics used to measure the health of customer relationships are declining, yet the companies have not really changed anything operationally. So how does one explain this disturbing trend? First, getting to the heart of the matter would require a deep dive [...]

Let Customers Co-Create Your Cause Marketing

  According to the 2007 Cone Cause Evolution Survey, 87% of us “are likely to switch from one brand to another (price and quality being about equal) if the other brand is associated with a good cause, an increase of more than 31 percent (from 66%) since 1993.”  The study also found that 89% of employees [...]

You Can’t Spell Customer ‘Success’ Without the S’s

I’ve been working on a big “measuring the customer experience” project and it got me thinking. What is it that makes one customer initiative a success and another, well, not so successful? I didn’t want to say “failure” because I believe there is no such thing as failure, there’s only feedback. [...]