I hate to break this to you, but we’re more than half-way through the calendar year. Have you done a mid-year review yet? This is a critical time to review your goals for this year and check your progress. But if you’re only looking at profits and growth, you’re only part of the way done. […]

It’s all about your people. And it’s also about…your people. Several customer experience case studies confirmed this idea at Medallia’s Experience 2017 conference. They are valuable reminders of how customers are people, and they respond best to people who understand their situation, and better yet, understand how important their roles are in delivering an exceptional experience. […]

Service culture is the holy grail for many organizations. It’s the secret sauce of those companies we hold up as the role models of customer-centricity. Companies like Rackspace or Safelite are well-known disruptors in their industries simply because they focus like crazy on their customers. So customer service expert and author Jeff Toister decided to find out: what […]

This will be my tenth journey to Austin for the South By Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSW) in March. It’s a crazy few days of social media, digital marketing, internet rock stars and barbecue. Whether you’ve been many times like me or are just heading there for the first time, here are a few things I’ve learned about how to […]

Gathering and acting on customer experience insights from analytical data, surveys, and other resources inside your organization is one thing. But stepping into your customer’s shoes to understand what they need the most is another! Getting a different perspective on the true customer experience is harder than it sounds and much more challenging than most believe it should […]

Working day after day on the same set of projects and goals can make us a little complacent about what customers really need from us. Too often, we convince ourselves that what happens within our walls doesn’t have a direct impact on the experiences we deliver. Customer experience is huge and all-encompassing, so many think of improving it […]

Asking customers for feedback is generally easy, but asking questions that spark action is not. And every customer’s journey is different, so why ask every customer the same old questions? Neat piles of similar responses look pretty in reports, but there’s only so much action you can take from there. When you tailor your questions for […]

Processes involving humans (that is, ALL of them) require lots and lots of reminders, revisions and revamping.

Brands need to keep innovating. To stay ahead of the market, they need to offer the “what’s next” to stave off the competition. Innovation is about responding to the market, anticipating needs, and using a little magic to appeal to customers. I often wonder about the companies that don’t innovate. And then I remember some of […]

There’s a joke about being at the top in any small business. The title of founder or president, in its deceptively simple way, covers a multitude of jobs. You can’t just run the business by doing the work, you have to run the business by stepping in as chief technology officer, chief financial officer, chief […]