Internal Infrastructure & Governance
Pinkberry vs. Subway: Customer-Centricity vs. Efficiency
March 21 by Ayad MirjanPinkberry vs. Subway. Customer centricity vs. efficiency. Relationship vs. transaction. Customer experience vs. assembly line. That is what I see when comparing the two retailers. They are b...
Lying Might Work for Some Managers, But What About Your Customers?
March 19 by Brian CantorOur society maintains that "honesty is the best policy," but when it comes to the actual rewarding of that honesty, our tendency is to dismiss the practice as a fantasy of movies and television. B...
Avoid the Mistakes & Misconceptions of Contact Center Outsourcing
March 07 by Brian CantorThe most rudimentary of political debates has fueled a common conception of outsourcing: that it reduces costs and thus increases profits. As a result, there exists a tendency within customer man...
Are Your Customer Service Reps Human Beings or Cyborgs?
March 05 by David LeeOn the same day a while back, I witnessed examples of both ends of the spectrum. First, customer service rep as Cyborg and then the caring human being example… While waiting in line at an e...
Best Western, Crowne Plaza Won’t Stand For Bad Customer Experiences (And You Shouldn’t Either)
February 29 by Brian CantorIn a business world drowning in hype for the need to improve customer experience, it is refreshing to see organizations willing to walk the talk. Rather than loading brochures and social media acc...
4 Winning Strategies for Achieving Real Results from Social Media
February 22 by Mitchell OsakFor leading-edge marketers, social media has moved beyond the novelty stage to a point where it can now produce real business value. There are now a variety of winning strategies that many organiza...
Target Knows You're Pregnant; Is This What Customers Really Want?
February 21 by Brian CantorAt the heart of the renewed focus on "Big Data" is an explosive excitement about the implications on customer management. The mountains of customer insights, observers stress, hold the keys to prop...
How Elite Companies Are Beating Your Customer Experience (And Why it Matters)
February 06 by Brian CantorEven in an age of significant customer management focus, many of those facing pressure to expand their customer experience management initiatives still find themselves dwelling on two key concerns:...
Zappos vs. UFC: Who Exactly Are You Trying to Satisfy?
January 25 by Brian CantorIn the fallout of a crisis, a fundamental customer management question becomes even more significant: who exactly are you trying to satisfy? In recent weeks, customer experience kingpin Zappos an...
Do You Allow Your Customer Service Reps to Help You Help Your Customers?
January 20 by David LeeDo you help your customer service representatives help you upgrade your customer service experience or do you say, "Just do your job and leave the thinking to us?" You obviously don’t actual...
Data Management: Go on a Data Diet...Or Risk Hurting Marketing, Losing Customers
January 12 by Mitchell OsakIn the effort to better target profitable customers and enable 1:1 marketing, companies have been collecting and managing as much customer information as they can get their hands on. Many industrie...
Social Media Stupidity: The Fine Line Between Detrimental and Necessary
January 04 by Brian CantorHow exceedingly annoying is it when you cannot find a long-time acquaintance on Facebook despite knowing he or she has an account? And how much worse is it when you learn the reason you cannot find...