“It’s the JD Powerization of America!” a car dealer once told me. His small store was at the mercy of arithmetic: One bad customer survey would swing his store from a passing grade to a failing grade with the manufacturer. One of my gurus once mused that, if he owned a car dealership, he would immediately hire someone responsible for …
Podcast 64: Do you need a team … or a tribe?
Mike and Mark are back to discuss teams–this time, in comparison with tribes. Which do you need? And how do you identify if you have a tribe? Mentioned in the podcast: “Tribes” by Seth Godin. We would love your questions and comments for future episodes: Email Mike and Mark. Subscribe on Apple or Spotify.
Do customers trust machines over people?
The article’s title ought to give us pause: “People put more faith in computers than other humans.” I know of a pilot project where automotive service departments set up kiosks for customers to use as an alternative to talking to a professional service advisor. The kiosk outsold the humans. Perhaps people trusted that professionals programmed the kiosk to know exactly …
For when you don’t understand
We use empathy maps in my line of work. They are helpful to slow a team down so they can get into the heads and hearts of those they are trying to serve (or lead). A colleague passed along this great introduction to the exercise. While I usually see empathy maps used for understanding, say, a customer survey score, the …
Too many choices
Have you wasted an evening trying to choose which of the 2.3 million options you will watch on your streaming video service? Have you seen your customers go through the same paralysis? This article explains why it is happening. How could you lower customer “distress and confusion?”
Trust: Old Lessons for a New World
Are you trying to set sales appointments with online leads? Talk to vendors or partners over the phone? Videoconference with employees? This article is packed with practical insights for any of us who are trying to build trust remotely. The author–a trust specialist–makes a point that we’ve been doing this already in a number of ways.
Engineered customer experience: Walk matching talk
Engineered customer experience I work with Soft Shoe, a phenomenal store in Richmond, Ky. that takes customer experience seriously. (That’s why its Facebook page has almost 34,000 likes!) We ended up partnering after the owner and I were geeking out about the following engineered customer experience I had: In 2015, a client recommended I visit Unger’s Shoe Store in Ironton, …
Serving customers while masked
It runs counter to everything we’ve been taught about face-to-face communication. But here we are, serving customers and employees during a pandemic. Harvard Business Review has some great pointers on building rapport while wearing a mask. I realized I was guilty of at least one of these. Which one is your biggest opportunity?
Customer experience: What is your “Bullseye?”
Most of my clients focus on their customer experience. So my radar is always up. Case in point: Recently my wife and kids joined me on the road. We visited Unger’s Shoe Store in Ironton, Ohio to buy shoes for our two oldest. Why? Because of the exceptional customer service I received on my last visit. (Click here for a …
Retail management: Educate the Idiots
Retail management is tougher than customers think. Having said that: “You’ve got to educate the idiots.” That’s what a business owner told me when I asked about his independent vintage clothing shop. His struggle in retail management: keeping customers out of malls and big-box retailers, patronizing his shop instead. If they bought from him, they could shop local! Have an …