Why I haven’t retired to the Bahamas yet Years ago, an influential and well-connected man in the automotive industry approached me: Would I become the first sales rep for a new company? The company sold dealerships a service to ensure that, when a customer searched for, say a Ford Explorer, the pages for individual Explorers in the dealership’s inventory would …
Millennial customers explain Millennial employees
Crazy kids and their yeah-yeah music … Our most recent podcast discusses Millennials as both customers and employees. We’ve talked about inter-generational conflict before: A while back, I had a post explaining how Millennials are not lazy (see: Nashville) and do want help (see: my friend Andy Buck). I added another Nashville post since then: a young artist–the exact opposite …
Podcast 98: “Millennials Don’t Know and Don’t Care” … and Other Half-Truths
A listener’s 20-something kid opens the eyes of Mike and Mark to what businesses are up against: Do your younger customers know and care? How about your employees? Listen in to start the discussion in your workplace–because it’s only going to get worse. … We would love your questions and comments (and book ideas!) for future episodes: Email Mike and …
True CX: Employee Engagement … in what?
Want more profit? Engage your employees. But engage them in what? Let’s start with the basics. I studied it in grad school, Ford Motor Company used it in its pioneering Consumer Experience Movement and I’ve used it with clients: the Service-Profit Chain. First published in the early 1990s, the Service-Profit Chain describes how the real predictor of a company’s above-average …
Customer service is nothing new under the sun
This morning I searched for websites and news articles about “serving customers.” And I had a stark reminder of what is at stake. I try to post two articles a week, one employee-oriented, the other customer-oriented. (And, of course, we post our podcast every Saturday, plus a song for #HornSectionsMakeRockBetter, just because I can.) It was time for this week’s …
Every team member can enhance the customer experience
A colleague shared with me this speech clip from Susan Salgado, director of culture and learning for Danny Meyer’s famous Union Square Hospitality Group. The group includes Shake Shack among many other brands. The clip is a short story about a hospital nurse who took some clever steps to ensure patients received quick and efficient care. What will impress you …
Good news: Loyalty is dead
In about a month, this website may disappear. I received an email that it is time to renew my domain. The link in the email doesn’t work. And the phone number leads me to believe I’ll need about an hour on the phone. They haven’t lost me as a customer yet. But they will. Assuming I figure out how to …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: Life in a Glass House
A reader took in my series on how technologies that will allow the metaverse are already leading to cyberpunk culture that workplaces must address. She then sent me this NPR podcast on Radiohead’s groundbreaking albums Kid A and Amnesiac. She observed that Radiohead really deserves a place in the cyberpunk series. Like U2 in the early ’90s, Radiohead issued a …
What your organization shares with LEGO, Porsche and Dungeons & Dragons
Thanks to a reader for sending in this short new story about a Dungeons & Dragons-themed retail establishment. Even if you’ve never rolled a 20-sided die, it’s worth your time. Here’s why: They could have launched a restaurant, shop and axe-throwing bar. But they didn’t. They are opening an immersive customer experience. Likewise, check out LEGO’s new retail facilities, called …
AR and VR: What to do about it
As mentioned in the second post in this series on AR, VR and the metaverse, cyberpunk predicted a world where technology would so immerse us that we would be seduced and swayed by it without hardly thinking. “The disease of images” We looked at, of all things, Saved by the Bell. The show and its type, for teens and kids, …