To the agents I talked to yesterday from my favourite phone service provider. I’m sorry. I truly am.
I’m sure your employer really does have a sense of customer service. I just can’t see it. It’s probably unfair of me to say that they care as little (maybe even less) about you than they do about me. And then you get stuck with me. I’m such a lousy customer.
Filed under Customers Relationship, Marketing, Sales
Our company’s clients run the gamut from large muti-nationals to entrepreneurial companies. Although I have to say truly that it’s our large clients that pay the mortgage payment, I love working with startups. They are exciting, on the edge and they haven’t acquired the barnacles that attach to the hull of the older ships. While consulting is an exciting profession, it’s a lot like sailing — for every great sail you get, you have to spend a lot of time scraping the barnacles off the hull.
But as always, I digress….
What I really wanted to share with everyone was a great question that I’m always asked about a new business? It’s this. Continue reading
We only learn by our failures. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that before. And your cheque is in the mail.
We all repeat this by rote like a demented parrot. How many actually believe it? And if we do, why don’t we act like it?
The cynic would say that the reason we don’t actually allow people to fail is that companies lie. They say they want to encourage taking chances but they really don’t. They simply do not want to pay the price. I suggest that it’s not hypocracy, that gets in the way. The problem is we don’t know HOW to fail. The good news is that you can learn to embrace failure – and reap the rewards. Continue reading
Filed under Change, Marketing, Sales, Strategy, Technology
Change the game... 
AntiSocial – Undercurrents of Anger
I had coffee with a friend this morning. The topic turned to customer experience — as if often does. Not only do I do a lot of work in CRM, but I’m planning a new series of podcasts on the topic and I take the opportunity to discuss this every chance I get.
As inevitably happens – he brought out a recent experience where the customer service was appalling. I’ve heard many of these over the years. It doesn’t take much prodding and we can all come up with one. And I want to stress that I’m not talking about simply bad service. That happens all too frequently to count. This was appalling service — you’d almost have to try to make it that bad. In his case, what was promised to be a 24 hour turnaround from a major bank, conveniently done on-line turned into many weeks of trips far out of his way to the only physical location where this business could be done, many phone calls and even with all of this – never a really satisfying conclusion, let alone an apology.
Yet he told it to me, matter of factly, as only one in a history of disappointments. It was appalling, but nothing special.
Conversations like this have been going on for years in coffee shops all around the world. But I think something has changed. I can see it. We all can see it Continue reading →
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Filed under Commentary, Customers Relationship, Marketing, Sales, Social Networking