Upselling is a really dumb strategy. Instead of pressuring people into buying something they don't want (and often don't need), why not just wow them? If you do customer service right, your customers will buy more. Maybe not this visit, but they'll come back. And...
When I moved into my condo, it took me a couple of months to find a tile guy to replace my kitchen floor. The job was "too small," one contractor flat out said to me. When I was writing articles for an insurance company, two brokers and one attorney (the company's...
I heard Linda Ireland speak last week about how to strengthen the customer experience on social media platforms. A key point she made during the MarketingProfs Webinar is that customers are demanding--to be heard, authenticity, speed, support, interaction,...
Zappos has nothing on the Corner Parking Lot in Charlottesville, Virginia. Just watch The Parking Lot Movie, a funny, fascinating documentary that debuted at SXSW 2010. It has everything: class-ism, culture, hiring people you trust, empowering your employees,...
British Airways has apparently never heard of Gerry McGovern. McGovern won my heart when I heard him describe what Google's home page would look like if it were a typical corporate home page. (Think "Hi, I'm Sergey" and "Latest News: Announcing Google+"). Google knows...
Everyone should spend a week (or longer) working for The Ritz-Carlton. It doesn't really matter what job--front line, back office, executive suite. You'll learn something about customer service done right. I was fortunate to spend a month many years ago working in the...
I read a LinkedIn question the other day that asked whether companies should spend more time focused on their core business--and less, perhaps, on social media. While I don't think this is really an "either/or" question (you have to do both), I also think it's pretty...
So much of customer service should be easy, and yet companies screw it up every day. A new survey by Consumer Reports finds that the top three gripes of customers are the inability to reach a human on the phone, phone trees, and rude salespeople. Rounding out the top...
Bling only gets you so far. You can own a big house, but you still have to mow the lawn. You can buy expensive china, but your food still has to taste good. You can put on an Armani suit, but your product still has to wow the customer. My first experience at an Apple...
Guy Kawasaki is a born marketer. But he's also an entrepreneur who's smart, personable, answers his own mail (and his tweets too), and is at times utterly enchanting. Kawasaki came through Washington last week on his Enchantment book tour, dropping off books for...