Independent Thinking Blog
Independent Thinking Blog
13 Ways to Wow Your Customers
Sometimes the best customer experiences happen by serendipity. I recently pooled my Amazon gift cards to purchase the complete 5-DVD collection of the Best TV Show Ever. When it arrived, I put disk one into the DVD player I rarely use with huge anticipation. Then....
3 Rules for Great Presentations
Anyone who has sat through a bad presentation knows what can go wrong. Maybe the speaker rambled on, or he spoke in a monotone. Maybe he read slide after slide. Or he punctuated every third word with an "er" an "um" or a "like." When your presentation sucks, it...
Have You Ever Had a Deadbeat Client?
Have you ever been stiffed by a client (i.e., failed utterly in all attempts to collect payment)? It has never happened to me. Maybe I've been lucky. I've definitely been smart. Some of it has to do with selecting clients with care, building in payment phases for...
Kellogg, Kashi, and What Customers Want
Saying you've done nothing wrong when your customers are angry may not be the smartest response. Calling customers "confused"--really? My friend Zane Safrit pointed me to this story about Kellogg's Kashi brand. Apparently some of the soy used in its cereals comes from...
Don’t Cheap Yourself Out of a Customer
I've been trying to get "free" checks from PNC Bank for six weeks. Free, apparently, is a very relative term. PNC Bank has lost a lot. Here's a brief chronology of what happened: 1. Mid-March: Call 800 number to order more checks. On hold, on hold, on hold, automated...