Customer experience is meant to be evocative not reactive… We are entering an era of customer-centricity, mostly because we have to. But also, because employing a customer focus is the right thing to do. I guess businesses lost their way at some point. Blame quarterly earnings. Blame technology. Blame politics. But over the years, we overlooked the importance of the “C” and “R” and instead scaled the “M” in CRM. It didn’t hurt that we found ways to save time…
Attention is a Precious Commodity: Earn it and Spend it Wisely
There’s an oft-shared quote that I’d also love to share with you here, “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” French mathematician, physicist, writer and philosopher Blaise Pascal essentially captured the essence of thoughtful and purposeful communication with a bold but confusing statement in 1657. At first blush, his words almost seem counter-intuitive. I mean after all, how can spending more time writing a letter equate to its downsizing? That’s the point. Think about…
To Deliver a Great Customer Experience, Stop Focusing on the Customer You Think You Know
Guest post by Rajat Paharia (@rajatrocks), founder and chief products officer, Bunchball and author of Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification 2015 promises to be The Year of Customer Experience. Companies around the globe are resolving to become more customer-centric because, as Brian lays out quite eloquently in his book: “Now’s the time for an investment in something more than price, performance, or value. The future of business is about creating experience,…
Make Change Work for You: The Power of Observation
I’m a pretty private person usually. From time to time though, I share stories about my past to help others take their next step. This is one such case. Scott Steinberg is a good friend and the other of several books including his most recent title, Make Change Work for You. We chatted recently about lessons learned over the years. I wanted to share our conversation with you here… Scott Steinberg: You’ve been tremendously successful in your career. Would you call yourself…
Report: Some Brands Go All In on Mobile; Others Suffer from Mobile Mediocrity
Consumers aren’t just going digital, they’re also becoming increasingly mobile. To them, mobile isn’t the second screen, it’s the first screen. Brands however, struggle to keep up with them and as a result, mobile strategies are off target or underwhelming. This finding among many others is the result of new research conducted by my colleague Jaimy Szymanski and me. I’m proud to announce that the report, The Inevitability of a Mobile-Only Customer Experience, is available today for immediate download. Mobile…
Untethered From Tradition: How I Got Here
I didn’t set out to be an author, speaker or digital analyst/anthropologist. It just happened over the years. When I was younger, I studied economics and journalism. I actively experimented in online marketing. I was also a musician/songwriter. So, how did I get here? I spent some time with my friends over at Onboardly to answer just that. I’d like to share the transcription of our conversation with you here… The Freedom to Experiment 1. You’re a best selling author,…
The Future of Everything? It’s About People Connecting with People
These last few years have been an interesting ride. As fun as it has been, it is the next few years that will be the most telling and also transformative if all goes according to plan. As quickly as time flies, it’s important not to lose sight of the things that remind us of why we’re on this path together. I recently stumbled across a conversation with Eric Jacobson in which I shared what was driving me at the time…and…
The 6 Pillars of Social Commerce [VIDEO]
In April 2012, I wrote a piece that explored online social behavior and its impact on commerce and decision-making. The work was inspired by a series of studies based on the work of Robert Cialdini that identified six universal heuristics that shoppers use to make decisions. The importance of social psychology can not be overstated. This branch of psychology deals with how people think about influence and how individuals relate to one another. The social economy is shaped by how…
Community is Much More Than Belonging to Something; It’s About Doing Something Together That Makes Belonging Matter
Viginia Coutinho is a dear friend who just released a new book (in Portuguese) that helps strategists think differently about social media. She is also the organizer of Upload Lisboa, a fantastic event in Portugal that focuses on innovation and disruptive technologies. Earlier in the year, she surprised me by asking if I would consider writing the foreword. Even though I don’t write much about social media these days, I couldn’t let her down. Now that her book is available,…
1 Short But Important Prediction for Marketing in 2015
It’s that time of year when experts share their predictions and others assemble them into long lists. Yay! I’ve only managed to write one officially so far. And to be honest, it’s less of a prediction and more of something for a wish list, not just for the future of marketing, but all of business. I’d love to say that by 2015 we will truly see digital strategies that are integrated across digital, social, mobile, advertising, marketing, comms, et al….
