Across products and business categories, customers are demanding more from companies and brands. Better selection, lower prices, faster service, same-day delivery and frictionless interaction: these are the market mandates of the new customer-centric economy. And then there’s health care. Characterized by network-restricted product access, price and value obscurity, interminable wait times and a bafflingly convoluted […]
Blogs and Articles
The Sound of Your Brand Speaks Volumes
A Conversation with Sonic Branding Expert Tom Eymundson In mid-September, we had two fantastic guest speakers presenting to a number of our top clients at The Verde Group CX Summit in New York City. One of those speakers, Tom Eymundson, is a leading sonic branding expert and the CEO of The Pirate Group Inc. I caught […]
Blogs and Articles
Captive Customers: When Customers Want to Leave You But Don’t
We’ve all heard it, and probably even said it: “I’m never shopping there again!” But is there a tipping point, a ‘red line,’ that once crossed means customers will leave you for good? It turns out that things are not so simple. The point where customer dissatisfaction actually impacts repurchase intent varies from industry to […]
Blogs and Articles
NPS is Just Part of a Much Larger Toolkit
The Net Promotor Score (NPS) is a loyalty metric that measures how willing customers are to recommend a company’s offerings to others. As an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research, it’s widely believed to reflect revenue performance. Virtually every Fortune 500 company uses the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure customer loyalty — if you […]
Blogs and Articles
Inbound Feedback is Only One Piece of the Customer Experience Puzzle
Companies who rely solely on inbound feedback to gain a greater understanding of their customers’ experiences may be missing the opportunity to solve for the problems that are most related to customer loyalty. Most organizations understand the importance of focusing on negative customer experiences. Customers who’ve had problems or are unhappy are more likely to […]
Blogs and Articles
Collecting Consumer Data: Is More Really Better?
It wasn’t too long ago that industry leaders would have scoffed at the idea of collecting too much customer data. In a rush toward realizing the value of big data and analytics, customer information was the key to higher revenue and increased market share, and more was better. Too much customer data? There was simply […]
Blogs and Articles
Start Small To Create a Company-wide View of the Customer
I’m sure you’ve heard the ancient parable about the blind men and the elephant. It’s the story of a group of blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time. They all touch a different part of the animal, then draw different conclusions as to what they’ve experienced. In some versions of the story, […]
Blogs and Articles
Three Ways to Optimize In-house Customer Research Teams
Customer research provides critical intelligence that companies simply cannot do without, and in-house research teams bring unique skills and domain expertise to the table. That said, in-house teams face a number of obstacles that challenge their ability to deliver consolidated, customer-centric insights to their business stakeholders. The Advantages of In-house Customer Research Teams In-house […]
Blogs and Articles
How Educated Customers Raise the Bar on Retail Experience
Customers love the ability to shop anywhere — online, in the store, or over the phone. What they hate is the fact that often they feel they don’t have all the information they need to make an informed decision. Or worse, they feel they’ve been misled. Retailers should consider that their customers usually aren’t wrong. […]
Blogs and Articles
Beware Cross-Culture Comparisons In International Research
The other day one of my clients forwarded to me a research report citing that 68% of Chinese shoppers were “happy or overjoyed” with their shopping experiences, versus only 48% of American shoppers. While this is an interesting factoid, the data point suggests a more important topic: how to manage the complexities and risks of […]