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Be careful what you say–the whole world is listening!
I was browsing some Google Alerts for one of my clients and found a very long thread on a trade publication’s forum. Apparently someone had asked an innocent question, “Has anyone ever used <insert client’s name here>?” to which a number of people replied, “I called them and the sales person was arrogant! He wouldn’t […]
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No More Doom & Gloom!
It seems that everywhere you turn, you hear more doom and gloom! Is there any hope? There sure is! This quarter is shaping up to be my best quarter ever, and December is probably going to be my best month ever. A number of my clients initially decided to put things on hold when they […]
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Living Large–Without Power!
We’re still without power and don’t expect to have it restored before Monday. It has been billed as the worst ice storm ever to hit Massachusetts, and left 1.2M homes without power. During the night we would hear horrendous POPs as pine tree limbs about 8″ in diameter would shatter under the weight of ice […]
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If Not Now, When? You Can’t Afford to Delay Strategic Thinking for your Business!
Last month I noticed a warning light on my car’s dashboard telling me that it was time to have my brakes looked at. I thought, “No, I’m pretty busy-I’ll let it go until next week.” Next week turned into next month… and then I heard the grinding. The repair bill was more than four times […]
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How Long Before CCOs Expire?
I was reading a blog post that summarized a BusinessWeek article regarding CXO tenure article based on research by Spencer Stuart. I think it is interesting that the CMO tenure trend actually increased to 26.8 months in 2007 from 23.2 months in 2006, reversing the slight decline from each of the 3 years prior. Could […]
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“Going Green”-Do Customers Really Care?
Do customers really care about about vendors that go green? Up until today, I’ve never seen anything beyond hype–vendors touting how green they really are in hopes of one-upping their competitors. Everyone has been jumping on a bandwagon, hoping to out-green their competitors. However, I’ve not seen any form of customer research that proves that […]
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Why Customer Satisfaction Surveys Can’t Help You Understand Your Customers
I am amazed at how often I run into companies that don’t understand their customers. In my previous post, I discussed the issue of a Fortune 20 company that completely missed the mark in their marketing & sales, and was paying the price in terms of severe downward price pressure, hugely dissatisfied customers, and appalling […]
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Why don’t you understand your customers?
The Fortune 20 company I was working with couldn’t understand why a segment of their customers were defecting in droves, and those that stayed were hammering them on price, causing their margins to spiral downwards faster and faster with each quarter’s results. The company had focused their marketing around three primary themes: Inventory control Cost […]
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Customer Service Sadly Lacking
Mike McLaughlin over at Geurrilla Marketing blog commented on the Sad State of Customer Satisfaction saying, For the third year in a row, customer service ratings are taking a beating. According to researchers at Accenture, almost half of the 3,500 consumers surveyed said that their service experience with companies was fair, poor, or terrible. Making […]
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H-P’s Unofficial Chief Customer Officer: Ann Livermore
What is the key to Customer Strategy? A Chief Customer Officer who is regularly speaking with customers and drawing connections where none existed before. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Carol Hymowitz profiles Ann Livermore, H-P’s head of storage & servers as well as the software and services business. In years past, she was dubbed H-P’s […]