I am often asked by leaders “what’s the one thing I can do?” My return question is most usually: “To do what?” Because it depends. Sometimes there is one thing. More usually there are a series of one things. But organisations seem to be hard-wired to look for a silver bullet....
For years now I’ve been using the example of terms and conditions when I talk to organisations about customer experience issues. It’s a great illustration of how organisations somehow expect their customers to be a different kind of people than they are themselves. When was the last time you read a...
Delight. A noun meaning a high degree of enjoyment or pleasure. Joy. Rapture. If there’s a word that deserves a place on the over-exposed list of business lingo, delight would have to be up there. It is most commonly used in combination with customer, as in ‘customer delight’. A quick Google search...
A fair warning on what follows – I’m feeling a bit grumpy today. In the course of what passes for doing brand work, a lot of organisations take aim at elements of their marketing and identity. Which inevitably results in people getting an announcement from them where they proudly extol their...
A couple of years ago, when VW last hit the news for doing stupid stuff I wrote about their inaction and lack of willingness to accept responsibility until forced to by regulators. Clearly time has passed but not much changed. There are however (more than) a couple of differences between this recent...
What’s going on with McDonald’s lately? The what’s going on with part of the question refers to recent campaigns such as “How very UnMcDonald’s”, and Hipster Hamburglars. Amidst falling global sales and food scares in Asia, the 70-year-old company appears to be flailing more than a bit while trying to figure out how...
Last week I asked the question, “What happens when the expectations I set collide with the expectations you have?” It’s a not uncommon problem between the organisation’s 'ustomers' and in the marketplace with customers. And there’s no easy solution. Beyond the basics determined by laws and professional courtesy, it’s easy to get into uncharted...
“Nature abhors a vacuum,” or so said Greek physicist-philosopher Parmenides in circa 485 BC. And I have to say, so do expectations. The simple fact that is ignored or overlooked by many, many (nearly all) organisations is that if I (you) don’t set expectations for what I will won’t can can’t want to don’t want...
I’ve been thinking about, working with and generally immersing myself in what it takes to build a brand for many years now and I’ve always had an internal war going on about which is more important – skill or will. Not that it’s a contest, because in truth you do need...
Even people with the best intentions who write about promises (like me) do it more than I would like. After all, so the saying from Alexander Pope goes, “To err is human…” (we’ll get to the second forgiveness part a bit later). You can have strongly aligned purpose and values that...