Magazines & newspapers, video (TV) streaming, online shopping, water containers (mineral) or filters, shaving razors, and so on — almost anywhere companies are ready to offer consumers subscription programmes for their goods or services. The monthly or annual subscriptions may be offered by manufacturers (selling directly to consumers), service providers and retailers. The scheme is… Read More
Differences and Conflicts Between Metrics of Response to Customer Service Calls
First Call Resolution (FCR) is a key performance indicator for service call (contact) centres. The indicator pertains to success in achieving a resolution to a problem or an issue raised by a customer in his or her first call made to a contact centre. The metric of FCR success rate (%) usually concerns phone calls,… Read More
Rebuilding Customer Loyalty in Hospitality
The coronavirus pandemic, with its changing virus variants arriving in multiple waves, caused havoc and serious disturbances in tourism, including travel, hospitality, and myriad of touristic activities. In some periods the pandemic waves caused almost a complete halt of travel, while in other periods there was partial resumption of tourist travelling and vacations. As hospitality… Read More
A Road Map to Customer Insights
In the crossroads of marketing research and customer research, a field of customer insights is flourishing. Instead of talking merely about research findings and conclusions, practitioners (managers and professionals) are developing and discussing customer insights. The term ‘insight’ does sound deeper and more clever, with potentially more ingenuine and farther-reaching meanings and implications. Especially when… Read More
An Illusion of Living in the 1970s: The Design and Experience
The cinema film ‘La Belle Époque‘ (France 2019, Director & Writer Nicholas Bedos) is intriguing, amusing, and in some moments fascinating. The story and scenery are quite unusual, having many aspects, and holding some surprises. Beyond the story of this romantic comedy, viewers are introduced to a special experiential production of past periods that customers… Read More
Designing Customer Experiences Around Personas
When mapping customer journeys, it would help to design and direct them with regard to personas of customers, ‘profile’ concepts of plausible types of customers that seem real and approachable. Having the image of a customer before one’s eyes with human traits, background, attitudes and preferences, can make it easier to plan and prepare for… Read More
Between Experience and Loyalty: The Case of Retailing
There is broad agreement, growing over the past decade, about the importance of improving and enhancing the experience of customers with companies, their brands, products or services. The journeys customers undergo, from shopping and purchasing through on-going service and support, should be streamlined and facilitated to make customer experiences more friendly and productive. It is… Read More
A Brand Mix-up of Entrecote
Le Relais de Venise: L’Entrecôte; Le Relais de l’Entrecôte; L’Entrecôte. The names of these restaurants are similar, partly overlapping, and they all follow the same concept of steak-frites bistro (more on the concept shortly) developed in the family Ginsete de Saurs. Yet the restaurants belong to three separate business entities within the broad family, each… Read More
Whole Foods Market in the Hands of Amazon
When Amazon.com acquired the food retail chain Whole Foods Market in the summer of 2017 (for $13.2bn), it stirred bafflement mixed with speculations: What is happening here? To what aim does the giant e-commerce retailer need physical stores of a natural and organic food retail chain? Customers were worried out of concern about what Amazon… Read More
Getting the Balance of Customer-Company Effort Right
One of the more frustrating experiences for a customer occurs when he or she is working hard to try resolve a problem in using a product or service of a company, while seeing that the company is doing only little to help. More and above the time and effort that the customer reluctantly has to… Read More
Consumer / Shopper / Customer Behaviour 