How should you approach CRM strategy and data without getting stuck in a bad technology investment? Get the executive perspective in this in-depth article.
Your B2B customers have changed this year. Will you?
In case you haven’t noticed, your customers are working differently since February 2020, and as a result their needs have changed. This is especially true if you are a for-profit or nonprofit organization that provides value to knowledge workers. They may be the same...
Customer feedback: Lessons from the lockdown
As any successful vendor knows, customer feedback is essential to the development of business strategy. After all, if you don’t know what people want in return for their money, you’ll never get your venture off the ground or sustain and grow your enterprise. However,...
Collecting user feedback – the old-fashioned way
Recently at the offices of one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, I was reminded of the value of low-tech customer feedback techniques. Google is celebrated (and feared) for the volumes of user testing it conducts on each facet of its...
Putting a square peg in a round hole: Lessons from Apollo 13 on team problem-solving
The beginning of a new year is a good time to take stock. If you’re looking for a good team-building exercise to kick off 2019, try what I call the “Apollo 13 exercise:” Identify a difficult problem. Do some inventory. Dump all your stuff on a table. How can you solve...
Mapping your market to ‘get a sense of where you are’
I don’t follow sports. But years ago, I read a biography of a famous basketball player and it stuck with me. His approach to the game offers us a useful framework not just for sports, but for leading successful organizations. John McPhee’s A Sense of Where You Are...
Keep your team focused: Put your clients in the picture
Successful organizations stay close to their customers and adapt to meet users’ changing needs. Start-ups have to do it just to survive the next week. Established companies are able to take a longer view, but given the pace of change, they are susceptible to blind...
See your nonprofit through the eyes of a stranger: Hire a mystery shopper
When you’re running a nonprofit organization and focused on executing that strategic plan you wrote seven months ago, you know the world is changing around you. What can you do to get an outside-in perspective you can use to make course corrections? Answer: Take a...
Delta’s human touch smooths out a bumpy customer journey
When you map out your customer’s online journey, think about each point of interaction your users have with your data. Consider how your customer reacts to both anything you send out as well as any experience your customer has when you are delivering your product to...
How Google dropped the ball but scored a home run
How Google dropped the ball but scored a home run Dora Chomiak January 18, 2018 Earlier this winter, Google launched an awful product: Google Pixel Buds Bluetooth headphones ($165), which were beleaguered by the unfortunate problem of not transmitting sound. (Here’s a...