When the folks at LittleBits asked me to test their latest kit of snap-together DIY electronics, I was really excited. As a gadget-loving person, I love the idea of creating a Rube Goldbergian perpetual motion machine. I even the idea of…
This essay is written as part of the Startup Edition project – check out the other essays here. How do you discover what people really want? People are not effective at self-reporting, or letting you know what they will…
In my experience, successful organizations do a few things right when it comes to people. Not only do they do a great job attracting, discovering, and retaining people, they do a great job at “catching people doing something right.” What…
Poor Customer Service is No Excuse. You Can Do Better. Think of the last time you contacted a “Big Brand.” Did you feel appreciated, acknowledged or loved by their response? If so, that’s great! If not, then you probably had…
When talking to people about customer service, I often hear them discuss the idea of the “Voice of the Customer.” Ideally, this might mean “knowing exactly what this customer wants and needs and can tell us about their service experience.”…
You’ve probably been to your competitor’s web site recently and reviewed the content they are sharing for first-time and seasoned customers. And have you been to your own Support Site recently to do the same? There are a few things…
Quick: how many clicks does it take to do something important in your product? Count them. If it seems like too many, it probably is too many clicks if you want the customer to keep coming back. The “too many…
You should fix all the broken things in your product. You avoided some decisions in the past or made some decisions you might now choose to change, and now these broken things are still there. Your customers see this accumulated…
The single most important thing you can do to increase customer value is to follow up on the things you said you would you do the last time you talked to the customer. In the eyes of the customer, it’s…
