The Most Valuable Customer Feedback Often Comes at the Exit
Most businesses ask for feedback when everything is still fine. After a purchase. After a service interaction. After a support call. Useful, yes. But some of the most valuable feedback comes at a very different moment. When the customer is leaving. That is when the reasons become real. Not hypothetical. Not based on whether they […]
Bad Numbers Can Make Good Businesses Make Bad Decisions
Business advice tends to assume there is always a move. Change the offer. Improve the service. Train the team. Spend more on marketing. Cut the price. Reposition the product. Find a new channel. Do something. That mindset is useful most of the time. But it can also become a trap. Because not every bad result […]
The Problem With Trying Too Hard to Delight Customers
“Delighting the customer” sounds like a good goal. It sounds generous. Ambitious. Customer-focused. But it can also lead businesses to improve things the customer never wanted changed. That is where the trouble starts. There is a difference between creating value and creating a surprise. Businesses often confuse the two. They assume faster is always better. […]
Your Most Loyal Customers Are Often the Easiest to Neglect
Businesses usually pay the most attention to customers who are difficult to win. The new lead. The first-time buyer. The customer comparing three competitors. The person who might leave a bad review. These customers create urgency. Loyal customers often do the opposite. They know the process. They understand the product. They forgive small mistakes. They […]
Your Sales Team May Be Having Great Conversations and Losing Sales
A customer walks into the showroom. The salesperson is friendly. They answer every question. They explain the product clearly. The customer seems interested. Everyone walks away feeling like the conversation went well. Then nothing happens. No appointment. No follow-up. No customer details. No next meeting. No sale. This is one of the easiest problems to […]
A Business Can Be Over-Monitored and Still Poorly Understood
Some businesses measure everything. Customer satisfaction. Wait times. Conversion rates. Complaints. Staff performance. Repeat visits. Average transaction value. There are dashboards, reports, surveys and weekly meetings to discuss all of it. And yet, when something starts going wrong, nobody really knows why. That is the strange thing about measurement. It can create the feeling of […]
Growth Can Look Very Different From the Customer’s Side of the Counter
From behind the counter, the café probably looked busier than ever. Delivery drivers coming and going. More orders appearing on the screen. Coffee machines running constantly. New revenue coming from customers who were not even in the building. It looked like growth. From our side of the counter, it looked very different. Our cycling group […]
You Can Save Money and Still Make the Business More Expensive to Rebuild
Some cost cuts save money immediately. Then cost far more later. That is the part businesses often miss. When conditions tighten, the pressure is usually to reduce whatever looks non-essential. Marketing gets paused. Training is delayed. Experienced staff are replaced with cheaper ones. Customer follow-up becomes less consistent. Maintenance is pushed back. Small service standards […]
Telling Your Staff What to Do Isn’t Enough. Here’s What’s Missing.
“I’ve already told them.” You hear leaders say this all the time. They sent the email. They explained it in the meeting. They mentioned it again in the team chat. So, from their perspective, the communication happened. But the result still did not. That is where things get interesting. Because telling someone what to do […]
Customers Don’t Want More Service. They Want Less Friction
There is a strange assumption in business that better customer service always means adding more human interaction. More staff. More conversations. More check-ins. More opportunities to “delight” the customer. But sometimes, the best thing you can do is simply get out of their way. Think about filling up your car. Years ago, you would pull […]
Customer Loyalty Doesn’t Have to Cost You Anything
A friend of mine stayed at a hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel, a while back. She’d been there once before and decided to return. When she checked in, there was a letter waiting for her in the room. It wasn’t elaborate. It wasn’t signed by hand. It wasn’t even personalised beyond her name. But it […]
You Have No Idea What’s Happening in Your Regional Stores
Here’s a stat that always gets me. Australia is about 4,000 kilometres from one side to the other. It takes five to six days to drive it. And yet 85% of the population, around 26 million people, live within 50 kilometres of the coast. That leaves roughly three to three and a half million people […]