I recently watched a programme where a group of obese people shared their stories and sought to understand each other’s points of view whilst staying together in a house. Amongst the group was a disruptive ‘body positive’ woman who literally closed her ears to the painful truths the group shared. Not surprisingly, her business model was based on denying the significant medical evidence that obesity had a detrimental effect on health. Also not surprisingly, [...]
Last week, I wrote a piece about how poor digital marketing practice is damaging our industry. At the heart of this is not just how brands are failing to build meaningful relationships with their audiences, but the fact that they're often actively disengaging them. Like many areas of marketing practice, addressing the basics is not rocket science, but it does take work. Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes will help ensure they’re truly engaged [...]
As a companion piece to my last blog (Time to Address the Relationship Disconnect), I’ve written a handy ‘how not to do customer service’ checklist. Poor customer service is now so commonplace in the UK that comedians build entire routines out of it; the curse of the unexpected item in the bagging area, the endless ‘your call is important to us’ messages while they leave you sat on hold and the never-ending IVR menus. (“Press [...]