This article makes stimulating reading if you have a customer-facing business (you don’t…?) – especially if you’re interested in finding ways to attract more customers, and generate more revenue (you aren’t…?).
Whatever your business, take time out to reflect on the opportunities you aren’t exploring:
My latest newsletter gives me the opportunity to share an interview I gave to Museums + Heritage Advisor magazine, sharing some of the lessons I’ve learned developing retail concepts for Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and other prestigious organisations over nearly 30 years.
I also share Baroness Karren Brady’s “6 Key Ingredients for Success”, gleaned from her appearance at the Spring Fair in Birmingham.
A shop owner in the Yorkshire Dales has been branded “the bookseller from hell” after his local parish council took in more than 20 complaints about his alleged…… Read more “My Advice to the Yorkshire Dales ‘Shopkeeper from Hell’”
My POSITIVE Customer Experience Newsletter for September coincides with the Autumn Trade Fairs season: whatever your industry it’s a time to check in with the market, with your collaborators and competitors and with your business strategy and plan for the foreseeable future.
It’s time to move on from the holiday season and commit to the actions you will take to build Brexit resilience.
The newsletter contains 10 Top Tips to help you navigate the next few uncertain months and come out stronger.
Well it’s been quite a few days here in the UK: there are more questions than answers, and uncertainty – that enemy of business confidence and growth – seems set to be with us for at least the next few months, if not years.
So what should business do for the best?
I had two experiences last week that showed, simply yet dramatically, where business’ focus should be over the foreseeable future: on engaging and empowering people to deliver memorable Customer Experiences.
In a new report, Barclays predicts that if businesses become more responsive to online feedback the hospitality and leisure sector can add £2bn to the UK economy with the impact on the supply chain contributing a further £1.2bn.
Add that to the 2015 report, by workforce charity People 1st, showing that a 1% uplift in productivity could generate £1.4bn of extra revenue, and it is plain that there’s more upside than downside for organisations that focus on Customer Experience.
I’m often asked to explain what exactly it is that I do.
The short answer is: I help Retail, Tourism and Hospitality organisations increase sales, productivity and profitability through creating POSITIVE Customer Experiences, Communication and Leadership.
The next question is, what’s “Customer Experience” – how does it differ from “Customer Service?”
I visited a museum at the weekend – just scraping in on the last day of a heavily-promoted, blockbuster exhibition.
As I waited at the ticket desk, I noticed that, despite there being a queue, only one team member was selling tickets – and yet there were four team members behind that desk. Two of the other three were having a chat; the other was (there’s no other word for it) slumped in her chair, staring into space.
The exhibition was great – I’d recommend it to you, but it’s over!
Also over is the massive opportunity the museum had to maximise its return on investment…
Iconic retailer BHS has entered administration this morning, putting up to 11,000 jobs at risk, making it the biggest retail casualty since Woolworths. This sad news comes…… Read more “BHS: Two Lessons For Every Business”
While the news that UK unemployment rose last month – whilst wage growth remains below expectations – tends to reinforce the view that there may be tough times just around the corner for the economy, I’d suggest that this is the very moment that smart employers should be looking to invest in their people.
Why?
Because, when the economy turns down, and investment in capital projects is likely to be deferred, the people who deliver your Customer Experience are the one asset you can’t afford to put on the backburner.
