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What could be more important than speed at a fast food drive-thru?
Read more: What could be more important than speed at a fast food drive-thru?For years, fast food drive-thru success was measured by one simple factor: how quickly an order could be completed. The goal was simply to serve the most customers in the shortest time. The 2024 QSR® Drive-Thru Report reveals a significant evolution, signaling a crucial lesson for businesses across industries: speed is not enough. The report…
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How Brian Niccol Plans to Revive the Starbucks Experience
Read more: How Brian Niccol Plans to Revive the Starbucks ExperienceStarbucks lost its way. New CEO Brian Niccol wants to get it back on track. Will he succeed? He’s saying and doing the right things, but time will tell. So, how did the coffee company that is practically synonymous with a great customer experience come to need a turnaround CEO? At some point in the…
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What are your grace notes to your customers?
Read more: What are your grace notes to your customers?In Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara recounts how everyone at his restaurant company was primed to seek out ways to improve the guest experience. One came up when a guest mentioned she would have to leave mid-meal to put some coins in a parking meter. They offered to do that for her, which obviously made it…
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Do we need bank branches?
Read more: Do we need bank branches?What does the bank branch of the future look like? Do we even need them? I was interviewed by a global financial innovation think-tank for a research piece on the future of bank branches. Here’s what I told them. First, the context. Branch traffic was falling pre-pandemic. Post-pandemic, it’s decreasing even more rapidly. Apple Pay…
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Make waiting part of the experience. Like Disney.
Read more: Make waiting part of the experience. Like Disney.Disney has spent decades and billions of dollars to create the ultimate guest experience. I will give you one of their strategies in a free, three-minute read. On a recent visit to Disney World, I saw thousands of people who spent a full day and $170 at their theme park. Why? Because Disney knows that…
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When efficiency kills the experience
Read more: When efficiency kills the experienceTime is the currency of experience. It’s about time. But once most people understand that, they quickly jump to the wrong conclusion. They add a word: ‘It’s about saving time.’ There’s no doubt that customers don’t want their time to be wasted. That’s the first step toward a great customer experience. They want time well-saved.…
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Handoff like Disney
Read more: Handoff like DisneyAlmost every business has awful handoffs that destroy the customer experience.That’s because they don’t imagineer the handoff like Disney. You know the kinds of handoffs I’m talking about. Sales hands off to fulfillment and the client feels like they’re in a completely new business. Design hands off to construction who knows nothing about what the…
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My new book about how your business can stand
Read more: My new book about how your business can standHow can your business stand out today? That’s the question St. Cloud Financial Credit Union asked itself ten years ago, and their answer led them to become the fastest-growing credit union in Minnesota. I co-authored a book with their CEO about their growth strategy and I want you to have it. You see, ten years…
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Are you selling services, experiences or transformations?
Read more: Are you selling services, experiences or transformations?You are what you charge for. That’s a fundamental tenant of The Experience Economy. If you are selling things like investment advice, IT solutions, dining, construction, then you are a service provider. But as we know from the Progression of Economic Value (POEV), clients are willing to pay more for experiences than they are for…
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The Role of Technology in the Customer Experience
Read more: The Role of Technology in the Customer ExperienceYour customer’s experience is almost entirely determined by their interaction with your people. Until you get that right, your space doesn’t matter, your technology doesn’t matter, nothing else really matters. Those are the thoughts I had while reading the Customer of the Future by Blake Morgan. It was written a few years ago, but still…
