Like all great products or services, they solve a fundamental problem that meets a customer need, making lives simpler and easier in the process and in doing so creating better customer experiences. The Brevado team has done just that. Brevado is a relatively new and small tech start-up company born in the New York area in the Eastern United States. It was the brain child of three long-time friends, Nick Zafiropoulos, Steve Garofalo and Mike Perna….
You can’t manage from the board room or the balance sheet alone
I like watching Under Cover Boss because apart from it being interesting on many levels, it never fails to highlight how businesses cannot be run solely from either the balance sheet alone or from the ivory towers of a head office, despite claims of the best management reporting and a transparent, open and communicative culture.
Slides, friction and customer experience
I remember a couple of instances when I was young, when my Mum polished the slide in our local park. She actually took a duster and a can of polish in her bag along to the park when we played. Just standing on the top step was enough to give you butterflies, let alone the sliding experience that was to follow! It was a great experience. Fast, thrilling and without friction to slow me or my friends down and one we could repeat again and again until tea time. It’s the same with customer experience…
UK economy grows, customer satisfaction declines
With signs that the UK economy is now starting to recover after the worst slump since World War 2, customer satisfaction however is on the decline.
July saw the most recent update of the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, which showed the third consecutive drop in customer satisfaction recorded over the last 18 months.
Honesty, expectations and reality
Amongst Richard Branson’s many quotes that have been published over the years, my most favourite has always been this one; “Customer service is about attention to detail and communication. Neither of which are difficult so naturally they’re the first things we forget!” It’s my favourite because he’s right.
Cut Your Cognitive Load to Improve The Customer Experience
One of the more recent books I’ve read this year is the excellent ‘Scaling up Excellence’ with the very apt subtitle of ‘Getting to more without settling for less. As a very brief overview, the book details the work and research of Professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao of Stanford University in trying to understand the basic principles that allow organisations to scale successfully.
Can you value and recommend a product you never use?
Not many people I know like having to pay car insurance. It’s perceived as a necessary evil and an additional expense and cost. I understand why we need it, but it always feels like an additional tax. And it’s not even a remotely glamorous or exciting purchase now is it? No insurance is.
Is ‘Easy’ The New Driver of Customer Loyalty?
Customers that get ‘easy to do business with’ types of experiences are significantly more likely to return than those that don’t. Sounds common sense doesn’t it and yet some businesses seems to go out of their way to do the opposite.
