Thinking Ahead.
Customer experience, loyalty, and the AI era.
A new post every week — drawn from Joseph's current research and the ideas shaping his presentations.
1139 posts in the archive
Earlier writing.
Page 51 of 57
- Jan 11, 2013
The Human Experience - Lessons from the ICU bedside
My vantage point on customer service and customer experience have certainly grown in the past 5 years. Much of that growth comes in the form of empathy gained from encountering complex healthcare delivery. In the past series of days, for example, I…
- Dec 14, 2012
Get your Zappos Experience in time for Christmas!
Thank you for your patience with my less frequent blog posts. I have two bits of good news and then on to this weeks blog... 1) the first draft of my upcoming Starbucks book is done (working title The Starbucks Connection) freeing me up to return to…
- Oct 22, 2012
Authenticity beats Trendy!
First a personal note... Please accept my apologies for not blogging more regularly. Every waking hour (that is not dedicated to consulting, speaking, or family) is being and will be spent writing my newest book about Starbucks. I hope the smoke…
- Sep 10, 2012
Can you handle the truth about social media hype?
Do you remember Jack Nicholson's character in the 1992 movie, A Few Good Men , Colonel Jessep, delivering that powerful line "You can't handle the truth" ? Well, I suspect for some of you today's post will carry a similar challenge as it relates to…
- Sep 7, 2012
Connecting People to a Culture of Connection
In an interview recently, I was asked what is the biggest "small detail" business leaders overlook today. How would you answer that question? For what it's worth, here's my response: not As a result of this opportunity, I spend a lot of my time…
- Aug 13, 2012
Shouldn't You be Shadowing Your Customers? Whys, Whats and Hows for Success
Have you ever been shadowed? Have you ever shadowed? I am talking about customer shadowing of course and if you are not doing it, you might want to add it to your toolkit. Imagine not only asking your customers what they want or need from you but…
- Aug 4, 2012
The Basics for Delivering Customer Value
How often do you say "no" to a lucrative business opportunity? I have come to believe that excellence requires a willingness to pass on those opportunities where you are likely to be mediocre, or where those new opportunities will take your focus…
- Jul 30, 2012
Guest Blog - "What You Think Versus What You Know"
In addition to my regular blog post later in the week, here is a bonus guest blog from Heidi Hanna. Heidi and I have worked together for a shared client and I trust her expertise in human performance will offer a refreshing spark: particularly, as…
- Jul 27, 2012
Baking customer loyalty into your overall business strategy
While working on the manuscript for my new book about Starbucks, I’ve been revisiting what Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School framed as the “five forces analysis” of business strategy. While you probably know Porter’s five forces model, I…
- Jul 20, 2012
How to respond to "Pinteresting" times in Customer Engagement
“May you live in interesting times,” is often referred to as the Chinese curse and it aptly applies to the challenge of creating relevant customer experiences online today. Let’s take the moving target of social media websites as our example. The…
- Jul 15, 2012
Gummy Worms and Customer Experience Excellence!
th th July 15 was National Gummy Worm day and while that might not be the type of information you would expect from this blog, it turns out to have significance in our office. Specifically, National Gummy Worm day served as an opportunity to…
- Jun 29, 2012
Do you want return calls from sales prospects? Focus on the personal!
I’ve long championed a simple truth “all business is personal.” That's why I believe customer experience is as much about relationship building as it is about product and transactional excellence. A recent study conducted by Reachable powerfully…
- Jun 22, 2012
Can you "Gamify" your Customer Experience? Lessons from the Highway
Have you thought about “gamifying” your customer experience? Over the past number of months, I’ve been spending time with senior leaders on the Starbucks Digital Ventures team. Given the rise of popularity of mobile technology, Starbucks has…
- Jun 15, 2012
Wow Customer Experiences - Defined and Delivered
not do In my book, The New Gold Standard , I defined “wow” experiences as “unique, emotionally engaging interactions that go beyond expectations and are readily recounted.” As a result of that definition, I’m often asked to give examples of how…
- Jun 8, 2012
Customer Experience - Understanding Emotional Economics
While working on the new book I am writing about Starbucks, to be released in 2013, I have been digging deeply into research on emotional economics. As you are aware economics is the branch of the social sciences that looks at the production,…
- Jun 1, 2012
You look like a curator…a key to adding customer experience value
Are you are a curator? In today’s time-pressured, information-laden world you should think about adding “curator” to your title! In my youth, I thought of curators as old sophisticates who went around the world securing art works for museums. Today,…
- May 25, 2012
Customer Experience – Art or Science? The answer is YES
Crafting engaging customer experiences requires a blend of art and science. The science often hinges on effective use of empirical data concerning consumer need states, use patterns, and changing trends. To that end, I offer some recent results from…
- May 18, 2012
Customer Experience Limbo - How low can it go?
Dive in - the data is fine! If you want to get a quick pulse on the state of service experiences globally, look no farther than the recently published American Express Global Customer Service Barometer . Beyond painting a woeful picture of…
- May 13, 2012
Giraffes are ESSENTIAL to your customer experience!
I ran across a very interesting video blog by Chris Hurn, the CEO and co-founder of Mercantile Capital, so I had my Social Media and IT director, Andrew, post it on our Facebook page . Since I wrote a book about service excellence at the…
- May 5, 2012
More to Business than Money!
My mother often exhorted me to appreciate that “if I couldn’t say something nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all.” I typically adhere to that motherly wisdom and it has served me well. On this occasion, however, I have to sidestep Mom’s sage input.…
Joseph Michelli
Bestselling author of twelve books on Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton, Mercedes-Benz, Zappos, Airbnb, UCLA Health, and One Medical. Top 5 Global CX Thought Leader for ten consecutive years.
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