Successful Workplace

The following is a guest post by Sean O’Shaughnessey. Recently, my daughter was in the market for a dress and her experience with the retail store was so positive, she became a fan. Her particular experience was due to a one-in-a-million, perfect store clerk with a photographic memory. Yet now, technology is capable of consistently reproducing […]

The following is a guest post by David Rosen. This is the beginning of our blog series on loyalty for SMBs. We spend a tremendous amount of time with owners of small to medium sized businesses – restaurants, pharmacies, retailers – discussing how to build loyalty. One of their most basic challenges, hard as it […]

This is a guest post by Ted Rubin. Personalization is the new black. The marketing and selling story of today involves knowing and seeing your customer the moment they arrive on your physical or virtual doorstep, and being able to provide differentiated service based on their preferences, history and loyalty. Knowing who they are, listening […]

This week a US Senator wrote to a tech firm which tracks and monitors consumers and asked them to change their practices. Euclid Analytics uses technology and data to help retailers build a consumer relationship by turning in-store behavior into insights and recommendations for improving marketing, merchandising, and operations. They do this by using the […]

There is a significant blurring of the line between marketing and customer relationship management.  This blurring has enormous impact on the way we operate our businesses and engage with our customers. We need to stop thinking about functions and start thinking about fans. Traditional silos Traditionally, marketing has been about defining market segments and delivering […]

Square, the “service that enables anyone to accept credit cards anywhere” has just launched what they’ve labelled as a “Business in a Box” which they say will simplify setting up point of sale for small companies. With a couple of Square readers, iPad stand and a cash drawer you have all you need to get […]

Many made predictions as 2013 kicked off, but one caught my eye. Forrester’s Nigel Fenwick called this new year the Year of Digital Business. As Fenwick points out, there has been a communications evolution that has many retailers scrambling to find ways to get closer to their customers with innovative new technology to beat the […]

Within a week three big and well established UK retail chains will more than likely disappear for good. For Jessops that’s already happened, for HMV and now Blockbuster it’s about to. It continues the trend from the last couple of years that the High Street is dying and dying fast, for goods that can be […]

Just today PayPal announced that they added more retailers to their in-store payments application and are now at 18,000 retail outlets in the US. Amazing how technology that everyone expected would help break us free from brick and mortar is now squarely (pun intended) on making mobile payments to local stores much easier. If you’re […]

A few years back we were walking through London’s Heathrow and just happened to run into a good friend we never expected to see. Millions pass through that airport every year and we’re certain that we’ve narrowly missed an acquaintance many times before. Coincidence was king before our modern times. The world is increasingly becoming […]

Real-time means something a little different to everyone. The term is too-often used to describe getting information on what happened up to the moment, a rolling report of the history of something – like customer purchases, staffing costs or inventory levels. It’s like asking what time it is. There’s only an accurate answer for that one-dimensional question at […]

The naysayers became a deafening roar from the moment Facebook’s IPO failed to skyrocket in May of this year. It was stunning how quickly the darling of Wall Street became trailer trash. But look no further than yesterday, when the lockup period ended and insiders could sell 850 million shares. Some did but the stock […]

Ben Zoldan wrote an interesting viewpoint on the effect of the mobility trend, in that becoming social and mobile is eroding the art of connection and communication. On the flipside, Brian Solis, a recognised marketing expert called the latest generation of consumers Gen C in a recent article, C standing for Connected. The truth is […]

We’re heading into Columbus Day Weekend in the U.S., giving us a great chance to look at the fundamental changes that technology is bringing to retail. The new game is event-based marketing. Big Sale! A quick look at the LA Times shows who’s in the old game. The pages are full of merchants using discounting as […]

I recently wrote about a great customer service experience. It isn’t always quite that good… It seems every year I get to experience at least one  business process that goes horribly wrong.  Here’s the latest, with names removed to protect the guilty. I purchased a new laptop back in June.  At the same time, I […]

I’m sitting at the Denver International Airport with a big smile on my face.  I flew into a large, unfamiliar airport and could have had a tough time. Keep in mind my airport of choice is John Wayne in Orange County  with just 12 gates and in and out in 20 minutes. I’m spoiled. My […]