Here is  a great example of a supermarket getting it very right in the age of the empowered customer.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=sainsburys+letter+tiger+bread&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=643&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=cPpQErJm-Y5qAM:&imgrefurl=http://thedrum.co.uk/news/2012/01/31/sainsbury-s-renames-tiger-bread-giraffe-bread-following-social-media-response-lily-s&docid=DvxkiTCNxQWe_M&imgurl=http://thedrum.co.uk/uploads/drum_basic_article/86229/additional_media/lily%20letter%20giraffe.jpg&w=720&h=533&ei=wEwoT4rMH-ms0QXSu8SGBQ&zoom=1

It's incredible how much bad customer service can (and will) cost you, and how much great customer service can (and will if you take the right actions) make you. This is a fun exercise you can do with your people to make this point clearly and effectively.

I find it mind-bogglingly amazing how Companies get Sales so wrong: they focus on getting new customers, while letting existing customers go elsewhere ... nuts!

Why try and fill up a leaking bucket? Surely it's a better way of doing business to plug the holes first?

Please click on the attached link to see a very good article from the Institute of Customer Service, which includes some alaming facts that every leader and manager should know.

Here's my nomination for absolutely outstanding service in 2011: Victorinox (those people who make those fab Swiss Army Penknives). Here's the story: it's short and sweet.

I was given a Victorinox penknife on my 16th birthday.

Some 30 years later, the tiny metal ring that attaches it to a keyring wore through from over use (everything else was still working 100%). I emailed Victorinox in Switzerland to see if it could be repaired.

As customers, we know: as soon as someone tries to “sell” to us, we clam up, erect barriers, and do all we can to avoid ‘being sold to’.

In order to combat this, dysfunctional sales techniques have arisen, where sales people (desperate to ‘make a sale’ and ‘achieve budget’) try harder and harder to ‘make the sale’.

This charade ends up as a ‘cat and mouse’ game, where all sides waste time, effort  and money:

‘I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I’m not sure which half’ Henry Ford.

In Henry Ford’s day, marketing and advertising were what drove sales and business success.

But the world is a VERY different place today: marketing and advertising have less and less influence on buying decisions every day: and the quicker businesses realize this, the better.

Everyone loves conducting and receiving Appraisals, don’t they?

Here’s a recent quote from ‘The Times’

the problem with appraisals is extreme. They take different forms in different companies, but what they have in common is that they are usually annual, usually involve a tense exchange between employer and employee, have a knack of being timed to coincide with the employee making a major cockup, and invariably leave both parties depressed.