Joseph Michelli

As you might expect from someone who has worked with and written a couple of books about Starbucks (The Starbucks Experience and Leading the Starbucks Way), I have had my share of media asking me to opine on what happened in that Philadelphia Starbucks when 911 was called and the police placed two black men in […]

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Waiting for Your Email: For the Good of Humanity, Please Reply What happened to service standards and communication etiquette? At the risk of sounding like my father (as he extolled the virtues of the good old days), I am mystified by the rapid deterioration of responsive communication and service urgency. I suspect I’ve been blessed […]

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Hello Facebook & Apple – It’s about transparency and safety when it comes to value proposition and customer-centricity. Unless you have gone well beyond the “delete Facebook” movement and literally given up the Internet altogether (which would mean I am writing this to myself), you’ve certainly had a front row seat to the Facebook vs. […]

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My crystal ball says winning experiences will deliver. I lay no claim to my prognostic ability, but when it comes to the future of customer experience delivery, I’m willing to venture an educated guess. I predict future retail wars will involve online brands (whose value proposition will be an expansive choice, “best pricing” and quick delivery) […]

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Goodbye Toys “R” Us and Hello Your Sustainability. In my house, we called it “Torture Us” as a synonym for Toys “R” Us! The name was our way of capturing the experience we had when we joined throngs of shoppers at Christmas looking for that understocked “must have” toy.

I met him while working with Starbucks around the time I wrote my first book about the company titled The Starbucks Experience. I’d venture to say that Starbucks might have been little more than one man’s vision if it wasn’t for his leadership strengths. He was one of the original architects of the brand – a […]

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From Machines to Living Organisms I continue to be in awe of consultative think tanks like McKinsey and Company. Over my career, I’ve been blessed to work with McKinsey consultants who often do the heavy lifting to understand optimal strategic positioning for senior leadership teams. Agile Genius The genius of this collection of talented individuals was […]

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As many of you know, Snapchat’s new design has sparked considerable criticism, but a simple tweet by celebrity Kylie Jenner purportedly contributed to a freefall for Snapchat’s stock. Here’s how social media reporter Megan Hills tells it in a Fortune article titled Snapchat’s $1.3 Billion Drop in Value Is Linked to A Kardashian: The entrepreneur and Kardashian half-sister […]

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Customer centricity is the willingness to stand-up for what is best for your customer. Often but not always, that commitment is realized in perceptual contact points during the customer’s journey with your brand (the customer experience). How are you defining customer success?

Go Human, Go Methodical but Above All Else GO for VALUE I have been showing clips about it and talking to audiences about it for the last year, and now it’s finally here – Amazon Go. Forever Changed After extensive beta testing the first Amazon Go store has opened and, in my humble opinion, the […]

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Do you have a “go to” song you sing when you are at a karaoke bar? How about a signature dish you like to prepare the first time a new visitor comes over for dinner? Customer Experience Design Strategies For me, my “go to” strategies for product development or experience innovation involve components from my […]

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So, who’s in your home? Is it Alexa, Siri, or Google? If none of them occupy a nightstand or counter space, it is likely only a matter of time. Voice Activated Assistants and Voice Internet Access Of course, I am talking about voice-activated digital assistants and according to Brian Braiker’s Ad Age article titled What […]

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Recently I had a conversation with a brilliant IT professional who repeatedly referenced the “limitless possibilities” of technology. His zeal and enthusiasm for all things technology made him well-suited for his specialty but as we talked, it became increasingly clear that he lacked similar respect for the importance of understanding human behavior. In fact, at […]

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A simple Google search for the phrase “retail Armageddon” produces 413,000 results. Many of those references are very recent. Here are just a few of the search findings from this year: May 5th, Retail Armageddon: More bankruptcies in four months than all of 2016 June 3rd, It’s a retail Armageddon as over 1,000 stores close in one […]

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I am a guy of advancing age (late 50s), so I am starting to sound like my father. Occasionally, I even find myself suggesting a fondness...

There is a fine line between disinterest and inquisition! You know what I am talking about – some brands are solely focused on themselves and...

When I was asked to do a TEDx talk about a year ago, I keyed in on the message that your brand (be that...

If you are a parent of young children, you probably reminded them of the importance of saying this on Halloween as they went off...

His name is Adolpho Kamisky and though he is not someone I’d heard about in history classes, he truly is a larger than life...

“Where Has All The Loyalty Gone? – Long Time Passing” sung to a Peter, Paul and Mary melody A long, long time ago (20 years) in...