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Jon Picoult

Jon Picoult
As Founder of Watermark Consulting, Jon Picoult helps companies impress customers and inspire employees. An acclaimed keynote speaker, Jon’s been featured by dozens of media outlets, including The Wall St Journal and The New York Times. He’s worked with some of the world’s foremost brands, personally advising CEOs and executive teams.Learn more at www.watermarkconsult.net or follow Jon on Twitter.

Why Your Customer Research Is Flawed

U.S. pollsters got quite a surprise in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016. That’s when it became apparent that their sophisticated voter research...

How to Bottle a Great Customer Experience

Someone’s figured out how to bottle a great customer experience. No, this isn’t a magic elixir that, when applied to any customer interaction, turns disappointment into...

Why Uber Just Made A Wrong Turn

Uber Technologies last month took action to heal a rift with its drivers, but it may have inadvertently created a rift with its customers. The company...

Behind Chipotle’s Woes

It’s not just the food that’s making people sick at Chipotle. The restaurant chain’s workplace policies might also be to blame – and therein lies...

We Want Your Feedback (Well, Not Really)

What do you do when a company asks for your opinion… and then refuses to let you voice it? A few years ago, I wrote...

Olive Garden Serves Up A New Recipe For Success

Last October, when activist hedge fund Starboard Value ousted the entire board of Olive Garden’s parent company, the newly installed Directors probably never imagined...

Why Revenue Growth Is A Poor Measure Of Customer Experience ROI

In their zest to demonstrate customer experience ROI to skeptical business leaders, some customer experience evangelists are getting too revved up over revenue growth. But...

A Surprising Way To Achieve Price Competitiveness

How can a company liberate itself from the death spiral of product commoditization? Competing on price is generally a losing proposition – and a very...

Why Health Insurers Make People Ill

*          *          * ‘Tis the season for health insurance open enrollment, which can mean only one thing… ...

Is Your Company On The Naughty List?

Outrageous service fees, unintelligible correspondence, poorly organized websites, overly complex products, inept staff, long hold times…  What would Santa say to all those businesses...

Need To Cut Costs? Deliver A Better Customer Experience.

If you want to deliver a great customer experience, you better be prepared to pay up…  right?  Maybe not. Conventional wisdom suggests that with an...

Why Framily Failed: 3 Customer Experience Lessons From Sprint’s Latest Misstep

It looks like Sprint needs some Framily counseling. This past January, the wireless carrier introduced (with much fanfare and an expensive ad campaign) its “Framily”...

The World’s Leading Industry For Tone Deafness

There isn’t a lot of love out there for financial services companies. This was underscored most recently with the release of The Reputation Institute’s annual...

Starbucks’ Brew For Effective Employee Training

On one winter evening in February 2008, Starbucks closed all of its U.S.-based stores and insisted that its 135,000 employees take a coffee break. Well,...

A Surprisingly Simple Way To Engage Your Employees

For all the talk about the importance of employee engagement in the workplace, there are decidedly few specifics to act on. When management gurus extol...

A CVS Prescription You’ll Want To Fill

Are your company’s core values worth $2 billion?  The answer appears to be “yes” for CVS, the second-largest pharmacy chain in the United States. Last...

A Bold Prediction For 2014

It’s that time again, when all the customer experience gurus come out with their predictions for the coming year. So what customer experience trends do...

Proof That It Pays To Be America’s Most-Loved Companies

Bloomberg Businessweek ran an article a few days ago ("Proof That It Pays To Be America's Most-Hated Companies") that claims to demonstrate customer service...

One Airline’s Great Holiday Surprise

During the holiday season, it seems the best surprise most airlines can muster is a flight delay. Or, if you're really lucky, a...

Why Costco Said “No” To Black Friday Creep

Remember the good old days when U.S. consumers actually took the time to celebrate Thanksgiving – and retailers let them do it? It used to...

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