Richard Shapiro
2020 Customer Experience (CX) Trends
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service by Richard Shapiro on December 3, 2019 • 0 Comments Our customers’ expectations are growing exponentially. Although technology helps companies facilita...
2020 Retail Trends
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Retail by Richard Shapiro on November 11, 2019 • 0 Comments Retail stock prices forecast the future. The predictions for 2020 are dim. In 2019, global trade tensions, e...
Retailers Underestimate the Value of the Telephone
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Retail by Richard Shapiro on January 14, 2019 • 0 Comments Once upon a time, a very successful department store owner answered the telephone one evening. On the other end of the line was a cust...
2019 Customer Experience Trends
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service by Richard Shapiro on December 4, 2018 • 0 Comments Customer Experience trends are bigger and better for 2019. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tops the list, with a virtual army of app developers workin...
2019 Retail Trends
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Retail by Richard Shapiro on November 14, 2018 • 0 Comments If we don’t look ahead we risk being left in the dust, and perhaps nowhere is that risk greater than with the emergence of Artificial Inte...
Many E-Commerce Sites Are Stupid
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, E-commerce by Richard Shapiro on August 27, 2018 • 0 Comments E-commerce sites don’t make sense. In many cases they look like every other site, cluttered and not easy to search for the Contact Us&nb...
Is it Worth Paying Experienced Retail Associates Higher Salaries?
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Retail by Richard Shapiro on August 21, 2018 • 0 Comments In a recent article in The Washington Post, Minimum Wages are Rising, Pay for Experienced Retail Workers is Not, the authors write,“Re...
Talking About Repeat Business is Worth Repeating
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Repeat Business, Retail by Richard Shapiro on July 10, 2018 • 0 Comments It’s rare that retailers ever talk about or report statistics on repeat customers. Stats are publicized on store over store r...
Retailers are Focusing on The Wrong Experience
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Repeat Business, Retail by Richard Shapiro on June 26, 2018 • 0 Comments Retailers can learn important lessons from studying kiranas, mom-and-pop stores in India. In our present day quest to design the most efficient...
Self-Service Brick & Mortar Stores Leave Your Brand Vulnerable to the Competition
Self-service brick & mortar stores don’t make sense. Removing the human component from the transaction results in just an exchange of goods and services for money, devoid of any connection. Customers want a human touch, even if they don’t know it.
Invite a Human To Sit at the Table
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service by Richard Shapiro on June 5, 2018 • 0 Comments Every time I go to a trade show, I get a bad feeling. There are a thousand booths and each one is exhibiting “the most innovative technology” focusing…
Amazon’s New Return Policies Give Brick & Mortar a New Life
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Retail by Richard Shapiro on May 29, 2018 • 0 Comments It finally happened! It could be a watershed moment for retailers, but more importantly for the consumer. How so? The old adage, mea...
The More, The Merrier! Staff to Help Customers in Grocery Stores
Filed in Blog, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Repeat Business by Richard Shapiro on May 14, 2018 • 0 Comments We all have to eat. Where we buy our groceries is a matter of choice and there are many. However, even with the option of ...
The Winner Of The 2018 Customer Service Award Goes to…. Best Buy
Filed in Blog, Repeat Business, Retail by Richard Shapiro on February 6, 2018 • 0 Comments In January of 2012 almost every financial analyst was forecasting the demise of Best Buy. Amazon was Best Buy’s largest competitor with overall annual sale...
2018 Customer Experience Trends
Most executives talk about improving the customer experience—even of creating the quintessential customer experience—but too few walk the talk when it comes to developing and implementing strategies, policies, and training initiatives that can truly make a difference. Some exceptional firms are going all-out and...
SmartGift: Gift Giving Gets Personal
In June I attended a retail panel discussion at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology). One of the panelists was Monika Kochhar, CEO and founder of SmartGift. Monika and her unique concept and service offering got my attention. How many times do we ask ourselves, “I...
2018 Retail Trends
Welcome to the experience economy. Combining customer research, technology, and outside-the-box thinking, brands and retailers have reinvented shopping as a personalized, participatory experience that few consumers can resist. For brick & mortars, creating exciting in-store experiences promises to bring back customers once thought lost...
Companies Reduce Associate Mobility: Is it Fair?
I devour news articles relating to business and customer service – part of my job – and rarely am totally surprised. But, last week in the New York Times, when I read Why Aren’t Paychecks Growing? A Burger-Joint Clause Offers a Clue, I was...
Ideas for Improving Retail
I recently attended a retailing conference in New York City. On the ride up in the elevator to the 36th floor, I overheard two retail executives speaking quietly to each other. They were asking each other if retailers were out of ideas, money, or...
The Key To Uber’s Longevity Is Driver Loyalty
Uber was founded in 2009. Essentially, it is a software company providing a service: an efficient and user-friendly way of transporting passengers from one place to another in an automobile. Uber is an app – nothing more. Without drivers and their cars, Uber would...