Richard Shapiro
Will Customers Punish Wells Fargo’s Misdeeds?
By now almost everyone has read or heard about Wells Fargo creating over two million fraudulent checking and credit card accounts from 2011 to 2015. Wells Fargo fired 5,300 bank associates who were part of the scheme and paid a $185 million fine. The...
The Loyalty Rewards Program Disconnect
The primary purpose of a loyalty award program is to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of businesses associated with each program. I’m surprised that when most associates are handed a loyalty card it’s as if the customer is...
How Can Uber Survive? Employ the Human Connection!
According to Bloomberg, Uber is losing money faster than any technology company ever. Uber lost $1.27 billion in the first half of this year. There are many reasons for this downslide. I am an Uber customer and use the car service often. I think...
10 Tips For Making Customers Feel Welcome
Growing up, my dad owned a small retail neighborhood store. From the time I was ten I worked during the holiday season with my dad collecting money at the cash register. I had fun, but more than fun, I got an education. I watched...
Best Buy’s Competitive Strategy to Beat Amazon: Educate Consumers
Best Buy’s CEO, Hubert Joly, “wants his company to be the place that makes it easy for consumers to understand technology.” That’s their plan to combat Amazon, according to a Fortune May 26th article. Joly says that customers need more advice than ever; that...
Should Sales Associates Be Penalized for Customer-Friendly Return Policies?
Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bed Bath & Beyond and now Amazon have policies in place making it easy for customers to return merchandise. A New York Times June 13th article focused on those liberal return policies and how sales associates are being penalized because customers are...
Are Robots Better At Delivering Customer Service Than People?
Pizza Hut is testing it out! According to a May 28th article in MarketWatch, Pizza Hut is initiating a program to use robots at several of their Asia-based restaurants. The robot, Pepper, will take customers’ orders and money. The robot is a joint venture with...
What Would Happen If United and Zappos Combined Their Service Operations?
As a thought leader in the area of customer service and retention, that topic is always front and center in our home. People send me interesting articles and I, too, am always on the lookout for customer service stories – both positive and negative. ...
8 Steps to Add Passionate Customer Service to Your E-commerce Business
When top management determines that any organization must become more customer-centric, immediately a search begins on the Internet for, “passion for customer service.” Most execs don’t think of “passion” as a component of e-commerce sites, but they should. Of course a computer, mobile device...
Is Paying a “Problem Solver” to Contact your Call Center the First Sign of...
If I were to take a survey of any random group of customers, there is no doubt that #1 on the list of major frustrations and aggravation is when a customer must call customer service to fix a problem or resolve an issue. Blood...
Slightly Used: The Newest Competitor
Whenever I speak to a group of business executives my opening words are that competition has never been greater and the need to implement a proactive repeat business strategy is paramount. I now have to add one more competitor to the list: slightly used....
The Devil Wears Amazon
Michael C. Fina, a bridal registry to the wealthy and privileged for more than eighty years has decided to join Amazon rather than fighting them, according to an April 5th New York Times article. The store for generations has provided silver and beautiful gifts...
When Being Nice is a Strategic Initiative
Europe’s largest budget airline, Ryanair, has a new strategy; being nice to customers. According to their CEO, Michael O’Leary, “if I had known that being nicer to our customers was good for business, I would have done it years ago”. When I read the article...
Major Changes Coming to Target – Should Shorter Lines Be One of Them?
John Mulligan, COO of Target, announced major changes last week. According to Mr. Mulligan, who has been COO for the last six months, “starting a shopping trip through Target’s app or online and finishing it in a store will become more seamless, with text...
Call Centers: The Newest Competitive Weapon
You are at a cocktail party and someone asks, “What do you do?” Your answer, “ I work in a call center.” The conversation either ends abruptly or turns to complaints about how difficult it is to contact a call center or get anything...
Learn E-Commerce From The Master: Mitchell Family of Stores
Whenever someone asks me about the secret to guaranteeing repeat business I always say there is one magic word: relationship. As my father taught me when I was a teenager, generating repeat business is easy; it’s all about creating and building relationships; the customer...
What Can Bed Bath & Beyond Learn from the Demise of Staples?
Bed Bath & Beyond is struggling. The stock is down over 40 percent in the past 12 months. The company is investing to boost their online presence but the strategy has only produced mixed results. Competition from third party sellers like Amazon has been...
E-Commerce Marketers Can Learn From Albert Einstein
E-commerce is here to stay, here to stay, here to stay. Sounds repetitive. It is! One of Albert Einstein most famous quotes: “Insanity: is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Just about all E-commerce executives should go back to...
8 Steps to Guarantee Repeat Business for E-commerce Sites
Repeat business is all about building relationships. There is no doubt that it is easier to create and build a relationship with a consumer in person or over the phone than online. But, it is not impossible for an e-commerce site. The trend is clear....
Smart Phones – Not So Smart for Retail
Retail purchases were down on Black Friday. I’m not surprised. Retailers think that having an app where customers can purchase merchandise whenever, wherever with the push of a key, is cool. It might be cool, but encouraging customers to make purchases on their phone...