Customer surveys and feedback: the fundamentals everyone needs to know!

Whether you are running hugely complex outsourced customer surveys, or light touch online short questionnaires, the real challenge for most of us is understanding what the survey data is telling us and making use of it wisely to drive a more positive customer experience. Most survey data is made up of qualitative and quantitative data,…

The ultimate customer mantra: Protect what you’ve got, then grow it profitably!

The ultimate customer mantra: Protect what you’ve got, then grow it profitably!

Five superpowers of strong customer facing teams

We’ve entered into one of our busiest periods at the moment, and we’ve worked hard on planning and preparation to ensure that we deliver the best possible experience, despite the volumes of work.  A key part of that preparation is thinking about the customer facing people, and how ready they are for the extra work.…

An open letter on Customer Service in Portugal

As someone with 25 years of customer service experience across 4 continents, delivering both B2B and B2C in various industries, I’m sad to say that generally in Portugal, the standard of customer service is amongst the poorest around the world.  This not only impacts my fellow residents in Portugal, who had to get used to…

Story telling is the best way to engage people

In my first “proper job” after university, I reported to a sales manager who had particular ideas about how to engage a customer.  “No matter what they say, tell them your brother, your mother, your best mate or your granny has done the same thing”, Bill would tell me.  When I pointed out that it…

Learnings from Virgin: brilliant basics matter

In my years heading up customer service within the Virgin Group, I was inspired in so many ways and by so many of the amazing people who delivered ideas, experiences, services and products across the global customer base.  Being a creative set of companies, it was no real surprise that there were some fantastic concepts…

Part 2 of 2: Three key factors to scale your customer success operation

In the last post, We went over the four core pillars required to build your customer success operation.  If you are struggling to see the value from your customer success function, it’s worth going back over each one to see what might be missing. Once you are confident that you have an effective customer success…

Part 1 of 2: The four pillars of customer success in SaaS

In a conversation that started out amongst a couple of colleagues, but spilled over into web chats with peers on LinkedIn, I was attempting to bring simplicity and clarity to an often-asked question – what do you need to get a customer success function up and running?  Of course, I could spend a whole article…

5 reasons SaaS trials and pilots fail

SaaS businesses have by and large been built on a premise that they meet a need of a company or individual, and that once the company or individual gets a taste for the product, it will deliver enough value to keep them paying for it. The barrier of course is getting someone to try your…

Part 3/3: Core elements you need for your customer communication quadrant

In my previous two posts, I introduced the concept of the customer communication quadrant, representing the four most significant reasons for your to interact with your customers, and integrating with the four most significant business levers.  Having considered the four by four factors, hopefully now you understand the diagram – the arrow indicates the level…