Content by Chip Bell
What Leaders Can Learn About Innovation From a Pistol MakerAnd other sharpshooters who stuck with it
Thu, 04/10/2025 - 00:02
Innovation is vital to the success of all businesses. Innovate or perish is the new mantra. Leaders must perpetually reinvent their processes, products, and services, because they typically have multiple competitors offering similar offerings. Only…
How Can You Make Your Customer Strategy Fun?Focus on customer fit, disciplined execution, and complete alignment
Thu, 12/05/2024 - 12:02
Is your organization about fun? How often do your customers giggle? How much of your business strategy is about funniness—not just entertainment, but customer experiences made joyful by design? What are your customers’ principal memories of their…
Give Your Customers ‘Crayons’ to Decorate Their ExperiencesCustomers want more than service. They want happenings.
Mon, 10/07/2024 - 12:02
The Madison, a historic hotel overlooking the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee, was rebranded into a modern hotel. It was, in some ways, a sad event. Memphis is the birthplace of the blues, and the Madison was my introduction to the powerful…
All I Need to Know About Customer Experience I Learned From a Jack Nicholson MovieHow movie lines inspire customer care
Wed, 09/11/2024 - 12:01
The diner scene from the 1970 movie Five Easy Pieces appeared in many customer service training classes. Do you recall Bobby Dupea (played by Jack Nicholson) trying to order a plain omelet with a side order of wheat toast? He ran straight into: “No…
Take Out Your Customers’ TrashCreating less hassle and gaining customer loyalty
Thu, 08/01/2024 - 12:02
‘T ake out the papers and the trash.” That was the opening line of the song “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters. It spent weeks as the No. 1 hit in 1958. Teenagers everywhere wore out their shoes dancing to the hot song. The lyrics hold a strong message…
Customer Fog: The Real Reason Customers LeaveFinding and fixing the problem
Tue, 07/23/2024 - 12:02
The cost of acquiring a new customer can be five to 10 times the cost of keeping an existing customer, depending on the industry. You already knew that. But while most organizations know why their customers opened the exit door, they devote little…
Do Your Customer Experiences Feature Unicorns?Making customer service memorable
Tue, 05/16/2023 - 12:02
‘I write children’s books because there are no unicorns in adult literature, and today’s world needs unicorns.” The quote came from renowned children’s book author Jackson Pearce at a weekend writers retreat sponsored by Georgia Writers Museum. The…
Refocusing Your Customer-Facing AssociatesWe need a concerted leadership effort to refocus on the ‘served’ instead of the ‘server’
Mon, 01/31/2022 - 12:02
It all started when we drove up to the speaker menu at a quick-service restaurant. “Can I take your order?” the attendant coldly barked. When my wife, on hearing the deep voice of the attendant, politely said, “Thank you, sir,” she got back a sharp…
Give Your Customers ‘The Knife’It’s a recommendation to walk with your customer on the wild side
Wed, 12/08/2021 - 12:02
One of my favorite Halloween memories was decorating the annual giant pumpkin with my son when he was young. As a toddler, he was primarily an observer as he watched me sculpt the face of the pumpkin with a scrimp knife. However, his commitment to…
Necessity Is the Mother of Customer Co-CreationYou will need all the half-baked, slightly wild ideas you can get
Tue, 09/28/2021 - 12:02
Necessity is the mother of invention. And few things are more necessary to the success of an organization than customers. Leave that thought on the page, and we will return to it shortly. Napoleon knew that a military force’s success directly…