The global food industry has never faced more challenges. From tainted dairy products to contaminated beef, high-profile cases crop up regularly to dent consumer confidence, while leading companies work hard to reclaim lost faith. So how trustworthy is your food?

I t wasn’t that long ago that GM ran commercials advertising that its Oldsmobile division didn’t just produce cars for your grandfather, but also for everyone else. It was an attempt to reinvent the brand’s staid image—and it didn’t work.

As the initial wild enthusiasm for customer relationship management (CRM) begins to plateau, and companies become increasingly skeptical of inflated claims for success, it’s time to take a hard look at how CRM projects should be measured. What is “successful” CRM, anyway? How will you know it when you see it? When will your millions of dollars in CRM investments pay off?

They sound like words and have a mysterious dignity rolling off the tongue. Their meanings seem both apparent and elusive. If an alien delegation landed on Earth, words like these might feature in their formal greetings. They are the most expensively researched neologisms in use around the globe.

What are they? Pharmaceutical brand names like Advil, Zantac, Lipitor, and Xolair. Azor, Exelon, Zostavax, and Chantix. Gardasil, Cubicin, Levemir, and Sensipar.

According to the recently released J.D. Power 2016 Member Health Plan Study, critical factors of health plan member satisfaction are highest in areas of the country that have more competition between different health plans.

Today, design has a seat at the table. With the success of products like the iPod and the iPhone, businesses have realized that a good user experience is key for improving the bottom line. Yet even with this determined focus on design, most digital experiences fall short of user expectations.

Two years removed from its all-time high, customer satisfaction with the retail trade sector fell for a second consecutive year, sliding 2.6 percent to an ACSI score of 74.8. Despite the decline for 2015, the overall score for retail stands almost exactly at its long-term average (74.6).

I’ve noticed that many companies are using the trendy term “digital transformation” without fully understanding what it means. Leveraging digital technology to make organizational processes and offerings more efficient may increase profit margins in the short term. But a true digital transformation confers lasting advantage by revolutionizing the entire customer experience across all digital touchpoints.

Ask how you can help, always keep a smile, respond to requests promptly... the list goes on. You’ve probably been exposed to an abundance of tips and tricks about how to become more customer-friendly.

Customer satisfaction with personal computers is down for a third straight year, according to new data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The ACSI Household Appliance and Electronics Report 2015 includes desktops, laptops, and tablet computers, as well as household appliances, televisions, and video players.