faster horse
Many creatives believe that, due to AI, design tasks are shifting from manual work to cognitive work. And this shift is in a specific direction: from less reflective to more predictive.
more…articles with #customer
savings
“The purpose of a business is to create and maintain a customer.” This quote is how Peter Drucker once summed up the purpose of a business. Although this saying has fallen out of fashion in some circles, it still holds: business focuses not on creating a product or service but on building close relationships between people and the company. Only when the service is used can a business be considered a business. So, everything that happens before that is, in the truest sense of the word, “advance payment” and, therefore, not yet a business.
more…build leadership!
Businesses are rediscovering the customer! After years of inward-focused, efficiency-driven business practices, where the bottom line was driven by years of inward focus rather than by customers’ engagement, the focus is now shifting. With companies like Apple and Nike thriving on the drive of a business’s savviness and the reactivation of their devoted, happy-spending customers, others want to follow suit. The question remains how to grow a customer base as loyal and motivated as Apple’s: loyalty is not enough; customers also need to spend and motivate others to do the same!
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control
What a surprise! Just as he was ready to pay, the customer took a final glance at the bill and noticed the prices had changed: not 21 euros for the main dish, but 32,50; not 9,50 for the dessert, but 15,80… When he asked why, he got a straight answer – “The kitchen crew needed more time than planned, and that’s why the costs have increased!“
tango
As expected, it came up right away: a call for strict separation of what is regarded as life (private) and what is regarded as work (vocational). As a reaction to my request to the audience – to reflect their level of customer-centricity between ‚zero‘ and ‚full‘ on a graph – somebody wanted to know if she had to reflect her opinion or that of her employer: because that would be quite a difference!
update
It’s that time of the year again: the plants are just about to stick their heads out of the ground, and shop owners are already considering moving on from bikinis and sunglasses. The soil is still soaking wet and messy from winter, and the first optimists are running around in flip-flops! And the more you have experienced these seasonal changes, the more you become aware that the seasons are way too short!
dip
The room was slowly filling up with the employees. One after the other, they took their seats and didn’t look too pleased: the speech I was about to give had interrupted the longed-for transition from their dinner to a well-deserved drink at the bar! So this left me with the task to ensure that those snaring away during my talk would not animate the others to follow suit.
ROI
It was a tough time for me, being a designer employed at a company whose reasoning was based on financial indicators, such as turnover, gross margin, return on investment, and so on. Eventually, you, as a designer, also have to define your reasoning according to such parameters. Unavoidably, the question of ‘return on investment’ (ROI) will pop up, like “What do I get back for every Euro I spend on, what’s actually the ROI of design?” Tell me!
pirates in suits
The coordinated interplay of the various departments within a company is a similar challenge to steering a fleet on the wide ocean: how can you direct the various vessels in such a way that they behave like a fleet, and not like a bunch of uncoordinated pirate ships aloof? more…
kitchen nightmare
Dedicated to Steve, the biggest chef of all!
There are plenty of these TV shows around, those, featuring slick chefs who pimps-up hopelessly ran down restaurants. Their recipe: provide some expert advice and several well-placed helping hands, all to have each head in the restaurant face the same direction. With these measures, there is hope that the ‘re-designed’ establishment will finally appeal to the taste of the customer. If this is accomplished, and the customers are thrilled by the experience they have had, it might lead them to recommend the place to their friends, instead of discouraging them to even consider – not only for restaurants, this is the driver for sustainable growth. more…