Great service defines a company. But a recent study by Accenture found that customer service standards are in freefall. The problem is that service is complex, cross-functional, rational and emotional. In our experience, there are five archetypal failure points of service management. … Read More
A folding plug won the Brit Insurance Design Awards in the UK this week. As gadgets get smaller, Britain has the largest plug in the world. The traditional British plug was invented in 1946. Why did it take 64 years to invent a better one? More importantly, why didn’t any of the rest of us have that idea? … Read More
In March 1876, the New York Times trumpeted the birth of the home entertainment industry. It would be powered by the telephone. It (mostly) never happened. Exactly 134 years later Facebook became the most visited website in the USA, pulling in more visitors than Google. There’s a connection between these facts. We’re learning what the web is really for. … Read More
If we measured customer attention like Gross Domestic Product, we’d know we were in trouble. Advertising, promotion and information are locked in an inflationary spiral as too much data chases too few eyeballs. Per capita, ‘Gross Domestic Attention’ (let’s call it GDA) is falling off a cliff. Thinking about the SEO arms race, is making me get very clear that imagination is worth more than cash. … Read More
Government is a Seventeenth Century machine, with late Twentieth Century middleware operating in a sceptical Twenty-First Century environment. To solve its (our?) public expenditure challenge needs solutions that do more with less, and not less with less. Getting those solutions … Read More