Category Archives: Customer Care

Next week, as you’re doing your annual IT work for parents, in-laws, aunts and uncles, take a few minutes and talk about protecting privacy and improving their cybersecurity. This Motherboard article, recommended by Bruce Schneier, is a great place to … Continue reading →

Posted on Thursday, 16 November 2017 8:38 am by markpilip | Comments Off on Thanksgiving Project: Security and Privacy

A Loyalty Program Retort: British Airways

Posted on Wednesday, 31 May 2017 9:20 am by markpilip

“When you pass the football, three things can happen. Two of them are bad.” This quote has been attributed to Woody Hayes–probably incorrectly–Darrell Royal, Chuck Mills, and several other famous football coaches. It’s stuck with me over the years, particularly … Continue reading →

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Competitors? Meh.

Posted on Thursday, 20 April 2017 10:29 am by markpilip

I saw a post on LinkedIn today about the importance of doing combat with your competitors. That’s misguided and wrong. When you devote resources to something, you are by definition taking them away from something else. Every bit of time … Continue reading →

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Nitrocellulose lacquer: the smell of customer service?

Posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2015 10:16 am by markpilip

If you want to experience outstanding customer service in action, I suggest you visit Wildwood Guitars in Louisville, CO. I took a detour yesterday to visit the famous guitar emporium on a trip to Aspen and was greeted by Senior … Continue reading →

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One Weird CRM Trick From Budget

Posted on Monday, 16 February 2015 7:00 am by markpilip

I just updated my Budget account profile, which only took a few moments. Now, according to this email, it’s going to take Budget up to another three days to update my profile with them. I have no idea what the … Continue reading →

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The Customer is Right. Usually.

Posted on Wednesday, 16 July 2014 7:26 am by markpilip

Today Seth Godin clarifies Rule #1 by breaking it into two parts a. the customer is always right b. if that’s not true, it’s unlikely that this person will remain your customer. Part b reminds us that our products should never … Continue reading →

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Price-Driven Corporate Brutality?

Posted on Friday, 30 May 2014 9:47 am by markpilip

The quest for the bottom line leads to brutality, says Seth Godin in today’s blog post. The race to the bottom, driven by price, causes people within companies to treat others with disregard of the Golden Rule. Outsourcing, treating customers … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer Care, Leadership, Organization, Sales | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Design Your Community

Posted on Monday, 13 August 2012 10:57 am by markpilip

Andrew Chen reminds us this morning to design our community along with our product. This design, as design thinking teaches, should be thoughtful and iterative. The design should not be accidental. Because accidental design is what gets us a customer … Continue reading →

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Verizon Faceplants on $2 Fee

Posted on Friday, 30 December 2011 9:13 am by markpilip

I was puzzled by Verizon’s attempt to sneak in a $2 “convenience fee” for customers who pay online or via phone.  Sure, it’s the end of the year and folks are distracted by the holidays, vacations and getting ready for … Continue reading →

Posted in Communications, Customer Care, Predictions | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

“The Channel” to Nowhere

Posted on Thursday, 10 November 2011 9:00 am by markpilip

Why do you sell through distributors, resellers, VARs, or in other words, “the channel?” Is it worth your time building lots of infrastructure to manage the rules around distributing your product, dealing with channel conflict, commissions, “owning the customer” and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer Care, Organization, Product Development | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments