The Blog

Most CX makeovers are announced loudly, then quietly under-deliver against the expectations the announcement set up. Kmart's turnaround did the opposite: they fixed the experience first and let customers notice. Here's what that approach looks like in practice, and why it tends to beat the big-bang announcement.

Forrester's three secrets of great CX organisations turn out to be good leadership, collaborative teams and enough resources. Those aren't CX secrets, they're the secrets to running any support function well. Here's the case that Customer Experience Management is mostly a new theatre for old skills, not a new craft.

Grounding the entire Qantas fleet looks like a textbook CX disaster, every commentator said so at the time. The alternative scenario, played out over the months that followed, was worse. Here's the case that a sharp short-term shock can be a strategic customer experience decision, not just a brand catastrophe.

Most CX initiatives follow the same flawed playbook: design once, roll out, then relax. That works for a brochure. It does not work for a customer experience. Ten years in industrial process control taught me what continuous improvement actually looks like, here's what to do instead, and why Transactional NPS belongs at the centre of it.

The internet is full of CX takes, most of which aren't worth reading. The trick is finding the people who add value and challenge your thinking, then honing your ideas against them. Here are ten Customer Experience influencers worth following, not because they all agree with me, but because they make me think.

The service recovery paradox, customers ending up more loyal after a problem than they would have been without one, is real, but not universal. It quietly fails for repeat failures, big failures and faults the customer thinks were avoidable. Here's when the paradox works, when it doesn't, and how to set up Transactional NPS to exploit it.