Yearly Archives: 2014

The recent business news has been full of the problems besetting the UK’s largest retailer Tesco. Part of the blame for its poor performance has been laid at the failure of its “Fresh & Easy” chain in the United States, which lost the supermarket £3bn. This was to have been Tesco’s grand entrance into a

Why are marketers wasting time with email and other so called personalised marketing? We pretend to be personal and personalised but actually treat our targets as numbers to be played around with. A few weeks ago I was approached with a personal and chatty email by the marketing manager of a blue chip company. The

I have just returned from a week’s holiday (vacation) in New York. No, I’m not going to share with you my holiday snaps, but rather some very interesting insights into customer service. Travelling to and staying in New York was a revelation in terms of customer service and how it can really work. Now when

In the last year I have run a dozen or more workshops for corporates to help develop their marketing strategies. Whatever the size or sector, three themes always come through: How do I understand my customers? How do I understand my competitors? What does strategic marketing mean at the most senior levels of my company?

Organisations tend to be so silo driven that they frequently miss the point of their existence - to provide great products/services and to retain their customers for the long term. Financial services are an example of how loyal customers can be charged for tiny instances of going into debit and these charges can on the one hand reduce loyalty yet on the other help meet a budget target of the "charges" department. The costs of losing customers are great, yet frequently missed as all that seems to matter is new business. Companies need to take a fresh approach - ...