Pivot Point Solutions

How Water Coolers Improve the Customer Experience

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:02:11 +0000

What emotional costs are passed along to your company and how are you counteracting them? If you rarely think about the emotional toll that customer service takes on your employees, I suggest you glance through a recent study in the Journal of Management. The article, titled “Alleviating the Burden of Emotional Labor: The Role of [...]

The Best Bet: Hire Right and Never Fire

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:09:31 +0000

Danny Boice’s article “Why ‘Hire Slow, Fire Fast’ is a Bunch of BS” made a case for getting people on board because you didn’t have the luxury of having work not done. Judging from related posts which defend Hire Slow, Fire Fast, his view is not widely held. Both approaches miss the point. The speed [...]

Uni-tasking Your Way to Excellence

Andrew McFarland — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:46:31 +0000

People who want to accomplish more (who doesn’t?) would be well-served to remember one thing above all others – do less! AT&T’s humorous commercial notwithstanding, vast expanses of human potential are turned into veritable wastelands because people are bad at pruning low-yield efforts from their ‘to do’ lists. Without relentless focus, you end up with: [...]

Great Teams Share Objectives, Not Roles

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:36:17 +0000

True teamwork is on the verge of extinction in business and is being replaced with a far more costly and less efficient model of group work. Over time, teamwork has come to mean overwork and rework. Sloppy management practices have bastardized the meaning and application of a simple concept. Here’s what I mean. Today, if [...]

Can’t Miss Ways to Improve Customer Experience

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:55:44 +0000

The methods below represent some of the most thought-provoking, simple, and underused ways to improve the customer experience.

Word of Mouth – Taxes and Dividends

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:19:08 +0000

Thanks to a friend of mine (@pangomarketing) for sharing a link to a Richard Branson blog which stated, “the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers.” Branson’s message is elegant in its simplicity and powerful in its truth. He’s right of course but there’s more to it. What to [...]

Customer Value – Do Not Bend

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:05:39 +0000

How well does your company know its value proposition? Not what makes the products/services valuable to you, but how those products and services help customers. I was reminded of this critical distinction recently as I sorted through the mail at our home. When did “do not bend” become synonymous with “quality”? It must have been [...]

Integrating Social Media into a Customer Experience Strategy

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:51:30 +0000

Depending on your perspective you may view social media as either panacea or money pit when delivering a customer experience. Molly Flatt considers a similar question in her article Social customer service: a must-have or a let-down? The answer is (c) both of the above, as the following example illustrates. ‏@SeanWilliams : Here’s the amazing [...]

The Danger of Ignoring Your Customers

Andrew McFarland — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:25:32 +0000

Watching JCPenney’s fall from grace has been like watching a car wreck. Like others, this wreck could have been avoided with more focus and less hubris. Here are some nuggets of wisdom a (highly compensated) CEO is learning the hard way as expressed in their earnings call: Quote: “…we learned she prefers a sale. At [...]

Intentional Customer Experience (Part 2 of 2)

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:23:29 +0000

Some potentially surprising news for start-ups: Even though you may think you are selling a product, your customers are actually buying the whole ‘experience’. For this reason alone, the way you organize and execute your customer experience strategy must be intentional, not accidental. In my last post I mentioned history and size as common impediments [...]