Pivot Point Solutions | Pragmatic Approaches to Improving the Customer Experience

NPS: Do or do not… there is no try

Andrew McFarland — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:25:35 +0000

Not all companies use a formal customer feedback mechanism like the Net Promoter Score* (NPS). Whether your company uses feedback to improve broken processes or as a way to bring innovative products to market, soliciting and responding to customer feedback … Continue reading →

Customer Service Levels Decline

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:48:20 +0000

Once again American Express has released its Customer Service Barometer (2012 version). Once again, the findings aren’t pretty (see below): Companies consistently miss expectations and are getting steadily worse – 31% in 2012 versus 26% two years earlier. 2/3 of … Continue reading →

Mission Accomplished? Say So!

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:55:33 +0000

President George W. Bush claimed credit for winning a war only just begun and Vice President Al Gore once famously claimed credit for inventing the internet. Probably a good idea to do some fact-checking before opening one’s mouth, but claiming … Continue reading →

Matchmakers Improve Engagement

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:15:08 +0000

Match.com and eHarmony ought to get out of the dating business and into corporate recruiting. Think of what could happen if employers could find people who were passionate about their jobs. Instead, most companies focus on filling openings. When an … Continue reading →

Free Support is Best Solution

Andrew McFarland — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:09:02 +0000

Free Support is Best Solution As Dan Schaeffer stared at the small font on a mind-numbingly large spreadsheet he decided that Tuesday would be a lot like Monday. Half way across the country, Steve Penderman looked at the top message … Continue reading →

Urgency Without Direction is Chaos

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:05:25 +0000

John P. Kotter’s book “A Sense of Urgency” provides four (4) tactics to jumpstart change in your organization. However, the most compelling reason to read the book is to internalize the distinction between a true and a false sense of … Continue reading →

Sales Team Selling You Short?

Andrew McFarland — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:06:34 +0000

An interesting HBR Blog article by Andris A. Zoltners, PK Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer asserts companies are addicted to harmful sales incentive cultures. Incentives aren’t the problem. The problem is determining whether or not the incentives drive behavior that … Continue reading →

Failing Grade for @BassettUS

Andrew McFarland — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:09:05 +0000

Four years ago I made the mistake of purchasing a sofa from Bassett Furniture. I didn’t know it was a mistake at the time, but I should have. (Now, I’m kind of blue.) Warning signs I should have considered: No … Continue reading →

Make your 2012 Resolutions on Mercury Time

Andrew McFarland — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:19:47 +0000

Another year dawns… and we go through the time-honored (but not people-honored) tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions. We set them with the best of intentions, yet forget them and quickly fail. You can either continue with what you tried … Continue reading →

Customer Service… No More Monkey Business

Andrew McFarland — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:37:05 +0000

I had to laugh at a recent HBR blog post titled “People Are Not Your Greatest Asset”. “Your Baby Is Ugly” would have raised fewer hackles in popular business circles. Rest assured that people are the engine that powers a … Continue reading →