Category Archives: Retail

Burberry’s flagship London store on Regent Street blends giant screens with old world plush comfort. I’ve been reading about the wonders of Burberry’s flagship London store and its whizz bang technology for years. So now that I’m living in London for a few months, I decided to check it out. There are limits to how glamorous…

Live chat these days, whether AI-enabled or not, is kind of where the Internet was in 2000. Everyone thinks they’ve got to be there (and they are right!), but few do it really well. I gave one “spot the live chat software mistake” example a few weeks ago. Here’s another from today. To be fair,…

Why is the car buying experience so awful? Year after year, customers have made it clear that they hate it. They hate the time it wastes. They hate having to negotiate and being left wondering if they got played for a sucker. And yet, that’s the way most dealers still insist on playing it. Like…

Podcast (fr): Download (Duration: 33:11 — 11.8MB)

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I’ve begun my 16 months of world travel, and the customer service experience examples I’m sharing with you today cover some of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of customer experience. Today’s examples include: Rental agencies in Canada and in the United Kingdom Wineries in British Columbia A bathing suit shopping…

Podcast (fr): Download (Duration: 17:31 — 24.5MB)

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  I’m about to take off on the first stage of a year+ of travel and working abroad. The first part will be a road trip to Vancouver, B.C., and since the weather has suddenly warmed up enough that even going through the mountains we probably won’t need snow tires. So I want to get…

  With companies like LL Bean getting rid of their unlimited returns policies, and fraudulent product returns costing retailers billions of dollars a year, today we look a real-world research study that shows how organizations can turn returns into a profitable and positive experience instead of just an upsetting drag on revenues. Tema Frank interviews…

Podcast (fr): Download (Duration: 35:01 — 48.5MB)

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Humans are notorious for saying one thing but doing another. Data security is a case in point. A year ago I would have agreed with this stat from CGI (and other similar studies), showing that cybersecurity would become a differentiator (i.e. that firms which have access to our personal data would promote that they really…

The last time I bought a car we had a very specific requirement. The vehicle had to be big enough that we could fit two bicycles inside. We’d destroyed too many bikes by forgetting they were on the rooftop carrier, and my husband’s bike was too expensive to leave out for thieves overnight. We started…

Podcast (fr): Download (Duration: 23:30 — 32.3MB)

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Fresh Thinking at This Lexus Dealership Leads to Growth & Incredible Customer Loyalty Bruce Kirkland had no background in the auto industry when he was talked into setting up a Lexus dealership. Thirteen years later, Lexus of Edmonton West is one of the most successful car dealerships in the country, largely because he didn’t have…

Podcast (fr): Download (Duration: 29:15 — 40.2MB)

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Why Should Anyone Come to Your Retail Store? (This is Part 2 of my interview with Retail Prophet, Doug Stephens. Listen to Part 1 here.) It’s tempting to believe that because e-commerce still only represents a small fraction of retail sales, the traditional retail store model is not really in danger. When we see e-commerce…

Podcast (fr): Download (Duration: 27:00 — 37.1MB)

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