blogs.conchango.com

The report on the top 50 UK retailers customer services proposition is still in progress.  By progress I mean that all the criteria for evaluating their proposition has been recorded and I now need to review the findings to make some sense of it.   In the meantime as a light aperitif here's a preamble around the all-important Customer ...

Momentum is building for self-service technologies in the real world.  Consumers are adopting these self-service interactions and interacting less with in-store customer services.  Online it's a different story as online shoppers want someone to talk to. In Future Now's 2007 Retail Customer Experience Survey, they recommend ...

From user research and other customer insight I create the primary persona, Siobhan, a fictional portrait of a customer for a high street retailer I am currently working with.  As she slowly comes to life I create a vivid image of this fictional character . It isn't easy sourcing the right photo to reflect the age, gender, and ...

Today is day 1 of the Retail Week Conference 2008.  I arrived in time for the breakfast briefing, sporting a Conchango t-shirt. My trim figure barely made a dent in the XL Conchango t-shirt leaving plenty of room for a couple of colleagues to squeeze in. After a much-needed caffeine injection and over-indulgence in fresh croissants I ...

A web site I once worked on has recently received a trust overhaul and is now lit up like a Christmas tree with all manner of sparkling trust-builders. Whilst the client must be applauded for their endeavour to reassure their customers and engender trust in their online store, simply littering their web site with a generous dollop of ...

A quickie to let you know that my MIX08 session has a time, date and place. The full Facebook event is here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9215037357 - do go join up. It's always slightly encouraging, not to say scary, to see people who actually might turn up! Or for you FB resisters: March 6th, 4.15pm, Delfino 4005, The Venetian ...

I walked in to an electrical store this weekend to purchase a Cambridge Audio Azur Receiver but couldn’t find what I was looking for.  There were no sales staff around whatsoever to ask whether they had the item in stock, although a sign read ‘leave us a message and we will try to get back to you within 48 hours’. Sounds strange! ...

Amazon - purveyor of books. Sorry, purveyor of books and CDs. Sorry, books, CDs and videos DVDs. Actually, I guess it's now books, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts, cameras, mp3 players, duvets, ovens, garden gnomes,... you get the idea. Well, they've finally forgotten why they came to the party in the first place. They're so overwhelmed ...

Can you truly 'sell' online? Or does the online retailer simply facilitate a purchase and make customers aware of products and promotions? The impact of selling is massive though. I've seen the most cynical and unpersuadable people walk away from an encounter with a shop floor sales assistant having spent more than they intended, and ...