Recently, I’ve noticed an impolite practice from some of our vendors. When you connect with a person in customer service, this is the initial exchange “Hello, I’m Steve. May I have your account number?” Rather asking me to reciprocate and introduce myself – as is a common and expected practice in our culture – they …
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
A Best-ter Buy
Yesterday the Strib announced Best Buy’s new customer personas. According to the article, $50 million is dog-eared for reformatting 100 stores to improve the shopping experience of these 5 archetypes. It seems to me that Ray, Barry, and Buzz already love shopping at Best Buy. Jill on the other hand, can’t stand the place. Perhaps …
Customer in Training
While a number of supermarkets and discount stores offer “customer-in-training” shopping cart as their primary method of keeping children occupied while their parents shop, Wegmans – a Woodbridge, N.J. supermarket chain – goes one step further offering W Kids Childcare centers . The videos, toys, and playground equipment found at these centers is part of …
The Zone vs the Clock
This weekend, we worked on the home renovation – continuously – tiling until we ran out of tile, tweaking the bathroom sink until it stopped leaking. There were no phones, no radios, no email, no meetings pulling us away. We were able to focus on the task at hand until it was complete….really focus. I’m …
Measure Once – Cut 5 or 6 Times
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we spent the weekend redoing our bathroom & entryway. The biggest a-ha I can offer you: Iterate For a Snug Fit. For each piece of sub-flooring, each tile, and the new mopboard – we would: Make the measurement Cut off a hair little less than we measured Massage …
Many Conversations Converge
After a number of recent conversations with my good friend Chip, where he concisely and articulately restated my thoughts on entrepreneurship and quality of life, I’m directed to this section of Tom Peters’ website, where he declares – as only he can – how offshore outsourcing is not a new problem or something we should …
Learning from Living – Part 2
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent the weekend doing tearing out carpetting from our house and understanding the electrical and plumbing systems. A couple of our plans needed to change once we really got into the house: Need a new subfloor in the bathroom & entryway May need to re-wall the bedroom …
Legalizing Feng Shui
Last month Assemblyman Leland Yee introduced a bill in the California legislature to put Feng Shui principles on the books. State officials were speechless “We know earthquakes knock down buildings, we know fire burns down buildings. We don’t know what feng shui does to buildings.” As Assemblyman Yee responded, “A lot of the principles of …
Learning from Living
Over breakfast this Saturday, my wife and I discussed various home improvement projects for our new place. Very early into the conversation, we realized how little we knew about the house. What’s under the carpet? Can the toilet be moved easily? How long will it take to remove the wallpaper? Answers that can only be …
Veen’s Presentation Tips
I highly recommend Jeffrey Veen’s Seven Steps to Better Presentations My personal favorites: #3 Don’t Apologize. Apologizing for your own performance so directly and swiftly weakens. #4 Start Strong and #5 End Strong. I was in a sales presentation recently where the main presenter apologized 5 times in as many minutes. From the audience’s perspective …