Month: January 2019

Should You Always Listen to Your Customer?

Customer Service, Digital Business, Listening

M. Wiley Wilson's avatarDigital Business

Is the customer always right? Not always. While listening to customer feedback, taking in reviews, and building off of complaints is helpful, it isn’t everything for your business. You can learn and understand what may be broken or what needs to be fixed – but is your company growing?  

As a business owner or entrepreneur, it’s essential to keep pushing forward. By only listening to what your customer has to say, it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle.  You may be missing opportunities to innovate, shock surprise your customers, or challenge the norm.

While listening to your customer is essential to your business success, check out this infographic by Valpak for a new perspective on the topic. It includes scenarios, tips, and customers you’ll come across in the journey.  

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Commit to Knowing Yourself and How You Achieve Goals

customer success , customer experience , goal setting , setting goals , goalsetting , personal development

Joseph P. Huber's avatarChicago Customer Success

In the world of customer success, we find ourselves speaking with our customers starting off by asking one big question, “What are your goals.”

This singular question is the basis of the partnership between customer success and client. By understanding the customer’s goals, we are able to create a strategy to achieve this, whether it be through metrics, education plans, resources, etc. Without asking this question, we are not able to fully understand our customer’s needs and know what we can do to drive success. The more I hear this question, the more I wonder, what are we doing as professionals to understand our goals, whether it be professional or personal?

Something that keeps popping up in my mind is RuPaul ending every episode of Drag Race saying, “If you don’t love yourself how in the hell you gonna love somebody else”. This should be the mantra of all customer…

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For the love of the game

entrepreneur, goal setting, paperoligarch, start-up

The Paper Oligarch's avatarThe Paper Oligarch

Recently I suffered a small injury that initially seemed harmless enough however things escalated quickly at a point where, for a brief moment in time, I thought that my life was in danger. Since the injury confined me to my bed for a month I had a lot of time to think about life in general, and what I wanted to do from now on in particular. Nothing motivates you like the prospect of dying…

“Life and time are the same thing. If you’re wasting your time you’re wasting your life.”

ronin_sepia

This unfortunate episode helped me accept that most likely I am exactly who the fuck I am going to be for the rest of my life and that is not a bad thing! I will soon be 36 years old and the time to “find myself” has passed, and if there is something that I don’t like about me…

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Free Lance

fantastic art , freelance , freelancer , gig economy , Ivanhoe , mercenary , quotes

R W's avatarCuriomancy (fantastic art + fiction + thought)

taras-susak-deep

Not to glorify the gig economy, but if you are a freelancer, you are a mercenary.

The earliest recorded use of the term (so far discovered) comes from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, in which a feudal lord declares, in reference to his paid army:

I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances, and he refused them—I will lead them to Hull, seize on shipping, and embark for Flanders; thanks to the bustling times, a man of action will always find employment.

cover image by Taras Susak

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Goals: How to set good ones (Blog and Podcast)

Brendan Burchard, Eddie O’Connor, habits, High Performance Habits, The psychology of performance

Big Happy Life's avatar

This podcast episode is the first in the “Goals and Habits Series”. Listen here.

It’s that time of year again. Most of us have fresh goals and great hopes for achieving them.

I have set myself some lofty goals and am using the process described here to give myself the best shot at success.

In short:

  • Set 3 levels of goals:
  1. Outcome goals – the big idea
  2. Performance goals – developing the skills required to achieve the big idea
  3. Process goals – creating opportunities to develop the necessary skills

A great goal is made up of an outcome goal, supported by one or more performance and process goals.

In detail:

Set three levels of goals.

  1. Outcome goals

These goals describe the outcome you’d like to achieve. If you’ve ever heard of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound), these are outcome goals.

Examples:

  • To lose 20 pounds by…

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