Category Archives: Customer focus

Paying New Employees to Quit

Posted on May 25, 2008 by John Hunter

[the video is no longer available] Training new employees and then paying them to quit, sounds pretty bizarre; Zappos is not afraid of doing things differently. Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit – And You Should Too [Harvard broke … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, Management, Respect, webcast | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Why is Customer Service So Bad?

Posted on May 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is it? I really don’t know. It drives me crazy though – having to put up with horrible service again and again. Is it possible that only a few people actually care about service? I know I care about … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged | 7 Comments

Find Joy and Success in Business

Posted on April 21, 2008 by John Hunter

David Heinemeier Hansson Talk [the broken link has been removed] at Startup School 2008 (Paul Graham‘s Y-combinator school). It is helpful to appreciate the importance of some simple ideas. Working on web focused businesses people often get carried away with … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Fun, Innovation, IT, Management, Psychology, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Confusing Customer Focus

Posted on April 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Misuse of the “Customer” Concept “We are told that the airlines are our customers,” FAA inspector Charlambe “Bobby” Boutris said. “But we have a more important customer, the taxpayers” who want government to ensure a safe aviation system. That’s crazy. … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Packaging Improvement

Posted on April 9, 2008 by John Hunter

McDonald’s Branding Makes Food Tastier for Tots Researchers at Stanford University have found that children tend to rate food that is wrapped up in McDonald’s-branded paper as tasting better than the same food wrapped in plain paper — a finding … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, Science | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Pleasing Customers

Posted on March 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is 37signals so arrogant? by Don Norman The Brash Boys at 37signals Will Tell You: Keep it Simple, Stupid. Brash is an understatement. I was quoted in the article because of my article arguing that simplicity is highly overrated: … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Toyota’s Commitment

Posted on March 8, 2008 by John Hunter

From Toyota’s blog, Living Up to Our Commitment We’ve received reports that on a small number of model-year 1995 to 2000 Tacomas, excessive corrosion of the frame has caused perforation of the metal. The reason for this, it appears, is … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Customers Get Dissed and Tell

Posted on February 28, 2008 by John Hunter

There are those rare companies where interacting with them is not a dreaded experience: Trader Joe’s, Southwest Airlines, Ritz Carlton, Crutchfield, Cannon, Groovix. There are not many. And even just providing something that just works is seen as a treat. … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

User Happiness with Search Engines

Posted on February 23, 2008 by John Hunter

Awhile back I wrote about why I didn’t think the American Customer Satisfaction Index claim that Yahoo beat Google for customer satisfaction was evidence of a broken indicator. Well here is another indicator, but this time it puts Google clearly … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google, Management | Comments Off on User Happiness with Search Engines

Poor Service from Amazon

Posted on January 11, 2008 by John Hunter

I like using Amazon, most of the time. But their decision to erect barriers for communication I find extremely annoying. Any time anything goes wrong you might as well be dealing with some organization in the middle of nowhere without … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Process improvement | 6 Comments