Customer Focus
The power of averaged intelligenceApril 28, 2008: The Web is showing us that in a great many areas of human endeavor the best intelligence lies in the network as a whole, rather than any one element. More
Expert or amateur? Both
April 14, 2008: The Web allows us to marry collective intelligence with expert knowledge. This is an unbeatable combination. More
Some customers are not worth caring about
February 18, 2008: Website success has as much to do with figuring out who is NOT your customer, and the information you will NOT provide, as anything else. More
How I came to love Ryanair
February 11, 2008: The Web customer is increasingly immune to marketing hype and advertising dream-making. More
Is the organization the enemy of the customer?
February 04, 2008: What is good for the organization and what is good for the customer are not always the same thing. More
Web professional: Are you ready to serve?
January 28, 2008: Those who enjoy serving customers will be the ones who create successful web careers. More
Web professional: Are you ready to serve?
January 28, 2008: Those who enjoy serving customers will be the ones who create successful web careers. More
Every website is NOT different
December 03, 2007: Every time I hear someone say that "every website is different" I want to rush outside, grab an ancient oak, rip it up by its roots, swing it wildly and lop the top off the nearest mountain. More
Thinking Web, not website
November 26, 2007: The Web is the network. The Web is the organization. Your website is not important. Reaching your customers is. More
Web customer rejects silo mentality
November 19, 2007: Organizations have an overwhelming desire to own and control. Even within organizations, each unit/department is constantly trying to prove that it is important. More
Web ecosystem: rise of the grudger customer
November 12, 2007: On the Web a new type of customer is rising. One more and more immune to marketing happy talk. One that wants facts before emotion. More
Honest marketing works on the Web
October 29, 2007: The web customer is not a fool. The specific reason they are on the Web is to compare and evaluate. Give them the facts. More
5 key characteristics of web brands
April 30, 2006: The web brand is useful, clear, simple, interactive, and most importantly, customer-centric. More
Why simplicity is essential to web design
April 16, 2006: A simple website charges you less time. A complex website charges you more time. Time is your most precious resource. More
Learning to love the stranger
April 09, 2006: The future belongs to those who can combine the strength of community with the openness of globalization. More
Web facilitates wisdom of crowds
April 02, 2006: Harnessing the collective intelligence is the cornerstone of the Web's success. More
Customer power driven by the Web
March 26, 2006: The shift from organization power to customer power continues, as customers use the Web to organize themselves like never before. More
Don't stereotype your customers
February 19, 2007: Even if you're serving the same group of customers, their needs may have changed. This may mean having to change some deep-rooted beliefs. More
The Web is the organization
January 15, 2007: The Web has become the organization. An organization of a billion people with a billion things to say. And a million ways to work together. More
Recovering from organization-centricity
November 20, 2006: Admit you have a problem: The first step to recovery is to admit that you are organization-centric. Say it: "We're organization-centric. More
What tourists really want on the Web
October 30, 2006:What customers want from a Caribbean tourism website is a great package deal. Alternatively, they want to get a hotel at a good price, and get a 'best of' for the destination. More
What your website can learn from Starbucks
October 23, 2006:Like all great self-service organizations, Starbucks knows that you should never keep the customer waiting. More
Why award-winning websites are so awful
October 16, 2006:Practical and functional websites rarely win prizes for design but they do win sales and make profits. More
The most irritating website in the world
September 25, 2006:Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) may be in love with itself. But it shouldn't advertise this self-love on its website. More
Are you too inward-focused?
September 18, 2006: Technology can act as a wall or a door between the organization and the customer. Too often it is becoming a wall. More
When the web team gets it totally wrong
September 11, 2006: Time and time again web teams get it totally wrong in relation to what customers want. There's a simple reason for this and an equally simple answer. More
The end of deference and the rise of customer power
August 28, 2006: The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. This shift in power is only beginning to be felt. More
Truth sells on the Web
July 31, 2006: It has rarely made sense for a business to advertise its weaknesses. Until the Web, that is. More
The greatest skill of the 21st Century
June 19, 2006: In an age when technology is everywhere, those who understand how technology works are easy to find. Those who understand how people work are much harder to find. More
Making the customer CEO
June 12, 2006: The key revolution of the Web is customer empowerment and engagement. The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. The implications are enormous. More
Tapping the collective intelligence: Word 2003 command poll
April 24, 2006: A key challenge is to know what customers do and care about, rather than what they say they do and care about. Here's an approach. More
Collective intelligence: is your website tapping it?
April 17, 2006: Collective intelligence will be a key competitive advantage in the 21st Century. Never before has there been a better medium to tap the collective intelligence than the Web. More
Your website is for your most important customers
April 09, 2006: Most websites suffer from over-ambition. They try to do too much with few resources. They think they can answer every question. More
The trouble with personalization
March 20, 2006: Personalization has rarely been implemented well. Its failure is usually because of a lack of understanding of customer behavior. More
Websites reflect true face of an organization
March 13, 2006: A website shows the true face of the organization as never before. A website is increasingly the place where customers get that vital first impression. More
Customer focus: First rule of scientific content management
February 20, 2006: The science of content management begins with a deep understanding of your customer. The Web is more likely to push your customer away than to bring them closer. More
Websites are self-service not organization-service
February 13, 2006: The organizations that love to use their intranets and public websites to tell things to staff and customers will fail. Web success is about empowering staff and customers to serve themselves. More
Customer-focus: Getting to truly know your customers
January 23, 2006:Asking people directly what they think can confuse them and lead them to make poor choices. Giving them too much choice makes them choose less, and regret the choices they make. More
Find out what your customers really need from your website
November 21, 2005: If there is one reason—more than any other—why a website fails, it is because it doesn’t understand its customers. More
Why it matters to focus on your reader
June 06, 2005: There are those who see websites as acts of creation separate from the people who will visit those websites. There are those who see people and create websites to meet these people's needs. More
Is this you? (Reader persona design: an example)
February 14, 2005: Do you work in a medium-to-large organization whose web content you feel could be put to better use? If so, you're my target reader. More
Key steps in creating your reader persona
February 07, 2005: The first step in developing successful reader personas is to decide what readers you are not going to focus on. Good web management is often more about what you exclude than what you include. More
Not everyone is worth supporting
August 02, 2004: Support costs money. Some customers are worth supporting because they are, or have the capacity to be, profitable. Some customers are not worth supporting because the cost of supporting them is greater than the profit that can be made from them. Differentiating between profitable and unprofitable customers is a critical skill. More
Support is where brands are won and lost
July 26, 2004: If brand loyalty is best measured by gut feeling then there are few better ways to test its strength than when a customer requires support, because that's when feelings are high. Today, most organizations pretty much wash their hands of the customer after they've sold them the product. This is a shot-sighted strategy. More
How to design for the tunnel reader
March 15, 2004: People may initially scan read on the Web; their eyes moving quickly across a page. However, when they find the keywords they are interested in, they tend to tunnel read. What this means is that they focus on a specific set of content. They basically don’t see anything else on your website. More
Your website is for your customer, not for you
September 15, 2003: An organization is a form of group. Groups can be elitist. Groups are always trying to define who is in and who is out. To a great many organizations, the customer is on the outside. To be a success, a website must live on the outside. More
Websites: think the way your customers think
September 08, 2003: One of the biggest challenges an organization faces is to stop thinking it's the center of the universe. Customers think that they are the center of the universe. Customers come to your website to get their needs fulfilled. They will only think you are great if you meet their needs in an efficient and cost-effective manner. More
Get feedback!
April 09, 2001: I recently attempted to book a flight online. I got halfway through the process and it felt like I was getting the wrong information. So I rang up the airline and sure enough I was given a different set of flight details. So I booked over the phone. I didn't go back to the website to fill out any 'feedback' form because to be quite honest I couldn't be bothered. It had wasted enough of my time already. More
