@Hertz: The Virtual Agent Lightens the Pain of Waiting
I’ll admit it; I hate waiting. I try to be patient, yet I am spoiled by the immediacy of everything.…
Sea World presents a charming day…with a catch
I am surrounded by Cookie Monster, Elmo and Bert, as they dance to a catchy tune about letters and numbers.…
Blackberry’s customer service misfortunes
With my flight hours away, and my departure gate in sight, I decided to move off the main pathway of…
What One Restaurant Did to Guarantee Repeat Business
A typical day becomes extraordinary when a SURPRISE appears. For restaurants, surprises are repeat business. If you can get someone…
Going Home Again
The bike path where I drove to McDonald’s is gone. Grass now covers what used to be a well-formed path…
What key things would you look for in a leader?
Fellow blogger and leadership guru, Mark Snead, talked with numerous leaders and posed this question: If you were hiring someone…
Chik-Fil-A’s Cows on the Loose
A barren water tower stretches over metropolitan Atlanta. Thousands pass each day without even a furtive glance toward the metallic…
@HEB: Punching a PIN becomes punitive
I find POS (Point of Sale) fascinating. It’s the moment of truth. The shopper has purposefully, or sometimes mindlessly, selected…
Everything, Available Now
We stare at screens Taking in some far-off dream The fingers at a dizzying pace, fuel the ever-quickening race Attention…
Get personal and watch a person light up
The scene: Two workers decompress over a beer at a local conference’s happy hour. “So, what do you do?” says…
A four-sided life is a life well-lived
A boat without a bottom will sink. A car with 3 wheels won’t get you far. A square has 4…
@ Best Buy, it’s the stuff that brings them in….
Since when have we become so ‘accessorized’? Recently, I visited a Best Buy and expected to find wall after wall…
Learning from Central Market: Sights, sounds and smells that make you spend
Watermelon juice High-quality, corn-fed Angus beef Fluffy, moist Blackberry muffins Hungry? Central Market in Austin, Texas makes shopping a dazzling…
When’s the last time you talked with your customers?
Have you heard someone say?: “To have a friend, you need to be a friend.” Can this quote be repurposed…
Hungry to persuade and motivate? Try this recipe.
The words we use are very situation-dependent. What you tell your friends on the green of the 18th hole on…
How NOT to introduce someone to your team
A manager hires a new worker and can’t wait to get her started. He gets her settled in her new…
Give me a reason to try your www
We’ve been a bit blurred by the ever-presence of dot-coms. Nearly every billboard, advertisement (radio or TV), newspaper, magazine article…
Dell wants us to do more; I vote for less
Standing in the long, plodding security line at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, I glanced skyward. What else is an…
Slow down
See Bob tweet, flickr, stumble, ping, bumble, snap, like, check-in, lurk. See Bob frantic, frenzied, stressed, overloaded, overburdened as he…
4th of July: It’s got it all
The 4thof July has always been one of my favorite holidays. The day’s pace slows (at least for adults), although…