employee engagement

Yay! It’s finally here!  The official launch of my book, What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate the Best from the Rest (Jossey-Bass).

The book introduces a different way of thinking about and building brands. If you ask most people to define “brand,” they will often turn to the usual suspects: a tagline, logo, advertising message, etc,. Traditionally, brands have been understood in this way – as outward-facing, image-focused expressions. 

Is there really anything more important than a great customer experience? 

A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest post forJeannie Walters of 360Connext titled, A Great Customer Experience Trumps... . At the end of the post, I posed the question: "What trumps a great customer experience? Only one thing. Can you guess?"

Is there really anything more important than a great customer experience?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest post for Jeannie Walters of 360Connext titled, A Great Customer Experience Trumps... . At the end of the post, I posed the question: "What trumps a great customer experience? Only one thing. Can you guess?"

In this day and age, is there any viable excuse for not focusing on the customer experience?

I was part of a panel that participated in a Google Hangout on Air hosted by Fonolo a couple weeks ago. During the Hangout, the panel discussed a few stats on - and trends affecting - customer experience.

Let's just put this out there again: Employee Engagement is not a strategy.

I just read somewhere that it is ... which tells me that it bears repeating both what it is and what it isn't. Employee engagement is...

Building a strong B2B brand starts with corporate culture.  Business leaders must rally their employees around common cultural values because culture determines whether they will embrace and appropriately interpret and reinforce it in their customer interactions.   The opportunity is to use culture-building to optimize a company’s internal workings and engage the workforce in delivering unique, focused, and aligned customer experiences.

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear”  Herbert Agar

In this post I continue sharing with you what shows up for me as I grapple with ‘employee engagement’.  Given that some of you may have not read the earlier posts, I will first cover some essential ground and the move forward with the ‘new’.

"Time is running out to nominate a United employee for excellent service," said no one, ever.

Oh, wait. Someone actually did say it!Click the image to the left to see an email I received from United a couple of weeks ago telling me exactly that.

The passing of Dr. Stephen Covey in July was one of those moments that caused a lot of people to reflect on their lives and on how effective they are, both personally and professionally. I was moved to reread his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Here's an interesting thought: Why do companies conduct exit interviews when employees leave, but they don't conduct stay interviews to understand why employees stay?