Customer Research

In the old days, when we made physical products, setting project goals wasn’t that hard. But in today’s service - and software-driven world, “done” is less obvious. When is Amazon done? When is Google done? Or Facebook? In reality, services powered by digital systems are never done. So then how do we give teams a goal that they can work on? Mostly, we simply ask teams to build features - but features are the wrong way to go. We often build features that create no value. Instead, we need to give teams an outcome to achieve.

In Marketing 6.0, the celebrated promoter of the "Four P's of Marketing," Philip Kotler, explains how marketers can use technology to address customers' needs and make a difference in the world. In a new age of metamarketing, this book provides marketers with a way to integrate technological and business model evolution with the dramatic shifts in consumer behavior that have happened in the last decade.

Onboarding is the most important part of the customer journey, yet many B2B companies fail to act proactively at the start of the relationship. Instead, customer success teams are stuck making heroic efforts to save accounts and fighting fires when customers inevitably run into problems or get stuck. In Onboarding Matters, Donna Weber shares the Orchestrated Onboarding™ framework that she implements with leading B2B companies to turn onboarding from a missed opportunity into a competitive advantage.

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson share the secret to sales success: don't just build relationships with customers. Challenge them! What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships - and you'd be wrong. Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson and their colleagues at CEB have studied the performance of thousands of sales reps worldwide. Their conclusion? The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them.

These days, virtually anything you need can come through a subscription. Far beyond Spotify and Netflix, companies in nearly any industry, from home contractors to florists, can build subscriptions into their business. Subscription is the key to increasing cash flow, igniting growth and boosting the value of your company. Whether you want to transform your entire business into a recurring revenue engine or just pick up an extra five per cent of sales growth, The Automatic Customer will be your secret weapon.

Technology has evaporated the barriers of complaint. With smartphones and always-on Internet access, consumers complain more often and across more channels, many of them public. This requires a completely new system for instantly finding, evaluating, and addressing these complaints. Jay Baer and Edison Research conducted a landmark study of more than 2,000 consumers and found that not all complainers ("haters") are created equal.

If you've ever used ZipCar, Amazon Prime, Spotify, NetFlix, Groupon, Weight Watchers, SurveyMonkey, United Mileage Plus, Pinterest, or Twitter, you are part of The Membership Economy, an increasingly popular model that author Robbie Kellman Baxter sees as the inevitable result of technological advancements, social trends, and a generation in transition. The Membership Economy argues that we are now moving away from ownership, but we still want the benefits that come with access.

The Thank You Economy is about something big, something greater than any single revolutionary platform. It isn't some abstract concept or wacky business strategy—it's real, and every one of us is doing business in it every day, whether we choose to recognize it or not. It's the way we communicate, the way we buy and sell, the way businesses and consumers interact online and offline.

Sales have dropped precipitously. The board is meeting next week. Bob, founder and long-time CEO, is urged by his team to hire an expensive management consulting firm and drastically cut costs as a last ditch effort to improve the company’s bottom line.

The internet has made it easy for virtually anyone to become a business owner. It is impossible to deny the convenience and ease of online shopping for goods or services. An online platform is ideal for launching your business for any aspiring business owner, though it is not always as easy as it seems.What exactly goes into starting a business online? The landscape and procedures involved with e-commerce are vastly different from those of physical businesses. If you're ready to start your dream online business but don't know what steps to take next, this guide is for you. We'll break down ...

What is it that made Starbucks an overnight sensation and separated it from other coffee house companies? Why do many products with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising, fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace as brands like Apple and Nike?

80 percent of companies believe they deliver a good customer experience. Yet, only 8 percent of customers agree. Why is there such a disparity? Where do companies go wrong? How can you optimize your customers’ experience? Little Things Big Returns reveals how companies miss the little things that draw customers in or turn them away. Most importantly, this book explains how companies can close the customer experience gap and realize big returns. Research confirms little things happen in the moments that matter most to your customers. By little things I mean human things, the kindnesses and...

Word of mouth is directly responsible for 19 percent of all purchases, and influences as much as 90 percent. Every human on Earth relies on word of mouth to make buying decisions. Yet even today, fewer than 1 percent of companies have an actual strategy for generating these crucial customer conversations. Talk Triggers provides that strategy in a compelling, relevant, timely book that can be put into practice immediately, by any business.

Delight Your Customers reveals three truths common to all exceptional customer service experiences and presents seven behaviors that, when demonstrated by employees, distinguish extraordinary customer service from the ordinary transactional customer service to which consumers have become accustomed. With real-world stories and many examples from a variety of industries, this audiobook is a resource that will help listeners everywhere take their customer service from ordinary to extraordinary!

Do potential customers reach your website, landing page, or app but fail to take action? Do you struggle to combine both rational/logical and emotional/non-conscious elements into your marketing? Does your ecommerce site have too many abandoned shopping carts? If you can answer "yes" to any of these questions, or if you are simply looking for a way to be more persuasive and convert better, you need The Persuasion Slide™. Psychologists have uncovered many secrets of influence and persuasion psychology, but trying to apply them in a practical way has often remained elusive for marketers. ...

User Tested delivers an eye-opening and compelling treatment of putting customers back at the center of your business model. In this book, you'll discover why the company that offers the best customer experience always wins and that real, three-dimensional people can't be reduced to data points on a graph.

Written in the trenches of helping hundreds of B2B SaaS businesses, The Pricing Roadmap will help you pour gasoline on the fire of your pricing. Ditch the guesswork with this step-by-step guide to designing SaaS pricing that grows your business—whether you’re a startup, prerevenue venture, or an established market leader.

Green Giants examines nine companies that are merging social responsibility with wild profitability - and reveals the six factors responsible for their success, including: iconoclastic leadership fueled by deep conviction and a rebellious streak; disruptive innovation that uses sustain ability to spur the development of radically better products and services; a higher purpose that ignites the company - when the mission leads, profits follow.

How much time have you spent reflecting on the fact that revenues are generated by actual customers—the people who pull out their wallets and pay for your products and services? In The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity, experts Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie, and Michael Ross start you on the path toward really getting to understand your customers' buying behavior as well as the health of your overall customer base.

The Wallet Allocation Rule is a revolutionary, definitive guide for winning the battle for share of customers' hearts, minds, and wallets. Backed by rock-solid science published in the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, this landmark book introduces a new and rigorously tested approach - the wallet allocation rule - that is proven to link to the most important measure of customer loyalty: share of wallet.