Competitive intelligence from public sources, customers, and third parties can help businesses anticipate market opportunities, trends, and competitive strengths and weaknesses. However, intelligence gathering must be done in an ethical and reasonable way. These guidelines [Read More]

An overlooked benefit of customer satisfaction research is the opportunity to let customers know their input is critically important and impacts your product offerings, delivery channels, and other activities. “When you solicit information, tell customers [Read More]

In a weak economy, it’s especially important to get closer to your most loyal and profitable customers. Allocating dollars to research is one of the best ways to uncover what your customers want and what [Read More]

Drawing their conclusions from an unprecedented study of 200,000 managers and employees over a 10–year period, the authors found that, while salary is a factor in attracting and maintaining top–flight people, it is less important [Read More]

If you think people are too jaded to pay much attention to customer testimonials, PlanetHospital’s success might make you change your mind. According to Rudy Rupak, founder of the Calabasas, Calif.–based company, which helps travelers [Read More]

I still remember spending Thursday nights as a kid watching Kung Fu, a popular 1970s television series about a Chinese-American Shaolin priest, Kwai Chang Caine, who roamed the plains of the American West looking for [Read More]

In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell describes how the adaptive unconscious works and shows its importance in problem solving. Here’s how those lessons can be applied to the business [Read More]

Focus groups have long been used by marketing executives and brand managers to test or help develop products. In Jack Gordon’s mind, the practice often fails to determine the most important aspect of a product [Read More]

What if you knew where your most loyal customers shopped for items that you also sell? And if your customers told you how they wanted to shop and be served and what would cause them [Read More]

As with life, business is all about relationships. But many executives aren’t taking full advantage of the opportunity to get to know their customers. In fact, in a recent survey by the Chief Marketing Officer [Read More]