Customers are the last hurdle to remove for a smoother supply-chain
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Nespresso Prodigio case shows that companies are trying to remove the last uncertainty factor to maximize loyalty. This factor is the customer himself. It’s not a bad idea indeed. Rather than building complex algorithms to predict customers’ behaviors, why…
Nespresso : the secret behind the new Prodigio connected machine
Nespresso just launched a new connected machine called “Prodigio”. This machine allegedly allows you to prepare a coffee with your smartphone and make sure you never run out of Nespresso capsules. This machine will however allow much more than that…
Are smart boxes the future of car insurance?
Telematic units, also called black or smart boxes, are devices installed in a car to monitor a driver’s behavior (speed, acceleration, deceleration, …). They are increasingly used by insurance companies to develop a pay-as-you-drive pricing. Such pricing may be especially…
Design Thinking helped us imagine creative business cards
Are business cards something of the past ? We definitely don't think so, especially if you have a creative business card that will make an impact. We used Design Thinking techniques to revisit the experience around giving and getting a business card.…
Big Data : 4 points to understand your legal responsibilities
I recently attended a workshop on the legal aspects of Big Data and IoT (Internet of Things) that was organized by Impulse in Brussels. The presenter, Philippe Laurent, had a very clever and clear way of presenting the problems posed…
Techstartupday 2016 : virtual reality on the rise
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
At the techstartup day 2016 that took place in Brussels last week, one of the buzzwords was virtual reality (VR). Juan Bossicard, Cluster manager at Impulse and President of the Microsoft Innovation Center, held a very interesting speech on the…
Algorithms : is our freedom threatened?
If you follow the news you may have come across this news : a deep-learning algorithm has defeated the European master of Go. This news was such a milestone in artificial intelligence (AI) that it was featured in the Nature…
Sharing economy : revenues to be taxed in France
The good thing with the sharing economy is that it has empowered individuals to make money. The bad thing is that governments haven’t been able to take much advantage of those new business models. In France the sharing economy represents…
Facebook case: towards more Big Data transparency ?
No later than Monday we were announcing the next Big Data revolution : algorithms will become more transparent in the future. We argued consumers will become increasingly aware of how sensitive their data is, eventually demanding information on how it…
TripAdvisor, Booking.com … are restaurants about to retaliate ?
While in Venice for a marketing conference, I spotted a very strange sticker on a restaurant’s door. It said basically “no to tripadvisor” and to dictatorship of consumers’ reviews. It made me think about how the business of restaurants’ reviews…
Big Data : here’s the next revolution
This is the beginning of the next Big Data revolution. However it remained confidential. A bill was passed in France mid-January that will force the fiscal authorities to reveal the variables in algorithms used to take individual decisions (article in…
How to handle a complaint perfectly
A colleague recently sent me an answer to a complaint he had sent to Delamaison.fr, an online shop specializing in furniture. As we recently discussed on this blog, most firms do everything wrong when it comes to handling complaints. But…
Creative business cards : we are almost there
Last year I felt the need to have new business cards. From the very beginning I wanted to create creative business cards that people would remember. After searching the internet and in particular pinterest, I drafted a few concepts that…
RAGE 2015 study : customers more dissatisfied than ever with complaint handling
The 2015 edition of the RAGE study is out … and guess what ? Post-complaint satisfaction has never been so low and firms seem to keep doing the wrong things about complaint handling. Complaint handling practices are obviously wrong in…
10 Parisian stores with a 3D-printed interactive window
In an earlier post we reported about an initiative launched in Paris to create interactive windows 3D printed elements made by Le FabShop. This initiative got launched by SEMAEST, a public organization which aims at promoting local retail in Paris.…
How a simple law can change market conditions
When you do a market research, it's important to look at all the exterior factors that can change market conditions. There's a special little tool to do this analysis consistently: it's called the PESTEL analysis. The purpose of today's post…
4 retail problems that focus groups cannot solve
Focus groups are not the magic solution to all your marketing problems. Good market research uses focus group as an additional technique to confirm the results obtained elsewhere; never as an exploratory methodology. In the retail world, focus groups are…
How to handle qualitative market research in different countries / languages
Because our market research agency is located in Belgium, we often have to deal with qualitative marketing assignments that require to conduct interviews in different languages. As you may know Belgium itself has 3 official languages (Dutch, French and German)…
On the importance of data obsolescence
Short before Christmas I decided to send a few emails to re-connect with some of my fellow colleagues, acquaintances and clients of the past. I also used that occasion to ask those contacts one particular question for a market research…
Heineken beer pump LeSub spotted in … Madrid
Last year we reported about the superb popup store Heineken opened in Paris : the Substore. Although we were told the beer pump "Le Sub" were available physically only in the Substore from Nov 20 until Dec 20, 2015, we surprisingly spotted…
How to increase satisfaction of call centers in 3 easy steps
I got many positive reactions about my latest post on call centers' phone menus. It seems many of you are frustrated by these anti-satisfaction systems. What they achieve to create among customers is everything but satisfaction. I wondered about we…
Clever store window : innovative, interactive and surprising
Shoppers are desperately in need of new, innovative and refreshing ideas in the retail sphere. Retailers have come up with tons of digital innovations inside the store, all aiming at selling more. But they forgot the enchantment part of the…
Le Substore : Heineken opens its popup store in Paris
It's been quite a long time we haven't been reporting about remarkable popup stores. Not that we didn't want but we actually didn't spot anything really exciting. We took the chance to visit the Substore, Heineken's popup store opened in…
High on frustration, low on satisfaction : call centers’ phone menus
In the word of service there’s one thing that really drives me crazy : call centers’ phone menus. You know the feeling. You’ve got an issue and have to dial a national number to get assistance. “Press 1 for English,…
Unethical behavior : making money around terrorist attacks
At the time of the terrorist attacks in Paris in January 2015 (Charlie Hebdo) I was asked in a radio interview to analyze the merchandising phenomenon that was witnessed. All kinds of objects with the “#JeSuisCharlie” logo suddenly appeared on marketplaces…
Big Data becomes Art at MoMa
Visualizing and making sense of big data is in itself a difficult exercise. Successful attempts have been reported on this blog. Visualization can sometimes be so stunning that it can become a piece of Art. Columbia researchers Laura Kurgan, Eric…
Can we measure satisfaction in our bodies ?
I’ve been studying customer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, loyalty for more than a decade. Both my academic and business experiences have taught me one thing : there’s no one-size-fits-all magical recipe to satisfy people. There are almost as many ways to satisfy…
Complaint handling in numbers : are customers really satisfied ?
Over the years I’ve collected a series of statistics about complaint handling. I call them “the metrics of dissatisfaction”. These figures reveal that despite 30 years of research in the field, hundreds of papers and books published and tons of recommendations,…
Market research : being customer centric is key
One key problem of market research today is that is very much driven by quantitative assessments and KPI’s. Yet, as a market researcher or a business analysts, you should never forget that figures and indicators are not necessarily reflections of…
Big Data: why couldn’t you sell your data?
This may seem like a silly idea but here it is. Wouldn’t it be better to pay users for their data rather than stealing it from them and discussing issues of data quality afterwards? (see our other articles on Big…
Wrong consumer behavior driven by bad design
I’ve completed a Design Thinking bootcamp in Amsterdam where participants were challenged by the City of Amsterdam to find solutions around a series of waste-related issues (follow this link to learn more about Design Thinking). On this occasion I had…
What is the future of radio?
The hope we were having a few years ago that younger listeners on the internet would move back to so-called linear consumption, is gone (see our latest article on radio consumption habits). We are currently in a period of transition,…
How radio consumption is changing among younger generations
I recently gave a speech on Big Data and Data Mining at the Radio Days of the EBU in Riga (Latvia) and met other fellow marketers and head of European broadcasters from all over Europe. There are two big lessons…
Volkswagen scandal : will customers really care?
In the Volkswagen cheating scandal, every single day seems to bring new information. From ca. 500k vehicles in the US, figures climbed to more than 1m potentially affected vehicles in Europe. As of today Seat vehicles are also under scrutiny and it…
How to ruin customer satisfaction in one sentence
Sometimes, satisfying and keeping your customers can depend on very little details. Here's a personal story of a recent interaction with Coolblue, an e-tailer whose excellent customer satisfaction practices have been discussed several times here. What this story will tell…
Customer experience : wine estate “La Grange des Pères” uses sensory marketing
How to create bonds with your customers, how to increase their loyalty ? Those questions are essential for firms. Independent winemakers need to have loyal customers to survive. Here’s what one of them did to foster customer satisfaction and loyalty.…
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