4 advices to remember when measuring customer satisfaction
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Heathrow airport has installed devices to measure satisfaction after the security checks. Yet, we think did not get customer satisfaction right. The biggest mistake they did was to put the device too far away from the lane, making it…
Create a discipline to become more creative
Sharing thoughts with our clients Nicolas and Christophe the other day, we discussed the very interesting topic of how to find time, as an entrepreneur, to be creative. We had invited Christophe and Nicolas offsite for a Design Thinking session…
Visit at Stella Cadente shop: well worth a design award
Stella Cadente proves it’s possible to obtain outstanding results with (relatively) little money. We visited their unique store in Paris (opened in April 2012 on 102 Boulevard Beaumarchais) and although it’s relatively small (<50m²) it offers a wonderful experience. We…
One Day One Idea : Aesop’s technique to get customers in the store
On our latest trip to Paris, after we interviewed Merci’s managing director Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria, we went for a tour in Paris’ trendy area “Le Marais”. One of the stores that caught our attention was Aesop in Rue Vieille du…
What does branding mean? The example of Miss Vicky Wine
Anne-Victoire Monrozier has an interesting entrepreneurial story to tell. Despite having little experience in the wine industry, she built a new wine brand from scratch. How did she succeed and is it really a wine brand? This is what we…
One Day One Idea: Let customers try your products and make them buy
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We already mentioned the increased probability of selling a product when a customer has tried or touched it before. This principle is applied perfectly by Bodum, a Danish manufacturer of kitchen appliances and accessories. The flagship store they opened almost…
How design contributes to the overall customer experience
The design of your point of sales is of utmost importance. It not only attracts people in the store, but it also keeps them in the store. this is something that Silvera has understood very well. A winner of the…
What you need to do to make your clients sign a contract within 24h
If you want to do business and land new customers, time is of the essence. Yet I see that very few entrepreneurs have this culture of responsiveness rooted in their DNA. Here is a story that happened to me last…
Service quality and the role of employees in the customer experience
Previous posts have dealt on several occasions with the important topic of service quality. After re-reading what we had written we found out something important: employees are crucial. Employees are of course important to deliver the service quality that customers…
“Les Causses”, an example of successful retail concept
Sometimes I feel fortunate. I do a wonderful job, have a lot of wonderful clients, advise a lot of very different businesses. And on top of that I meet inspiring entrepreneurs when going on market research tours. The story of…
One Day One Idea : use offbeat humour to sell your stuffs
The marketing idea in brief Sometimes in worthwhile to be "offbeat", i.e. not to follow the rules (especially the marketing ones). Look for instance at the example of this store I came across while in Barcelona on Passeig de Garcia.…
One Day One Idea: the management of customer experience by Cerdan Heritage
Santa Claus brought me this year some very cool “Cerdan Heritage” stuffs. If you don’t know about Cerdan Heritage, read the article we wrote a while ago about this SME started by Marcel Cerdan’s grandsons. The idea in brief Not…
What’s new in 2013: more advices for entrepreneurs with a focus on market research and innovation
Looking back over our shoulders Looking back at 2012 we’ve written a lot (like in 2011) but took a pretty long break after the summer. With a sudden increase in workload we had to concentrate on clients’ assignments. This is…
L’imprimerie, a new kind of customer experience
I was fortunate to meet an atypical entrepreneur, Nicolas Guthart, who started several businesses that are highly complementary and propose an innovative value proposition for brands. How a new marketing concept was born To make a 10-year story short(er),…
Delhaize seems to be happy about the results of The Cube barcodes scanning campaign
When Delhaize launched The Cube earlier this year we were warning that it wouldn’t be as successful as expected. However in a recent press release Delhaize said it was a success and that online sales increased 22.6%. So in the…
Niche markets are sometimes larger than you expect. The case of Pedon.
Pedon is one of those brands that has a solid market share but is not known very well, even in Italy, its home country. A manufacturer of dozens of private labels product, Pedon has also its own lines of products,…
How design can enhance business innovation
I spent 4 days in Barcelona in a workshop at ESADE business school practicing techniques used by designers to create. And the least I can say is that those techniques DO help make a difference in business. Let me explain…
Rolls-Royce’s extreme segmentation
Sometimes brands can go very far as far as segmentation is concerned. In the luxury business the growth path goes through Asia and in particular therough China. I recently came across a crazy example. Rolls Royce actually prepared a limited…
When the consumer interacts actively with the store window
To follow up on our latest post on future store windows, we publish today this example we found in Portugal in an ICT store. Located at the bottom of an office building in Lisbon, this store proposes a window with…
From ready-to-eat to ready-to-prepare, a new product experience
An important aspect of the work of a marketing agency is that we must detect, track and follow nascent trends in a broad range of industries. This knowledge is required by our clients who expects from us that we have…
Has Delhaize already given up?
We reported a few weeks ago about the innovation launched by Delhaize in Brussels to allow consumers to shop "virtually". The "Cube", as it is called, had been installed in the Central Station in Brussels and we were were skeptical…
For its anniversary Carrefour sells at prices of 50 years ago
Carrefour launched last week a advertising campaign on Rome, Italy, that got a broad press coverage. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Carrefour decided to advertise and sell a series of products at the prices of 50 years ago. A series…
Lytro will fail and go bankrupt, unless …
Do you know Lytro ? Most probably not. The technology behind this new product is still in its infancy and distribution of the product has remained confidential. Yet it is a disruptive technology. What is Lytro ? There is a…
The most beautiful ways to display products. Part 6: Patrick Roger
Patrick Roger is a chocolate maker who has become pretty famous in France. He won the France Best Craftsman (“Meilleur Ouvrier de France”) contest in chocolate making. Unlike most winners Patrick Roger opened several shops with a vision. What I…
Repetto’s store in Paris: always a pleasure to visit
Do you know Repetto, the world's famous ballet shoes? This old-yet-modern brand has always something to surprise me. This time, passing by their store of Rue de La Paix, I was amazed once again by the creativity they showed in…
Pay What You Want
In 2009 a paper was published in the Journal of Marketing on a new concept called “Pay What You Want” (PWYW) which seemed to be interesting for firms. This research showed counterintuitive results, namely that consumers will exploit their control…
An ice way to promote its products and store
First of all my thanks to David Katz for sending me the pictures he took at last week's ice Sculpture fair in Yorkville, downtown Toronto, Canada (more details here). Such fairs exist in many countries (at least countries with temperatures…
New trends in advertising techniques
The advertising industry is undergoing deep changes; on the first hand technological changes which lead to the raise of digital advertising; on the other hand legal changes in France which will change the landscape and the habits of advertisers. The…
A PESTLE analysis may have helped the eco-construction sector
One of the decisions the Belgian government took to reduce the debt was to cancel the 40% tax deduction on works carried out to reduce energy consumption (isolation, double-glass windows, …). The consequence of this decision will be to change…
How to announce a bad news: the example of ING
Today’s post is far away from marketing but was triggered by a communication issue, which remains a central topic is modern marketing. ING announced within 30 days that it would reduce interest rates on both its current account and its…
Does Mobistar follow best practices for complaints management?
Successful business practices regarding the management of customers complaints include the diffusion of the information within the organization. After I reported on my fight against Mobistar, I was wondering whether their most exposed (in terms of visibility) customer service would…
Paul bakeries: when service and brand image do not match
Paul … an oasis of gastronomy in a culinary desert. Everything is made to remind you the long forgone past of tasteful products: sales point are covered with oak-like veneer, decorated with pieces of furniture that could fit in your…
Dexia: you’re not alone
Everyone has heard about Dexia's problems. The French Belgian bank was eventually nationalized last week and it seems that customers had withdrawn an amazing 1b Euros since early September when they starting loosing confidence in the bank. Coincidently the bank…
Is this what marketing in the wine industry looks like?
A friend just offered me a bottle of wine. It was just wonderful. Thank you. What surprised me was the tag attached to it, which claimed the 94 points obtained from Robert Parker in the Wine Advocate. Well, ok everyone…
A call for an open-minded attitude in marketing innovation
Sometimes I really get the impression that I don’t get understood. Not long time ago I had a meeting with the marketing manager of a big and renowned Belgian company. I came there to present an innovative consumer behavior-related idea…
Extraordinary customer service
I have a lot of stories to tell as far as customer service is concerned. I have a lot of bad ones and very few good ones. So when I have receive an exceptionnal customer service I'm eager to tell…
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