Richard Owen, CEO, Satmetrix

You would think with $130 oil they have problems enough

Transactional or relationship? It seems that never a day goes by without someone confusing the two.

Closing the loop, one voter at a time

    Several people sent me this gem from my homeland, the UK. The BBC reported the fact that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was making personal phone calls to voters to respond to their feedback on his government's performance.

I promise I got there first

Right after I wrote about the airlines, I heard this on NPR; if you are tracking the perspective on long term customer experience impact on airlines, listen to some of the comments by Howard Putnam, former Southwest CEO talk about fee based tactics rather than just raising fares....

Nickels and Dimes

The much maligned airline industry as once again in the news every day; oil prices have put a hurt on the industry that will force major restructuring as a survival tactic - once again - for many of the major players. This begs the question, how are the airlines dealing with customer loyalty through this transition? What can we all learn?

More Detractors, Please!

You would think it would be crazy to build a business around the idea of creating detractors. However, one industry is going a step further, building a business model around the idea that you hand over your money, don't consume their services, give up and go away.

Return To Sender

In an article in the WSJ this morning (subscription required) the journal points out the eye-popping costs associated with returns in the consumer electronics industry. $13.8bn is the round number they suggest manufacturers and retailers incur as a result of consumers bringing back product they don't want. So what?

Putting Your S-1 Where Your Mouth Is

If Symantec is making a big deal of it's Net Promoter Program, well Rackspace just went one better. Or at the very least made a public commitment to customer focus.

No Used Car Sales Reps Need Apply

There used to be a joke that in the computer software industry, the only difference between a software sales rep and a used car sales rep was that the used car sales rep knew that he or she was lying. Doug Mitchell's free download outlines some confessions from the field, or you can read the summary on Zdnet here. So it's fantastic to see a company sincerely committed to getting customer focused - Symantec.

With Scores Like These, The Outlook For Political Growth Is Not Looking Good...

It had to happen eventually. You might be glued to the results from Penn tonight with the democratic primary being called, but the NPS prognosis for the candidates is less than favorable.

The Bait or the Switch?

Subprime Lending, Teaser Offers, and NPS

The headline of our day is the mortgage crisis in the U.S. In particular, a new term has entered our lexicon, the “subprime” mortgage. Of course, subprime simply refers to loans made to people with a relatively weak credit history; the free market economy solution to this problem is that those who are eligible for such a loan should pay a higher rate of interest, to reward the lender for the additional risk of non-payment they take on. This is a demand killer in this market, as those participants with poor credit are usually in that segment because of their limited ability to pay at normal interest rates, let alone penalty rates.