Creating a Unique Shopping Experience

WANT CUSTOMER DELIGHT? GO THE EXTRA INCH, NOT THE EXTRA MILE In a world where companies strive to “go the extra mile” for their customers, I propose a counterintuitive thought: You don’t need to go a mile. You just need to go an inch. The smallest, low-cost gestures can have a massive impact on customers, turning ordinary transactions into memorable experiences. The secret - search for the asymmetry between cost and impact. Going the extra inch requires minimal effort and often costs next to nothing. It could be a handwritten note, a smile, a gesture of personal recognition, a small act of kindness. But the effect on customers is profound. It creates emotional connections, fosters loyalty, and makes customers into advocates. The irony - while everyone is busy trying to “go the extra mile,” it is the extra inch that nets you miles of customer loyalty. THE I.N.C.H. FRAMEWORK To master the art of the extra inch, use this simple yet powerful framework: I – Identify Moments of Truth: Look for touchpoints where expectations are neutral or low. These are prime opportunities to surprise and delight. For instance, when I got my car serviced at the Lexus dealership, they washed and vacuumed the car and left a red carnation flower on the dash. I have told more than 10,000 people about the 50-cent carnation. How’s that for ROI? N – Notice the Little Things: Train employees to observe and remember small details about customers—preferences, moods, or special occasions. At the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, I asked for a memory foam pillow. Every time I stay there, they put a memory foam pillow on my bed. C – Customize the Experience: Personalize the interaction or gesture. Even the smallest customization can create a huge emotional impact. At Chewy, when a customer returned dog food after their pet passed away, they received a condolence card and flowers. It wasn’t about making a sale; it was about showing empathy. H – Humanize the Interaction: Move beyond scripted conversations. Authenticity and empathy resonate more than robotic efficiency. At Café Lucci, our favorite Italian restaurant in Chicago, the valet, the server, and the owner Bobby - all know us, know our kids, and always ask about the family. We are customers for life! In the race to “go the extra mile,” it’s easy to overlook the power of the extra inch. The secret to exceptional customer service isn’t grand gestures or expensive perks—it’s the tiny, thoughtful actions that leave a lasting impression. Going the extra inch is about mastering the art of the unexpected. It’s about creating emotional connections through small acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. So, the next time you think about how to delight a customer, remember: You don’t have to go the extra mile. Just go the extra inch. You will get miles of loyalty. #Marketing #CustomerExperience #Loyalty #Advocacy

How stores look and feel matters. Ambience sets the tone, shapes the mood, influences purchasing, and drives loyalty.   But creating a great store doesn’t have to be complicated or elaborate. It doesn’t always require flashy technology or expensive installations. Sometimes, simplicity and elegance move the dial.    Market 32, part of Northeast Grocery (which also operates Price Chopper and Tops), is an example of this.   The store uses a dark color palette to create a more intimate feel and avoid sterility. Effective lighting ensures this doesn’t become oppressive and allows products to pop and shine. Lighting is one of the most important, and often overlooked, aspects of retail.   Traditional aisles are broken up with creative endcaps – lower fixtures and varied displays create points of interest.   The signage is thoughtfully designed to be both informative and engaging. And there is a nice use of natural materials, such as wood in important areas of the store.    Individually, these are straightforward things. But they add up to a strong store experience. #retail #retailnews #stores #grocery #merchandising Price Chopper Supermarkets-Market 32

Brick and mortar stores will either evolve or die. Netflix's pop up store at The Grove shows that they get it. Lots to learn here. As you walked around the store, their top shows each got their own section that felt like you were walking into the show. Squid Game had armed guard statues on their trademark staircase for pics. Stranger Things had an intense Vecna diorama for 'floating' selfies. Bridgerton felt like a pink tea room leaning into decor for the aspirational lords and ladies. Even Gabby's Dollhouse had kid-sized cut outs for a little toddlergram EMV. In an increasingly digital-first existence world, physical locations need to meet culture where it is: on social media. It started with coffee shops painting angel wings on their walls understanding the bevy of micro-influencers posing, then grabbing a latte. Then every movie theater started adding stand-ups for selfies, including the now-famous Barbie boxes that got so much Instagram play. Now I'm seeing apparel fitting rooms with textured backdrops, gyms with tripods to set up recordings at each work out station, restaurant discounts if you show proof that you posted pics using their hashtag, and even storefronts in well-trafficked areas that don't sell anything but a lifestyle, from luxury cars to high-end devices. The only way to compete with ecommerce is by creating a desirable experience. And the most desirable experiences for Gen Z can be shared online. #socialmedia #creatoreconomy #physicalshopping https://lnkd.in/eHdM9gvq

One of the best ways to create authentic relationships with your customers, get honest feedback on your product and surface game changing ideas is to create a Customer Advisory Board (CAB). Here are the lessons I’ve learned about how to create and run a successful CAB. Your personal involvement as CEO is critical. If you lead it yourself, customers will engage at a deeper level. They’ll be more honest, more vulnerable, and more likely to become evangelists for your company. No one else can unlock this dynamic the way a CEO can. Be clear on the persona. Is your CAB for buyers, users, or budget holders? At BetterCloud, our sweet spot was Directors of IT. Not the CIO, not the IT admin. Know exactly whose voice you want in the room and tailor everything to them. Skip the compensation, give them “status”. Don’t pay CAB members—it gets messy. Instead, make them feel like insiders. Give them a title, early access to roadmaps, VIP treatment at events, and public recognition. People want to feel valued and influential, not bought. Set a cadence you can maintain. I tried monthly meetings once. That was a mistake. Quarterly is the sweet spot. One in-person gathering per year—ideally tied to an industry event—goes a long way in deepening relationships. Structure matters. CABs aren’t just roundtables. They’re curated experiences. Keep meetings tight (90-120 minutes), show real products that are still in the development process (even rough wireframes or high level ideas), and create space for interaction. Done right, they become the ultimate feedback engine. Build real relationships. Your CAB shouldn’t just exist in meetings. Build one-on-one connections. Text, email, check in at events. Keep it small enough that people feel seen and valued. When they have a direct line to the CEO, they stay engaged—and they speak the truth. Done right, your CAB becomes more than just a feedback mechanism. It becomes a strategic asset. It can shape your roadmap, sharpen your positioning, and strengthen your customer relationships in ways no survey ever could. For a deeper dive and detailed tactics behind each of these, check out the full writeup on the Not Another CEO Substack.

Surveys can serve an important purpose. We should use them to fill holes in our understanding of the customer experience or build better models with the customer data we have. As surveys tell you what customers explicitly choose to share, you should not be using them to measure the experience. Surveys are also inherently reactive, surface level, and increasingly ignored by customers who are overwhelmed by feedback requests. This is fact. There’s a different way. Some CX leaders understand that the most critical insights come from sources customers don’t even realize they’re providing from the “exhaust” of every day life with your brand. Real-time digital behavior, social listening, conversational analytics, and predictive modeling deliver insights that surveys alone never will. Voice and sentiment analytics, for example, go beyond simply reading customer comments. They reveal how customers genuinely feel by analyzing tone, frustration, or intent embedded within interactions. Behavioral analytics, meanwhile, uncover friction points by tracking real customer actions across websites or apps, highlighting issues users might never explicitly complain about. Predictive analytics are also becoming essential for modern CX strategies. They anticipate customer needs, allowing businesses to proactively address potential churn, rather than merely reacting after the fact. The capability can also help you maximize revenue in the experiences you are delivering (a use case not discussed often enough). The most forward-looking CX teams today are blending traditional feedback with these deeper, proactive techniques, creating a comprehensive view of their customers. If you’re just beginning to move beyond a survey-only approach, prioritizing these more advanced methods will help ensure your insights are not only deeper but actionable in real time. Surveys aren’t dead (much to my chagrin), but relying solely on them means leaving crucial insights behind. While many enterprises have moved beyond surveys, the majority are still overly reliant on them. And when you get to mid-market or small businesses? The survey slapping gets exponentially worse. Now is the time to start looking beyond the questionnaire and your Likert scales. The email survey is slowly becoming digital dust. And the capabilities to get you there are readily available. How are you evolving your customer listening strategy beyond traditional surveys? #customerexperience #cxstrategy #customerinsights #surveys

If your story doesn't hit in the first 5 seconds It's Over You don’t get minutes to earn attention anymore. You get moments. That’s why the best ads today don’t start by selling. They start by storytelling, fast. Take this campaign: It opens like a zombie thriller. Not a product demo. Not a stat dump. Not a polished brand shot. But a story that grabs your brain before it even knows what it's watching. So why does it work so well? 📌 It uses genre to create instant tension Within seconds, we’re in a world. It’s not just an ad, it’s a scene. A story. One you can’t look away from. 📌 It anchors emotion before explanation We feel before we understand. That’s what powerful stories do 📌 It educates through narrative By the time we realize the message (synthetic materials take 200+ years to decompose), we’re already emotionally invested. 📌 It aligns cause with creativity This isn’t preachy. It’s precise. The storytelling is the message. The product is the punchline. Want to build content that hits like this? Here’s a storytelling framework to try: 1️⃣ Hook with conflict Every good story starts with tension. Show us something broken, scary, or just plain weird. Make us lean in. 2️⃣ Introduce transformation What changes? What insight or solution comes next? Keep us moving through the arc. 3️⃣ Reveal your message last Don’t start with “what”, start with “why care.” Let the product or idea emerge from the emotion. 4️⃣ Make it feel cinematic Use sound, visuals, pacing, not to show off, but to bring your audience into the moment. 5️⃣ Keep it short, sharp, and story-first We’re in the TikTok era. But attention spans haven’t died, they’ve just gotten pickier. Stories still win. Always. The best storytelling doesn’t sell the product. It sells the belief behind the product. And if you want your brand to rise above the noise Stop pitching. Start telling better stories. #storytelling #branding #sellwithstories #marketingtips I share storytelling and creativity to help you and your company sell more and grow. Let's Connect! 1. Try my other course on LinkedIn Learning: https://lnkd.in/gTh8R5Mc 2. Join 10,000 others learning weekly growth tips at: https://lnkd.in/eCDKabp2 Use the 3-Act E.P.I.C Structure to turn stories into sales: https://lnkd.in/e9_eczTG 3. 3 Ways To Grow Guide: https://lnkd.in/gZaq56hT (no sign-up needed)

Waiting is one of the worst experiences there is for customers. But not always. Why are some waits intolerable, while others are bearable or even better? Please share your examples of the best and worst waiting experiences in the comments. ⏲ Unattended vs. attended waits. 📉 Unattended waits are a bad #customerexperience. 📈 Attended waits are fine or even better parts of #CX. ❓ What's the difference between the two? Unattended waits are: 💡 Any time spent waiting when both the duration and the purpose of the wait are unclear, and the person waiting has not been acknowledged. You want to eliminate or minimze unattended waits whenever you find them. How do you do that? Here are 4 ways to address the root causes of what makes unattendend waits so frustrating: 💠Let your customers know that you know that they are waiting. 🏨 Eye contact plus A quick one-minute gesture from an employee at the hotel front desk who is on the phone goes a long way with a customer. It lets them relax and switch into a more passive mode of attention, rather than staying vigilant, which is tiring and frustrating. 💠Give customers an estimate of how long the wait will be – the more accurate the better. 🚉 Countdown clocks on public transit have significantly diminished wait time frustration at a fraction of the cost of running more trains or buses. 🎧 Estimates of how long until the next customer service rep will be available do something similar. 💠Give customers options other than waiting. ☎ Can they call back later? ☎ Can you call them back later? Can they make an appointment or reservation for another day? These options won’t work or even be taken up by every customer, but they will push many waiting customers into better options. And the availability of these options signal to all customers that you value them and their time. 💠 Manage the perception of the wait. Give customers a comfortable place to wait, enough chairs in the waiting room, good WiFi, pleasant hold music, and the like. Make it clear that the wait is fair, there is one line, and one way to wait. Or make it so it doesn’t feel like waiting - occupying their time by filling out paperwork, or keeping busy in some other way that makes them forget the wait. Follow these four steps, and you can eliminate the negative emotions like uncertainty, doubt and feeling unappreciated that customers associate with waiting. 

Interactive demos are one tool in an ever-expanding arsenal for marketers to teach before selling. Did you know interactive demos have increased in popularity by almost 90% since 2022? Out of a sample size of ~5,000 B2B SaaS websites, 9.26% used some version of a “Product Tour” CTA (Navattic's State of the Interactive Product Demo). Crazy. If you have yet to jump on the interactive demo bandwagon, there is no better time than now. Here are the six steps we used to build our demos: Step 1: Choose your use case Step 2: Collect internal assets Step 3: Create a storyboard Step 4: Build your demo Step 5: Decide to gate vs ungate Step 6: Iterate on your demo Step 1: Choose your use case First, decide how and where you’re going to use your interactive demo. As shown below, the most popular use cases for top-performing demos were: - Website embeds - In-product enablement - Help articles - Feature launches Step 2: Collect internal assets Once you’ve decided on your use case, it’s time to gather internal resources for inspiration for your demo build. Sales calls, customer calls, and frequently used slides or one-pagers are great jumping-off points for demo content. Step 3: Create a storyboard Review the materials you’ve collected and start to form a demo outline. Your goal should be to incorporate 2-4 “aha moments” that are unique to your platform. Once you’ve got a rough sketch, run through it yourself a few times to confirm that the main takeaways from each piece of content match what you’re conveying in the demo. Then, share it across the org. Step 4: Build your demo With your approved outline in hand, it’s time to start building. We found that task batching dramatically decreases the time it takes to create their demos. Some create their demo theme in one go or insert all the CTAs they want to add before filling in the rest of the demo. Step 5: Decide to gate vs ungate Now, you need to know whether you’re asking for users’ emails or leaving your demo ungated. If your goal is lead generation, you may want to gate. But if your goal is education or awareness, you may want to ungate to get as many eyeballs on your product as possible. Step 6: Iterate on your demo Chances are your demo won’t be 100% perfect the first time you publish it — and there is always room for improvement. Happy demo building!

CSAT measurement must be more than just a score. Many companies prioritize their Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a measure of Customer Satisfaction (CSAT). But do these methods truly give us a complete understanding? In reality, surveys are not always accurate. Bias can influence the results, ratings may be misinterpreted, and there's a chance that we didn't even ask the right questions. While a basic survey can indicate problems, the true value lies in comprehending the reasons behind those scores and identifying effective solutions to improve them. Here’s a better way to look at CSAT: 1. Start with Actions, Not Just Scores: Observable behaviors like repeat purchases, referrals, and product usage often tell a more accurate story than a survey score alone. 2. Analyze Digital Signals & Employee Feedback: Look for objective measures that consumers are happy with what you offer (website micro-conversions like page depth, time on site, product views and cart adds). And don’t forget your team! Happy employees = Happy customers. 3. Understand the Voice of the Customer (VoC): Utilize AI tools to examine customer feedback, interactions with customer support, and comments on social media platforms in order to stay updated on the current attitudes towards your brand. 4. Make It a Closed Loop: Gathering feedback is only the beginning. Use it to drive change. Your customers need to know you’re listening — and *acting*. Think of your CSAT score as a signal that something happened in your customer relationships. But to truly improve your business, you must pinpoint the reasons behind those scores and use that information to guide improvements. Don’t settle for simply knowing that something happened, find an answer for why it happened. Art+Science Analytics Institute | University of Notre Dame | University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | University of Chicago | D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University | ELVTR | Grow with Google - Data Analytics #Analytics #DataStorytelling

Grateful to be featured in the "Shoptalk Hot Takes" interview by Blenheim Chalcot and ClickZ.com alongside George Looker to unpack omnichannel commerce. 5 key takeaways and tactics from my conversation: 1. Design for Customer Continuity, Not Just Channel Expansion 💡 71% of customers expect brands to personalize interactions across every touchpoint. Tactical: Map out customer journey across channels, then design experiences that recognize and reward continuity—cart persistence, loyalty rewards, browsing history sync, etc. 2. Build the Infrastructure: Unify Data Streams Across All Touchpoints 🧠 Data fragmentation = missed opportunity Tactical: Integrate POS, e-commerce, mobile, social, and marketplace data into a centralized data lake or unified commerce platform. 3. Establish a Single Source of Truth for Customer Profiles 🔍 Brands with unified profiles see up to 2x better campaign performance. Tactical: Implement Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to consolidate behavioral, transactional, and engagement data into unified customer profiles. 4. Partner Strategically for Scale, Not Just Stack ⚙️ A bloated tech stack doesn’t equal agility As I noted, Retailers are getting sharper about which partners can scale with them. Ecosystem efficiency matters more than ever. Tactical Step: Audit your tech stack and partnerships consistently. Prioritize partners that offer extensibility, future-proofing, and proven omnichannel success. 5. Measure What Matters: Unified KPIs Across Commerce 📈 You can’t optimize what you don’t measure holistically Tactical: Align your analytics stack to report holistically across channels—tie marketing to merchandising, CX to LTV, and inventory to revenue. 🧠 Bottom line: think holistically, move strategically, and build ecosystems that scale experience with agility, not just transactions. Complete list in comment 👇 #ecommerce #omnichannel #unifiedcommerce