Blog
Welcome to the AM Blog! This is our little corner of the internet where we blog about business advice, accounting tips and designing for business. Kick your feet up and stay a while!
-
![]()
The E-word
Michael Gerber wrote the best-selling book, The E-Myth, way back in the 90s. It’s a book that most entrepreneurs and business owners should read. But Entrepreneur isn’t the E-word that I want to talk about today. No, mine is a different ‘E-word’ altogether. But first I want to tell you a story. …
-
![]()
How do you reduce customer churn?
Customer churn is the bane of many business lives. Churn rate is a measure of customer attrition, and is defined as the number of customers who discontinue a service during a specified time period divided by the average total number of customers over that same time period. In the UK, the average churn rate…
-
![]()
Want to grow your business? Stop spending money on marketing!
I’m serious! If you want to grow your business, then cut your marketing budget. There, I said it again. Last year, US businesses spent $500bn on marketing, and only $9bn on customer service. That’s a staggering difference. Here are some more stats: 84% of customers expect you to let them down. We’ve become…
-
![]()
What can we learn from American Customer Service?
On 12th September Joanna and I flew out to New York to spend a week in the Big Apple for our 25th wedding anniversary. It’s a city we’ve always wanted to visit, so it seemed fitting that we go there to celebrate such a landmark occasion. Of course, as well as spending time with…
-
![]()
Episode #99 of the MPAF Podcast
This week I spoke with Roger Edwards, host of the MPAF Podcast, about the power of customer experience to transform your business. We talked about financial & professional services and why they typically deliver such bad experiences. We also explored tools such as Rip+Mix that can help us to think differently as well as…
-
![]()
Combining Service Design and Customer Experience
I had the privilege a couple of weeks back to join the lovely Chloe Forbes-Kindlen on her podcast. We had a great conversation about how service design influences the work we do around the customer experience. I also shared the secret for making amazing banana protein pancakes! You can watch / listen here
-
![]()
How should you deal with customer complaints?
Complaints. We’ve all had them, and we’ve all complained. Most people hate receiving them, they take it as a personal affront. Some ignore them, or treat them with disdain. If ever you receive a complaint, welcome it. This is really important information. Managing a complaint well can turn a complaining customer into a lifelong advocate…
-
![]()
How can your environment improve the customer experience?
You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. The beginning of a service relationship is critical to its long term success. It significantly impacts retention and cost to serve customers later in life. It’s an area that we put a lot of emphasis on when…
-
![]()
How can you make your customers’ lives easier?
How often do you find yourself getting frustrated with a service experience? Pretty often, huh? You see, most organisations don’t think about things from their customers’ perspective. Unless you can stand in your customers shoes and see things from their perspective, then you will continue to deliver a service TO people that doesn’t…
-
![]()
Becoming an employer of choice – 5 steps to success.
Although we talk a lot about the customer experience, the same principles can be applied to how we treat our employees. After all, if we want to deliver exceptional customer experiences, then we need our people to be on-board with that and to share our vision. What better way to do that than to treat…
