[READ TIME – 5 mins] The COO or Operations Director is the one who keeps the wheels turning, no matter how much grit is thrown into the innermost workings. He is Chief Elf to Santa the CEO. So why do COOs hate Christmas?  It all revolves around two things – more work and fewer people – with an artificial, […]

[READ TIME: 2 mins] I am a non-exec director of a rapidly growing startup called Zuant – iPad lead capture.  One of the challenges of a growing company is keeping the culture and brand values as you scale up the team. They have a young and committed team which responds well to rewards. At the end […]

[READ TIME: 5 mins] Self service fail Self service “kiosks“ are now appearing in airports, supermarkets and banks, and we’ve had automated call answering services for decades. Good ideas in principle, but too many companies get it seriously wrong. As a customer, I’ve never been clear about why companies choose to provide self-service.  And based on my […]

[READ TIME: 5 mins] Non value demand You make your customers do something that has no real value for them. Your call center staff have to deal with unhappy customers and they also know that their time is being wasted and that makes them more hacked off which then filters through to the customers.   Here […]