customer journey

When I was a kid, I won a vinyl record album in a local contest. (For those of you too young to remember, record albums were how early humans listened to recorded music in the dark ages before streaming music. Or CDs. Or cassette tapes. Or 8-tracks.) I dashed to the neighborhood record store to coll…

The Connected Digital Experience I’ve visited the United Kingdom any number of times and enjoy the culture, history, and the food. (Well, maybe not the food as much.) Recently I exposed my lack of verbal maturity in a large public forum there by using a sports metaphor to make a point about customer…

One of the most enduring characters introduced in 1960’ television vas the venerable “Mr. Spock” of Star Trek fame. Leonard Nimoy played Spock after having only modest acting success before being cast as the half-human, half-Vulcan in 1964. Among the many attributes Spock had, two relate to the mode…

We are increasingly hearing about the value of improving the shopping experience by adding virtual expertise to the store. As head of Cisco’s Retail & Hospitality practice, I frequently talk to customers who are exploring this concept – though what I mainly hear are questions! While many are int…

It has been more than a year since I started using Cisco Spark. And it has been a year of learning and changing how I work with my team…and I’m still learning. My focus and passion at Cisco is customer-care technology. I’m always thinking about how to apply new collaboration technologies to customer…

In 1973, the group Steely Dan burst onto the music scene with two hits from their first album “Can’t Buy A Thrill.” Setting the standard for obscure lyrical references, a loyal following for the band endures even in 2015. One of the hits, Do It Again raced up the charts as a pop-music rarity – a hit…

We all know about the importance of knowing your customer needs, and focusing on the digital journey. But all too often, we overlook the content that customer experiences — and how well it pays off the journey. A few months ago at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association  conference, I shared f…

I have been getting a lot of questions about advocacy so I want to take a few minutes to share my thoughts. I often hear people use the terms “influencers” and “advocates” interchangeably. While there are similarities between these two groups, in my opinion they’re not necessarily one and the same.…

We’re entering the age of the Internet of Everything (IoE), which is about connecting the Internet to the physical world (people, process, data, and things). We’re early in the process, with approximately 10 billion devices already connected. By 2020, Cisco projects that this number will reach 50 bi…