Monthly Archives: August 2013

I don’t own shares in the UK supermarket chain Asda (or rather their parent company Wal-Mart) but if I did I would be selling them just about now. Earlier this month Asda announced that they wanted to invoke a new era of ‘democratic consumerism’. To quote their chief executive Andy Bond this will be “the dawn of a new age where customers dictate how we do business and the products we sell.” Dictate! To facilitate this the company is setting up a massive internet based survey, so that it can regularly solicit the opinions of 18,000 customers when decisions are being taken on issues like purchasing. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for democracy. But Asda already has it. They choose what to do and look at the numbers of people who come through their doors and what they choose to buy when they get there. But there’s no point asking […]

Following on from last week’s article that reported on a study that had found apologising could be more beneficial than compensating customers who felt aggrieved ( it’s here if you missed it), I said I would give some pointers for a good apology. To start off with I’d like to dispel an apology myth. Few things are worse than feigned empathy. I have lost track of the number of times I’ve heard customer service staff say, “I do understand how you feel”. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding in the nature of human transactions. When person one is angry, adopting a passive parental style isn’t likely to appease them. If someone is sad then empathising with them is a good idea. Sadness is an emotion that stems from a past event that can’t be changed. Anger is a present time emotion. If you step on my foot my anger will cause me to […]

I’m willing to admit it. In fact, it can be quite hard to hide. I have big feet. Despite having parents of average height my mother’s parents’ genes found their way down the line to me and ended up with above average height and big feet. I’m fine about them. They aren’t circus huge or anything. However, when it comes to buying shoes I’ve come to learn that the chances of disappointment are quite high. I walk round the shop find one or two styles I like and ask the usual question. “Do you have these in a size 12 or 13?” The answer is frequently no. Which is annoying because I know they make shoes in this size – plenty of people have bigger feet than me – but the retailers don’t stock many pairs and they soon sell out. You could argue that they are best placed to […]

It’s fascinating how unaware we all are of what really drives our behaviour. We’re convinced by our conscious minds that what we do is driven by what we decide on the basis of our beliefs. We are kidding ourselves. More evidence appeared this week in a study that was conducted to look at how people’s fairness and generosity could be influenced by scents. All of you who have read my eBook The Secret of Selling will already be making the most of this influential mechanism in the human unconscious, but for those who aren’t here are more reasons why you really should! Researchers set up two studies using two different rooms. In each case one room had the clean, fresh, citrus scent of Windex, the other did not. Subsequent questioning showed that none of the participants were aware of the scent’s presence in the room and that their mood was not a […]