Create Your Own Value-Added Services
You can offer your customers a wide variety of value-added services to improve their shopping experience. You will want to evaluate each potential value-a... Read more
Customers
Recent Customers Articles
Blockbuster Transformed
A chain of Blockbuster stores in the Pacific Northwest licensed to Trient Partners of Seattle commissioned the Retail Group Inc. to remodel its stores. Tr... Read more
Life on Nantucket with the Juice Boys
Shortly after starting their beveragecompany, Nantucket Nectars founders TomFirst and Tom Scott found themselves low on cash. To keepthe enterprise alive,... Read more
Will Your Business Idea Make You Rich?
You have a fabulous idea for a business. But how do you know if you should put your idea into action? First, you need to determine if your idea will make ... Read more
Are You Living Up to Your Sales Potential?
A repeat customer is your most valuable customer. Every new customer gives you a chance to create another repeat customer. Figure out how you can reach yo... Read more
Resolving Real-Life Ethical Dilemmas
Real-to-Life Examples of Complex Ethical Dilemmas "A customer (or client) asked for a product (or service)from us t... Read more
Ensure the Quality of Your Information Systems
Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality by Larry P. English John Wiley & Sons, 518 pages, $44.... Read more
Sailor's Delight
On a tiny Caribbean island, Daffodil Harris started a business doing laundry by hand for vacationing boaters. Today her company is a multidivisional seafarin... Read more
The Inspector
Most entrepreneurs believe that their companies are the best at what they do. But, as CEO Norm Brodsky examines, being the best doesn't mean you can't get ev... Read more
Charge Your Clients More
If you want to raise your fees on existing clients, but quiver at the thought of telling them, remember this: thousands of IPs before you... Read more
Follow Their Buying Process Instead of Your Selling Process
The book that taught me more than any other about the nuts and bolts of major account selling was Neil Rackham's " Major Account Sales Strategy." While Ra... Read more
In a Former Life: Patricia Gallup
PATRICIA GALLUP, 45 Chairman and CEO of PC Connection Present life: CEO of Read more
Psycho-Shopping
J'Amy Owens, president of the Retail Group Inc., a Seattle-based strategic retailconsulting firm she cofounded 12 years ago, believes that the essence of ... Read more
Marketing One-to-One
Every Thanksgiving weekend my wrists start to hurt. By December 2, the pain subsides. That's when we mail several thousand Boxtree holiday cards with hand... Read more
Graniterock Comes Out Ahead with Short Pay
Imagine that every invoice you issued carried the following message: If you are not satisfied with any item on this bill for any reason,don't p... Read more
Hot Tip: Customer Service
In a book due out this month, Stop and Sell the Roses (Ballantine, $25), entrepreneur Jim McCann of 1-800-FLOWERS reports that the $300 million f... Read more
Garden of Eden
Wouldn't you like your retail customers to say, "I love that store, I wish I could spend all my time there"? Sandy Hollow Herb Company knows that customer... Read more
Flattering Frame-Up
Tom Siebel, chairman and CEO of Siebel Systems, based in San Mateo, Calif., wants to make sure his customers are always on his employees' minds. So he
Birds of a Feather
Make customers feel part of an extended family and you'll generate satisfaction and loyalty. Participants in Boston Duck Tours, a land and water tour of h... Read more
Company Loves Partnership, Gets Committed
Many small businesses distrust big business. So how was it that corporate-behemoth Motorola taught Bruce Bendoff's little company how to grow by trusting ... Read more
Press Unhappy Customers for Feedback
In customer-service circles, no news is bad news. Ruppert Landscape, located in Ashton, Md., gets a respectable 60% return on its twice-a-year customer-sa... Read more
Get Customers to Speak Their Minds
Here's a way to get customers to speak their minds: Set up a 24-hour hot line to record confidential messages. give it a folksy name such... Read more
Discretion Is the Better Part of Value
Companies that aren't careful about how they collect and use customer information risk doing more harm than good. There's a fine line between aggressive o... Read more
Count on Your Source of Supply
A hot tip is better than a cold call, and your suppliers can be excellent sources of warm--or even hot--sales leads. Often they hear about new products an... Read more
Reach for the Stars
Can your sales force explain to prospects how much power your gizmo has and how it works? Or do they have to hunt in the manuals to find obscure facts and... Read more
Anniversary Waltz
Just a little reminder can boost your sales while keeping your customers in the good graces of their mothers-in-law. Clifford's Flowers, in Quincy, Mass.,... Read more
Virtually Persuasive
On the Web, in-depth information is a powerful and persuasive sales tool. It also helps to overcome a major inhibitor of Internet commerce: a simple lack ... Read more
Call Waiting
Inc. 's Road Warrior examines the pitfalls of GTE's Airfone in-flight data service and asks readers for help in making this product work even better. Read more
Every Click They Make
Your online customers already tell you what they think of your Web site and products. All you need to do is learn how to listen. Here's how to extract valuab... Read more
Dell: The Secrets to His Success
Direct from Dell, by Michael Dell with Catherine Fredman HarperCollins, 235 pages, $26 Michael Dell has been trying to impro... Read more
Feed Back the Feedback
Walk into the Rhode Island gift shop called OOP and you will be dazzled -- if owners Jennifer Neuguth and David Riordan have done their job well. "The who... Read more
The Perfect Internet Business
Garden.com is one of the hottest Internet companies around, but what's so special about it is how basic it is. Here's what you can learn from the secrets of ... Read more
Customer Bait
What are the most effective techniques for attracting new customers? Referrals and one-to-one marketing, according to a survey of 900 sales and marketing ... Read more
The Right Stuff
The key to entrepreneurial success isn't just spotting the hot business opportunity, it's developing the discipline and stamina to stay focused on it. Read more
How to Create a Department from Scratch
When Peer Bearing Company in Waukegan, Ill., decided to relieve the sales department' s paperworkburden, HR manager Jerry Baker found himself balancing th... Read more
