88 articles, most originally published in Arabic on LinkedIn and translated to English, newest first.
The fisherman starts with simple tools and catches small quantities of fish. As the days pass, he learns multiple methods, his expertise grows, and his toolbox expands. Sometimes he sails near the coasts, sometimes in…
One evening, I was sipping tea with a friend, the founder of a startup whose team you could count on your fingers. He was talking with enthusiasm about his absolute belief in customer experience principles, and how he…
The story of the Michelin Guide, the most authoritative restaurant guide in the world, began somewhere between 1888 and 1900, when the brothers André and Édouard Michelin decided to put together a guide for petrol…
Brand experience specialists work to make their brand easily distinguishable, so the audience can recognize it through specific traits or through the tone of voice used across the channels where the brand lives and…
In this article, I want to talk about why companies and institutions fail to deliver exceptional experiences. But first, you have to know that customer experience is a responsibility that sits on everyone's shoulders, a…
The Pontiac, or "the car that's allergic to ice cream", was one of the car models manufactured and launched by General Motors in 1925, with production eventually ending in 2010. The story began with a complaint sent in…
It happens that some service providers ignore customers — intentionally or unintentionally — without realizing the danger of this behavior for the future of the relationship between the brand and the customer. The…
When I was a child, I used to accompany my father every Friday to the mosque. He always sparked my curiosity, and perhaps weighed down my childhood with questions bigger than my years: how could the children of Muslim…
On the sidelines of my participation as a speaker in a panel discussion at the CX World Forum, I wanted to share an article about the topic so the benefit can spread and those who missed the chance to attend the…
All the digital interfaces of websites, apps, and software — which have become an integral part of our lives — I used to browse in English, despite my love for and pride in the Arabic language. The problem was glaringly…
On a recent visit to my uncle in Jeddah, I wanted to learn about the patient experience through the eyes of a human doctor who has spent over forty years in this humanitarian profession (from 1979 to this day). He…
As customers, reviewing the terms and conditions is one of the touchpoints (interactions) within the customer journey, particularly in the service sector. The first impression most readers get from this article's title…
I was twenty-three years old when I bought my first smart device. When my thirteen-year-old daughter asked me to buy her a smart device, I couldn't very well tell her to wait ten years. My generation, which only dealt…
Customer experience is defined as: "The impressions and feelings produced by a comparison that the customer makes, consciously and subconsciously, between their expectations and the reality of their experience." From…
Waiting for the maghrib (sunset) call to prayer during the blessed month of Ramadan reminded me of the waiting experience, and of how many organisations across every sector are working to address waiting as a pain point…
A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a herniated disc (slipped disc), and I was advised not to lift anything heavy so that my condition wouldn't worsen. Around that time, while shopping at one of the global furniture…
What is the purpose of customer experience awards? What is the purpose for the organizers, and what is the purpose for the participants? Start with the why, as the great author Simon Sinek always advises. In this…
Everyone has heard the saying "walk in the customer's shoes" — but many don't fully grasp what it means or what its purpose is. Today's article is about the most important skill or personality trait for elevating the…
Many call center companies are trying to enter the customer experience space and offer CX-related services because of the many overlaps between the two fields (customer service and customer experience). However, the…
Today's article is about how to develop a customer experience strategy at any company. It's directed at practitioners in the field, and I'll lay it out in sequential sections to make the concept as simple as possible.…
The first Tuesday of October each year marks World Customer Experience Day — this year, October 6. Devoting a specific day of the year to a cause or product is a long-standing tradition; the primary aim is to remind the…
The stereotype around women's spending habits is distorted — formed by male dominance in many countries. One of the most popular and most incorrect stereotypes is that women are completely unwise when it comes to…
In today's article, I'll cover one of the recognized practices in customer experience: the so-called Customer Experience Council. This article is aimed at fellow practitioners as well as executives across all companies.…
I was asked about the difference between managing customer experience at companies that serve individuals (B2C) versus those whose customers are other businesses (B2B). I didn't have a complete answer at the time, until…
One of the most common questions in qualitative research to define a brand's personality is: "If the brand were a person, how would you describe them?" I asked myself the same question, trying to describe the ideal CX…
One of the most widely cited statistics is from a Bain & Company survey of CEOs at 362 companies. 80% of them claimed they delivered an outstanding customer experience. But when their customers were asked, it turned out…
Imagine for a moment that your company is a media company that produces theatrical plays. What if I told you that, in a sense, it actually is? Many customer experience practitioners use the analogy that "companies stage…
The stereotype of salespeople and marketers is often negative, owing to the misguided practices of their predecessors going back to the 1970s. Those practices accumulated to form a poor stereotype about them and about…
Consumers make purchasing decisions using one main criterion: value for money. The greater the value a consumer perceives in a product, the more they are willing to pay for it. The premiumization strategy is applied in…
Bad Profit This term comes up across many customer experience books and articles I've read. Convinced of its importance and negative impact on customer experience, I wanted to write an article on it with several real…
Many practitioners in customer experience (the target audience of this article) face various challenges in their journey to drive change in the company's culture and its outlook toward customers. Although many companies…
For years, we've faced challenges getting valuable insights and information from customers about their experiences — and later challenges packaging research outputs into formats appealing enough to drive stakeholders to…
This is a true story about a young man with Down syndrome who created a transformation in customer service at the store where he worked (the cover image shows the young man with the storyteller). This story inspired the…
One day I had a problem with the famous crowdfunding site Kickstarter. I had backed a project and never received the product sample I was promised. I complained directly to the site, and their response was shocking: the…
Note: The title is a colloquial Saudi rhyme referring to the old leisurely public-sector morning routine — fool [fava beans] and tamees [bread] for breakfast, with everyone counting down to Thursday (the weekend). It's…
All of an organization's leaders — and at their head, the CEO — are the first and last people responsible for the organization's success in delivering distinctive customer experience. They do this by leading by example:…
The day will inevitably come when we have to tell our customers bad news — whether it's a price hike due to inflation or a service being discontinued for one reason or another. At that moment, we have two choices: act…
Customer Experience Centers (CECs) Customer Experience Centers have spread around the world recently. Their main aim is to enrich the relationship between customers and the providers of products and services, and to…
Have you ever received a call from a company telling you that, based on your usage, they recommend a different package that would cost you less? Or that they're suspending a service because you haven't used it in a long…
People often conflate customer service with customer experience management, despite the substantive differences between them. In this article, I'll try to lay out the most important distinctions to clear up the…
Customer behavior — particularly that of Millennials (those born between 1976 and 2000) — shows a strong tendency to search online for almost anything before buying or trying it. Reviews from customers who have already…
In this article I offer you a brief description of the market research profession. It is not a transcript of the clip above; instead, I'll try to give more detail for those interested in working in this fascinating…
With the evolution of theories related to customer experience, the development of human participation and human-centered design models, and growing consumer awareness and intensifying competition among countries…
Robert McNamara is a Harvard graduate who headed Ford and served as US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, then as President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. The fallacy concerns decision-making that relies…
The origins of this model appear to go back to the 34th president of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower. It's called the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, and it's referenced in many books. I'll summarize it below — it's…
Ever since specialists in the human sciences realized that humans are emotional beings, marketers on the other side started inventing ways to measure these emotions for multiple reasons — improving sales, developing…
A customer charter is a document that defines the minimum levels of service the issuing entity commits to providing its customers. Through this document, customer expectations are shaped — it explains the services they…
Some writers compare companies that don't manage their customer relationships well and don't keep records of their interactions to companies with "goldfish memory" — the goldfish being known for an extremely short…
We use many metrics to measure customer loyalty — whether to predict expected growth or to monitor performance compared with competitors. While these metrics are important and there are statistically proven correlations…
Delivering a distinguished employee experience is a prerequisite for delivering a distinguished customer experience. The employee is the one who creates that experience, and because they are at the frontline, they are…
Market research agencies directory in Saudi Arabia , For English readers, you can reach the English/Arabic directory here The first edition of this directory came out five years ago, and I have updated it from time to…
An Arabic translation of Interviewer Quality Control Scheme by IQCS, for English readers kindly scroll down till the end of articles to reach the document link I previously wrote an article describing the state of…
Market research OR Marketing research? There is a genuine disagreement over the use of these two terms among the people working in this industry, and when you ask one of them about the difference, or about whether using…
Most readers have probably read or heard the famous saying: "The customer is always right." It's a rule that doesn't deserve to be generalized — every rule has its exceptions. Over time, customers are becoming more…
Do you know the details of your customer's journey if you own a business that provides services or products? Are you sure you know? Even those who answer yes may be stunned once they actually map their customers'…
The success that Starbucks has achieved, and the wide spread of its branches around the world, invites reflection. What made coffee — a drink humans have been consuming for hundreds of years — sell at Starbucks for ten…
In the field of customer experience management, there is what's known as Design of Little Things (DoLT) — the small touches and minor adjustments that can leave a major mark on the customer experience. These are often…
Drama Triangle by Dr. Stephen Karpman The Drama Triangle is a social model that summarizes the most destructive interactions in human relationships. It consists of patterns of negative communication that focus either on…
In this article I'll cover some applications of marketing research in the restaurant world. Competition in this industry is fierce, and survival belongs to the most worthy and the smartest. The article isn't aimed only…
What are the pros and cons of using satisfaction and loyalty metrics as employee KPIs? Is it appropriate to use them at all? How can a corporate performance management or strategy function decide whether to adopt them…
In this article I'll cover marketing research in banking, its historical evolution, how it has developed alongside customers' evolving needs over the years, and what direction it is expected to take in the future. Some…
I previously wrote about Moments of Truth in an earlier article. While writing that piece, something caught my attention: a concept Google calls the "Zero Moment of Truth." I wanted to share what I learned about it…
Foreword If you run retail outlets or showrooms to display your products, or you're responsible for a government entity that serves the public, this article is bound to interest you. These are small things that won't…
I recently read two books on customer service, and I have spent a few months working in customer experience management — a role that is new to my career and, at the same time, deeply fascinating. I also recently took…
One of the biggest challenges marketing research agencies face around the world is reaching the target group to interview them — either because there are too few of them within a given population, or because their time…
I came across many names who contributed to the emergence of marketing research, such as Karl Pearson, Harold Lasswell, Albert Cantril, and Ernest Dichter. Most of them, however, were paving the road and laying a few…
Many associations around the world serve the marketing-research industry and try to organize and improve it as much as possible. In this post, I'll put together a list of the most important relevant associations.…
Professionalism, quality, and competence are loose terms that can be interpreted in different ways by practitioners of this profession. For some, they mean adopting best practices in conducting marketing research. For…
Introduction to Desk Research (AKA Secondary Research) Through my posts and articles I try to simplify the specialized topics of the marketing-research industry and make them accessible to a general audience — a process…
"Naming a brand isn't like naming a baby." — Hayes Roth, Chief Marketing Officer at Landor The aim of this article is to lay out methods for naming brands and the techniques for generating and creating names, in…
A question constantly comes up in the minds of those working in research, without a clear answer: what response rate you can expect when using a particular data-collection method in quantitative research. In this…
I've been asked about the most popular and important courses that people working in marketing research should attend, so I wanted to write an article on this for the benefit of whoever asked and others. To begin, I'd…
There is something we call the eloquence of numbers — the precision that numbers give us in grasping phenomena is unmatched by anything else. But we must note two important things: The clarity of what numbers convey…
Seven years ago, I started working in marketing research. I had a hard time defining my career path because I didn't, in those early days, have a leader who liked to share knowledge. Sometimes adversity is a hidden…
These two are the most well-known indicators for measuring customer experience performance. So what is the relationship between them? Is it direct or inverse? Have you ever wondered? That's what I'll discuss in today's…
Have you ever wondered how the value of a product or service is shaped in the minds of consumers? When you receive a service from a particular provider, you may form an impression that the service is genuinely valuable,…
In our era, customers have become far more aware than ever before, thanks to the variety of their experiences with many different service and product providers. Their expectations have risen, and their tendency to file…
Does Net Promoter Score deserve such recognition? Drifting blindly behind trends is both wrong and misleading. I recently read many articles criticizing the effectiveness of the famous loyalty metric, Net Promoter Score…
I mentioned the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) in a previous article as a credible reference that can be relied upon when you want to use benchmarking indicators — provided its use is widespread enough in…
Today's article is about benchmarking indicators and their uses in the marketing-research industry. To begin, I'd like to clarify that the term Benchmarks has different connotations across industries. In marketing…
Translator's note: This article addresses common errors in Arabic writing. The grammar rules and examples below are specific to Arabic script and morphology and have been preserved in their original form alongside their…
Microsoft recently launched a new product. You can watch the teaser video at this link. I seized the opportunity and signed up for this service, since registering and using it is currently free. This service offers many…
It was a long journey that I went on to answer this question. The problem lies in the methodology that should be used to obtain the most accurate measurement of satisfaction for customers whose sample is small. I…
This article will cover three main axes: what a verbatim quote is, on what basis a particular verbatim quote is chosen for citation, considerations researchers should bear in mind when picking verbatim quotes, and…
The first peer-reviewed scientific paper on this metric was published in the Harvard Business Review in 2003, titled The One Number You Need to Grow, by Frederick Reichheld. After that article, many related studies and…
The halo effect is a cognitive bias that leads us to favor all of a person's traits because we have been influenced by one positive trait of theirs — without ever testing their other qualities or verifying whether they…
Think about resource-poor countries that are economically thriving. Look for the reasons behind their success and excellence. What made a country like Switzerland the world's leader in chocolate production? What made a…
Research centers conduct many studies to assess countries and measure their level of development. One of the newer growth indicators is the Happiness Index. Some readers may ask why these centers care about running such…
