A veteran marketer contrasts Costco’s trust-first business model with the junk fees, shrinking boxes, and cancellation mazes that define too many brands. Costco proves you can pay workers well, cap markups, and still profit—while others only find their values after a viral video exposes them.
Category: Empowerment Techniques
LYING, CHEATING & STEALING IN ACTION A Happy Curmudgeon series. First, a word about how these posts get made. I use Claude, an AI assistant from Anthropic, as a research and drafting partner. On a post like this one, Claude does a good share of the legwork: it digs up the facts and sources and […]
Based on the premise that all stakeholders are essentially “customers,” both Twitter and Meta are doing a poor job of customer service. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are displaying some of the egregious behaviors of 19th-century robber barons, who ruled ruthlessly—often squashing customers and employees beneath their feet. A Britannica.com citation addresses the offenses: “robber […]
This is a follow-up to my People who need people post. As the previous post addressed the need for real, live people in the customer service mix versus all-digital, this one discusses the digital versus hard-copy issue. For those firmly committed to all-digital, all the time, good luck. You’re gonna need it. My recent technology […]
In the 1964 Broadway musical Funny Girl, star Barbra Streisand introduced the song “People.” In part, the lyrics went, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” From live phone customer service support to grocery checkout, increasingly the default is to push everything to technology: email, chatbots, text, grocery scanners. When it […]
Lafayette, Colorado’s Bob L. Burger Recreation Center is the best community fitness facility I’ve visited in 45 years. And I’ve had some type of fitness membership—from private clubs to community rec centers and everything in between—during that entire time. The delightful customer service experience was even more impactful given the current trend toward stupid, inattentive, […]
As Mark Lusky Communications celebrates 40 years in business and the fourth anniversary of the happycurmudgeon.com Customer Service blog, we pause to honor the evolution of the international B Corp movement, and one of B Lab’s Global Stewards, thought leader Jared Meyers. He founded Legacy Vacation Resorts (B Corp); is a Co-Founder of Florida for […]
Near-term, commerce will see marketing and customer service conjoin—defined as “to join together (things, such as separate entities) for a common purpose.” Ultimately, I believe the two will conflate—viewed as combining two or more ideas into one. It’s kind of like the difference between a strategic partnership, where two companies work together toward a common […]
Companies continue to think they can BS and bluster their way through our human instincts and convince us of their customer service excellence—no matter what’s really happening. A recent article by ZDnet contributor Chris Matyszczyk illustrates the point poignantly when addressing one of the most important stakeholders deserving solid customer service—employees themselves. This interesting story […]
Everything that goes into good customer service is being tested by the Great Resignation. Adequate staffing, training, and employee engagement and longevity are among the most stressed areas. It’s hard—if not impossible—to provide top-notch customer service when there aren’t enough well-trained, seasoned, and motivated company employees in place to do the job. Adequate staffing is […]
