Why the future of Customer Intelligence depends on signals, not surveys For many years, companies have treated customer understanding as something that needs to be requested. Want to know whether the customer enjoyed the purchase? Send a survey. Want to know whether support solved the problem? Ask for a rating. Want to measure loyalty? Ask the customer whether they would recommend the company. Want to understand why somebody cancelled? Add a cancellation questionnaire. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach. Asking customers questions remains one of the most direct ways to understand their experiences. But it creates an important blind spot. Customers communicate with companies constantly, including when nobody asks them anything. A customer who attempts checkout five times is communicating something. A customer who suddenly stops using a product is communicating something. A customer who contacts support three times about the same problem is communicating something. A cu...
After finally moving into our unfinished house on Friday, followed by another busy Saturday dealing with gas pipes and moving belongings, one might reasonably expect Sunday to be a day of rest. Well, not quite. There is still so much to do outside that spending an entire day doing nothing seems almost impossible. Every time I look around the property, I find another corner that needs cleaning, another pile of rubbish that needs removing or another old structure that should probably have disappeared years ago. Today, I decided to attack one of those structures: an old, thoroughly deteriorated wooden shed at the back of our property. As usual, the plan sounded considerably simpler before I started. But Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest! Since arriving in Moldova, I have repeatedly heard that Sundays are not supposed to be working days. At least, that is the position of Vita's parents, who are very devout Orthodox Christians. In their understanding...