Category: Bacal’s Never Ending Interviews

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Never Ending Interviews: Survey Based Research On Customer Behavior and Use of Social Media Often Very Misleading

The really bad news about the “research” that informs us about the value of customer service and consumer behaviour. Q: You’ve commented that you believe the use of surveys in both customer service and social media is causing bad business decisions….

customer service, quality, satisfaction

Never Ending Interviews: Shotgun Analysis of Customers Via Big Data As Likely To Mislead As Help

Much of our understanding of customer behavior is based on poor research Q: We hear a lot about “big data” as a tool to help individual companies understand their customers. What do you think? Robert: Companies can certainly access more information about…

customer service, quality, satisfaction

Never Ending Interviews: The Three Different Worlds of Customer Service Perceptions — The Twain Shall Never Meet

View from the “top” explains why customer service tends to be so horrible even in 2024. Q: When I read online accounts of both poor and good customer service, I’m amazed at the diversity of views. It’s almost like people come…

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The Never Ending Interviews: To Grow OR Not To Grow A Business

Robert Bacal discusses the pros and cons of business growth in the first in a new series, entitled “The Never Ending Interviews” Q: Robert, you’ve just semi-retired after twenty five years running Bacal & Associates as a solo business. Was there…

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Never Ending Interviews: Expecting Minimum Wage Customer Service Staff To Act As If They Are Slaves

Q: I noticed that you had a brief conversation with @altmilan who suggested that people on both sides of the customer equation (employees/companies AND customers) sometimes confuse service with servitude. Can you expand on this a bit? A: Actually, that was Milan’s…

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How Good Does Voice Recognition/Artificial Intelligence Have To Be To Be Useful For Customer…

Q: Since Watson’s successful debut on Jeopardy, there’s been a suggestion that computers can do natural language processing to improve customer service. What do you think? Robert: I think it’s fascinating, and promising to imagine a computer can handle and process customer…