Along with eggnog, Christmas sales in October, and layoffs, there's another tradition at this time of the year: the turkey shoot. But at 1to1, the turkey shoot doesn't have much to do with slaughtering birds; instead, it's about taking a fond look back at some of the greatest fiascos, customer service-related and otherwise, of the previous eleven months.

I started the great 1to1 Turkey Shoot tradition a year ago (and had plenty to work with, I might add), but 2008 seems to be shaping up as just about the turkiest yet. So let's get shooting...

Continue reading "Return of the 1to1 Turkey Shoot" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

A day hardly passes without news of significant layoffs at some financial, publishing, or automaking concern, which set me to wondering how companies can maintain employee morale in such a climate. There seems to be no end of advice out there.

Continue reading "Chins Up!" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

"Now more than ever" is often one of those empty-headed phrases that companies use to engender interest and/or excitement about themselves. It always gets me to wondering just how useful a given product or service actually was in the past, and just why it's so much more relevant "now." (It also unfailingly reminds me of the 1992 movie The Player, whose studio loudly boasted "Movies: Now More Than Ever," with no one ever considering what that actually means.)

But lately I've come to see that the phrase can actually have some value, as in: Now more than ever, you need to engage your customers.

Continue reading "Recession-Proofing" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Despite various national polls showing double-digit leads for Barack Obama, we awake (and, one hopes, vote) today not really knowing for sure who our next president will be. Part of this is due to the television news media's wanting maximum viewers tonight, of course, but there's also the desire to avoid the unsettling spectre of another "Dewey Defeats Truman" debacle.

While predictive analytics from firms like SPSS -- whose senior vice president, market strategy Colin Shearer told me not long ago was "absolutely" looking at the Obama/McCain question -- are nothing to sneeze at, they don't capture the imagination like Halloween masks and Baskin-Robbins ice cream can.

Yep, as John Mellencamp would put it: this is ourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr country.

Continue reading "Predicting Politics" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you annoyed with Dr Pepper?

The soda company long ago made a promise that every man, woman, and child would receive a free Dr Pepper if Guns N' Roses' long-delayed Chinese Democracy album ever came out. The pledge was looked at as something of a joke -- a promise made in the relatively secure knowledge that the arrival of the disc (whose recording began in 1994) would be tantamount to the return of Godot.

But then a funny thing happened: GN'R announced Democracy would indeed be coming, on Nov. 23.

And Dr Pepper realized it had a potential mess on its hands.

Continue reading "Stunts N' Poses" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)