Posted by Gary on Dec 17, 2012 | 4 comments

A couple of years ago I wrote an article about my observations of customer engagment at my local branch of Focus DIY. The branch closed just weeks after I wrote the article as the Focus group went under (not as a result of my article I may add).
Just weeks ago Waitrose opened their new store having repurpsoed the same building that Focus once occupied. We all know where Waitrose sits in the...
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Posted by Gary on Jul 2, 2012 | 4 comments

Last year I wrote a post entitled The Not Norfolk Show based on my experience from working one day in the food hall at the show. My beef back then was that the hall was mostly filled with producers and commercial outfits selling goods produced far out of Norfolk.
Having just gone back to read it it’s funny how I comment that next year I would definitely go back as a visitor. Who would of...
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Posted by Gary on May 29, 2012 | 0 comments

Whilst driving to a client meeting and discussing this and that yesterday my colleague made a comment which I thought worthy of expanding on. He said something along the lines of “it’s amazing how people are happy to have crap marketing”.
Of course this issue is a subjective one but never the less there are a number of issues that affect the quality of one’s marketing....
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Posted by Gary on May 15, 2012 | 0 comments

About 18 months ago I wrote my first post about the dark world of social media experts. It was very popular and seemed to strike a chord with many folk but time has flown since then and to be honest nothing much has changed.
However, I’ve been thinking once again about this subject and so I thought it a good time to revisit. In musical terms we always talk about the ‘difficult’...
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Posted by Gary on Feb 14, 2012 | 1 comment

If you’re a regular reader then you’ll know I spend a lot of time pointing out bad customer service and engagement so it’s only fair that I bring you good examples too.
As a coffee snob I like to use the artisan coffee blenders EightPointNine whose great new service allows me to blend coffee just as I like it, name it, and then they post it to me.
It was my father in law’s...
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Posted by Gary on Jan 5, 2012 | 1 comment

So it’s been a while since my last post. Have I got nothing to say? Nope (well yes), I keep thinking of no end of ideas of posts but it’s simply been a lack of time for various reasons I’ll detail below.
Last month I thought to myself “Christmas is coming that’s a great time to catch up on blogging” or catch up on this or that and a whole number of things but...
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Posted by Gary on Nov 2, 2011 | 62 comments

My late father left many legacies. Some good, some not so but one thing he taught myself and my siblings was that if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well. Perfection was to be strived for. This blog post is about that subject and how many seem to not bother.
By 13 I could not only fix a puncture I could service my bike, by 14 decorate my room and I could fix a car before I could...
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