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Susan Abbott
Toronto, Canada
Specialist in customer experience, insight and innovation
Interests: Professionally, I'm interested in organization design, innovation strategy, customer experience, qualitative research and culture. My actual work involves qualitative research, studying trends, facilitating innovation, and professional speaking.
Personally, I'd expand this list to art, travel, the great outdoors, skiing and scootering.
Plus I love great design, stationery stores and cool tech stuff.
Recent Activity
Innovation in Online Travel Bookings: Get Inspired by Lufthansa
Posted Aug 6, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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E-mail should be friendlier: email marketing crimes you should avoid
Posted Jun 26, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Conversations become markets: The rise of online marketplaces and monetization of digital content
Posted Jun 9, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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New study confirms power of qualitative in public policy
Posted May 21, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Can you lock in your customers? A bitter after-taste at Keurig
Posted May 12, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Are we asking too much of survey participants?
Posted May 5, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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The internet of things: will there be terms and conditions?
Posted Apr 22, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Don't be evil with confusing instructions and other gotchas. I'm talking to you SaaS providers
If you are charging someone's account every month, you are in a trust relationship you need to earn every month. This is the essence of the Software as a Service marketplace. So don't be evil with confusing instructions, strange cancellation policies, and other gotchas if you want brand advocates. Continue reading
Posted Apr 17, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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The explainer, a new and valuable cultural role: but not well compensated
Ancient cultures may have their shamans, but modern culture has some unusual roles emerging as well. The cultural curator role has expanded enormously, with both professional and amateur versions. People with Pinterest boards, many blogs and blog-like content sites are not so much new content as they are curated content -- the curator shares their taste in something, sifting and sorting what they find into consumable information bits for others. There are certainly paid cultural curators -- they hang out in journalism in the fashion pages, they may be professional speakers, or even celebrities in their own right. (An example isn't popping into mind right now, but perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow would be pretty close. Although she was a celebrity for skills other than her opinions about taste.) A role that is not much talked about is the explainer. Explainers are not experts in the fields they explain, so much as... Continue reading
Posted Mar 22, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Better brainstorming: a new video series
Posted Mar 17, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Announcing - The Idea Studio Marketplace - Update
we're getting closer to the launch of the new Idea Studio Marketplace. It's going to be awesome. Sign up for updates here. Continue reading
Posted Jan 28, 2015 at Customer Crossroads
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Changes coming to Customer Crossroads and The Idea Studio
Posted Dec 5, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Do you really see your customers? Or are stereotypes affecting your judgment?
The recent spate of celebrity bad behavior (Bill Cosby, Jian Ghomeshi) has really brought home how much our individual and collective judgement is colored by unrelated facts. We can all learn to suspend judgement, to listen better. Continue reading
Posted Dec 4, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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A three-part framework for creating breakthrough innovation
People talk about the high rate of new product failures (about 85%) as if there is no way to change it, and no way to understand the market. Like innovation is some kind of hit and miss affair, or magic. It's not. Continue reading
Posted Dec 1, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Behavioral Economics fun
Economists seem to have finally determined that rational theories of behavior are in fact not descriptive of reality. Other disciplines knew that, but we are finally getting some convergence of research. This is a good thing. Continue reading
Posted Oct 20, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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My credit card just sold my so-called relationship
When CIBC sold their Aerogold portfolio, they sold me along with it. I didn't want to be sold. And the process involved in switching is proving to be a big hassle. So I'm not quite as loyal as I used to be. Continue reading
Posted Jun 11, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Should you turn simple transactions into sales opportunities? Yes, but there are rules.
Posted Apr 16, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Mobilizing employees as part of the customer experience
Were Pine and Gilmour just restating Abraham Maslow? Kind of looks that way, according to Michael Mattalo of Fifth P, when talking about employees as part of the customer experience and the brand. [Still blogging live from CMA's Customer Experience conference] Mr. Mattalo says we typically only look at the front line employees' connection to the brand, but should be looking at everyone. He offers a great illustrative example -- corporate legal department that is responsible for the legal agreements which so commonly do not align with the brand at all. Policies, processes, systems and facilities are often not covered in the brand book. [Why is this so hard? I feel like I have been talking about this stuff for more than a decade... wait, I have. Very tough to execute.] WestJet's employee slogan, "owners care" is a nice example of how to activate company brand internally. What is your... Continue reading
Posted Mar 4, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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We aren't doing a very good job at marketing to the brain
Posted Mar 4, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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How to say thank you to your customers
Posted Feb 6, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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What are the top 5 things that best drive a client/customer experience with your organization?
I do believe if you really work at these five things, your business will do better than if you don't. Continue reading
Posted Feb 3, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Anne Crassweller + Frank Graves #NetGain8 - using IVR systems for research
Posted Jan 30, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Caroline Fletcher on mobile self-ethnography at #NetGain8
I'm a big fan of having people take videos and pictures of events in their lives, whether that is using an ATM machine or walking their dog. And with smart phones, handhelds and tablets, all of this is just so much easier to do. So I'm of course interested to see what kinds of things Caroline Fletcher will be showing us. Why use mobile video ethnography: genuine behavior creative expression cost effective pre-post task - review footage together There are so many ways to approach qualitative research projects, when do these approaches make sense? when people would not want a researcher there. e.g. carving the Thanksgiving turkey, other private or special moments capturing pain points, like setting up HDTV, setting up home internet WiFi, IKEA furniture assembly Saw a nice sample of some edited video. Continue reading
Posted Jan 30, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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#NetGain8 Tom deRuyck on Consumer Communities
Posted Jan 30, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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Annie Pettit at #NetGain8 on Behavioral Economics
Love the title of this presentaiton - "Behavioral Economics: New, or just new to you?" You will be familiar with Annie Pettit from her @lovestats Twitter feed and terrific blog of the same name. She thinks it's a whole lotta hooey. Interesting start! [Can't say I agree totally, but I am a little tired of people trying to explain all of human motivation through loss aversion tendencies.] Definition: Behavioral economics is the application of insights and research from psychology to economics. Basic tenet behind BE: humans are irrational. No surprise there. Next up: she shows a number of historical figures dating from Adam Smith and covering the next 300 years. People who all documented how human behavior is not fully rational. Her real argument here, I think, is that there is a lot of documented psychology (e.g. Asch conformity studies in the 50s, MIlgram obedience experiments, Zimbardo situational studies with... Continue reading
Posted Jan 30, 2014 at Customer Crossroads
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