Culture
Great customer experiences require more than the right tools. It’s also about the people—your people.
Latest stories Page 13

The weight of emotional labor in the workplace
Nearly a year ago, Gemma Hartley shook the Internet with her article, “Women aren’t nags—We’re just…

Our technology is only as empathetic as we are
I’ve been to SXSW Interactive six times. Maybe it’s just me, but for many years I…

Growing up vs. adulting: the journey toward adulthood has changed
A few months ago, I learned about adulting—the modern term for twenty-somethings engaging in adult-like behavior.…

How to elevate others at work
We all know one or two people like this at work. They walk in and—shazam—the room…

Machine translation—is it good enough for customer support?
In 1954, at the first public demonstration of a machine translation (MT) system, researchers from IBM…

Would you like a boxed water with that? Retailers reenvision the customer experience
Shopping used to mean spending hours in a crowded galleria that smelled faintly of churros and…

Icebreaker alternatives for people who hate icebreakers
“Today is all about getting to know each other, building relationships, and finding out even more…

Unexpected and exceptional customer experiences, moment by moment
Back in 2007, FreshBooks CEO Mike McDerment wrote a post on his company’s blog musing about…

What to expect from Millennials as managers
By 2025, 75 percent of the workforce will be Millennials. And they won’t be filling entry-level…

How not to be an asshole in the office kitchen
Not all office kitchens are created equal. Some are simple and clean, filled with the necessary…

Smooth returns; return customers
Nothing simmers more comfortably on our back burner than stuff we need to return to the…

Mullets are back in business—especially in customer experience
The mullet has been a part of the cultural conversation for decades, often eliciting some ‘80s…

The startup spouse: a view from the other side of bed
Over half a million people become entrepreneurs in the United States each month. That’s a lot…

How to choose the right partner. Technology partner, that is.
In the world of retail, it’s exciting to send products out into the wild. After all,…

“Let me tell you where I got this”—the power of the brand ambassador
If I said the words “brand ambassador” to you ten years ago, you’d probably think I…

Mirroring is good in customer service; disappearing isn’t
Customer service is weird. For a certain number of hours a day, customer service agents are…

Stop exercising and start moving
I’m moving house in T-minus 10 days. So, yesterday, after assembling 35 cardboard boxes, dismantling two…

We’re not all leaders, but we all can practice emergent leadership
When you walk into a room, there’s no easy way to know who has the best…

Will you show up with your emotions, or send an emoji instead?
If you’ve tweeted, posted to Instagram, or texted in the past few days—and who among us…

Emojis at work: the good, the bad, and the legally binding
Emojis haven’t actually reshaped communication. I mean, they’re symbols meant to convey a message, and humans…