Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Besides lamenting life’s romantic complexities, The Clash sums up a customer’s decision whether to renew their software subscription remarkably well. And just like in the song, science shows relationship history matters when making the choice. It’s all in the β … Continued

Customer Benchmarking Motivates Action

Electric utility companies promoting power conservation programs discovered that simply informing consumers of their electricity usage relative to their neighbors lowered overall consumption. This type of normative social comparison has produced the same effects in other domains. Why does this … Continued

How Customers REALLY Decide

Conventional wisdom in Customer Success says that customers renew or expand their subscriptions based on the value they obtain from their software, such as cost savings or productivity gains. But neuroscience suggests there’s more to it. Individuals make decisions based … Continued

Learning New Software is Like Learning to Drive

Software customers must learn how to use their new products before they can achieve their goals. Most companies, however, do a poor job of managing the customer’s natural learning curve. How we acquired driving skills years ago is a more … Continued

Getting the Gist of the Customer Experience

Neuroscientists say we tend to remember the meaning and forget the details. When the time comes to make a decision, we naturally rely on our general impressions gained through experience. Because of this, doing essentials right is all that really … Continued

Lyfe Lessons for SaaS

There’s more to retaining customers than having a good product. Lyfe Kitchen seems made to order for progressive Boulder, Colorado.  There’s the enviable location on Pearl Street. There’s the tasty, healthy food, favorites like the Quinoa Crunch Bowl and the … Continued

Too Much of a Good Thing is a Bad Thing

We’ve all experienced walking into a fast food restaurant and being faced with myriad choices. “What can I get you?” the employee behind the counter asks. “Ummmm…” You stare at the menu trying to make sense of an overwhelming number … Continued

Proof, not Marketing, Grows Loyalty

Leading companies plant seeds of trust Bombarded by thousands of product claims each day, we’ve become jaded. While we consider genuine those recommendations we get from people we know, most of us don’t believe ads and find salespeople only moderately … Continued

A Vacation Ends in a Moment of Truth

A tale of two Lufthansa managers   “So here’s the problem,” the young manager said after looking at his computer screen. “We see the leg from Frankfurt to Denver but we don’t see the leg from St. Petersburg to Frankfurt.” … Continued

The “Wow!” Effect

Dopamine yields dollars “So that’s what happened. When Microsoft pushed their latest Windows update, they shut off a service the printer uses to communicate over the wireless link.” The Hewlett-Packard support rep then clicked on the utility and turned it … Continued