Customer Service Needs to Be a Top Priority

Companies often focus on things that are unique to them, or that they do very well. A company may have new, cutting-edge technology that makes them stand out, or it may have amazing logistics that allow them to have lower prices. The one thing that every company needs to have, regardless of its strategy and […]

Customer Service Needs to Be a Top Priority

Asking Probing Questions

Since you all know I like kicking things off with an aphorism, here’s a two-for-one deal: business author Alan Weiss wrote, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.” Before that, Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels (you may have heard of him) wrote, “Once is happenstance, twice […]

Asking Probing Questions

The Connection Center

There’s a lot of debate about the return to the office, the hybrid work week and the potential hub and spoke layout of the future. To be honest, I’m not sure every company needs an office, but I know for certain that if you are keeping a real estate footprint at all, you should be […]

The Connection Center

The Full Meal Deal

What most often differentiates the AV pros who have the best reputations from the ones who, well… don’t is their ability to craft a complete experience for their clients. Accomplishing that requires a balance between the expertise needed to craft a well-designed system, the skills necessary to install it on time and on budget, but […]

The Full Meal Deal

The AV Industry and the Power of Social Media

Customer acquisition is time-consuming and expensive, so it makes sense to treat prospects and customers as valued people when they’re looking for your brand on social media. As a person who has a great deal of understanding about the time, effort, and costs of new prospects earned through marketing, I am acutely aware of the […]

The AV Industry and the Power of Social Media

Customer Service Is the New Marketing for AV

“Brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.” That’s the observation from renowned brand thought-leader and master storyteller, Marty Neumeier, author of almost a dozen books on the subject of brands. So if they have such sway over your brand reputation, how important is customer service for your brand? […]

Customer Service Is the New Marketing for AV

Customer Experience

I purchased a new car yesterday. While its always satisfying to get new wheels the point of this post isn’t really about the new car experience. The process of buying a car can be summarized very plainly, it sucks. I sat on an uncomfortable chair in a less than interesting showroom listening to bored sales […]

Customer Experience

Could TV Really Die? What Would We Lose?

Gary Kayye recently wrote about the death of TV, which could be going the way of the AV system. The question this brings to me is that of, ‘What do we lose in both experience and community?’ As a professional, of course, I also think of what this means in the commercial world. Can we […]

Could TV Really Die? What Would We Lose?

Does Your Digital Signage Have a Purpose?

I have written before about how my kids are often embarrassed of me in public because I stop and stare at technology, or, even worse, ask questions and take pictures. So was the case recently on a trip when we stopped in the Big Apple. At the register there are now digital touch screens, with […]

Does Your Digital Signage Have a Purpose?

Don’t Implement Broken Tech

Last month, I was traveling through Newark and on an early morning flight. I got through the security line a little early, so I decided to sit down for a meal, rather than grab one and run. By chance, I walked into the Vanguard Kitchen. Needless to say, I was fascinated when I realized they […]

Don’t Implement Broken Tech

Builders Don’t Like You

Like any business, AV pros face many challenges. Margins, product availability deadlines — all the ones you might expect. I want to focus on just one for this column: Your prospective customers don’t like you. This is not a challenge that’s unique to the AV channel by any means. I don’t like car dealerships, their […]

Builders Don’t Like You