Customer Experience

Like all trade shows, the 2012 New York Auto Show raises as many questions as it answers: will this new model live up to the old one? How will customers take to its bland/aggressive/WTF styling? Where's Bob Lutz? And so on. But amid all the uncertainty and doubt, there's one thing we know for sure: Cadillac and MINI have been making a concerted effort to improve their customers' shopping experiences, and J.D. Power has seen fit to honor them for that. To determine which companies should be recognized...

Apple users have been complaining about the iPhone's Maps feature since it was launched Wednesday as part of Apple's new operating system. The navigation app, which replaces Google Maps on the smartphone, just isn't up to snuff, they say. Problems ranging from mislabled plots of land to poor-quality business results have cropped up as users try out the program, among the features Apple added for the iOs 6 update. Other new additions, such as Flyover — which shows users 3D models of select cities — and audio turn-by-turn...

Once a month, half a dozen New York- and New Jersey-based Glazer-Kennedy members get together for a Mastermind meeting. I always ask for an entire dish of lemon wedges for my iced tea, while another group member always has a piece of warmed-up chocolate cake as an appetizer. Its always very amusing to watch a new waiter try to grasp this peccadillo. Last week the cake appeared after an unusually lengthy wait, accompanied by profuse apologies. Faced with an unfamiliar request, our waiter had to ask the manager what the procedure was for warming...

Douglas M. Duncan called on Metro to put its riders first . That's a goal all of us who work for the system share. In fact, over the past two years, we have been steadily making many of the same safety and reliability improvements that Mr. Duncan advocated. Beginning with board governance reform, and led by senior management together with frontline employees, Metro has put safety at the forefront of its policies, investments and daily practice. We have implemented recommendations from the National Transportation Safety...

Mountain View, Calif.-based Skyfire, which makes a high-end browser for mobile phones that plays videos, said today that Jeffrey Glueck has been appointed to the position of CEO, and that co-founder Nitin Bhandari will step down from the position to become Chief Product Officer. Previously, Glueck was chief marketing officer at Travelocity, where he was in charge of branding, customer experience, business development and the company's advertising model. Prior to Travelocity, he co-founded...

In his July 31 column, " How the Web will kill liberalism ," George F. Will quoted Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch as saying, "Think of any customer experience that has made you wince or kick the cat. What jumps to mind?" What jumps to my mind are a number of bureaucratic morasses, some run by the government, but many more run by good old, lightly regulated, free-enterprise, private companies. The endless automated telephone-menu systems operated by "customer service" departments of most major corporations are a good start.

Tech icons Apple and Google top BusinessWeek's 2008 list ofThe World's 50 Most Innovative Companies. This year's ranking adds three financial data points - revenue, margin growth and stock returns - to survey results from company executives and senior management to decide which business belts out the brightest innovations. Apple took the top spot for its products (though I hope not for its aggravating and deceptive practice ofpushing new softwarethrough an update channel). Google, which just released abetter-than-expected...

Hewlett-Packard announced on Wednesday that it would combine its imaging and printing entity and its personal systems entity, a move that the company says will "lead to a better customer experience and drive innovation . " The new group will be led by Todd Bradley, who has been an executive vice president at HP since 2005. The executive who had led the company's printing business, Vyomesh Joshi, will retire after 31 years with the company. The technology company said in a statement that the move would...

Mobile operators need to innovate and change in order to maintain marketshare and avoid becoming a commodity or "dumb pipe," according to a report issued by Gartner. We've heard this so before, but this time Gartner suggests dealing with it by outsourcing traditional telecom operations, such as managing the network. The theory goes that if a carrier doesn't have to focus on the network, it can focus on making the user experience better. One way to do this is by making a desirable platform...

I was driving through Michigan the other day on my way to a nephew's wedding. It was lunchtime and I happened to be near the exit for Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor also happens to be home to Zingerman's Delicatessen, a local institution and a real treat for anyone with a hankering for corned beef, fresh baked breads, handmade cheeses and so much more. The wait just to get inside was 20 minutes long. No problem, there was a cheerful host outside dispensing menus and a...

SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. — Like many air travelers, I have learned to expect the worst and be surprised by anything positive. I can't imagine that gloom is the customer experience that airlines are going for. Yet they can't control their hunger for adding fees, overbooking flights, disrupting seat assignments or treating passengers like petulant sheep. Technology to the rescue! Facing a six-hour encampment in Row 22 of a United 757, I stifled a cry of outrage and ponied up $17.95 for Internet access.

Like all trade shows, the 2012 New York Auto Show raises as many questions as it answers: will this new model live up to the old one? How will customers take to its bland/aggressive/WTF styling? Where's Bob Lutz? And so on. But amid all the uncertainty and doubt, there's one thing we know for sure: Cadillac and MINI have been making a concerted effort to improve their customers' shopping experiences, and J.D. Power has seen fit to honor them for that. To determine...

Hewlett-Packard announced on Wednesday that it would combine its imaging and printing entity and its personal systems entity, a move that the company says will "lead to a better customer experience and drive innovation . " The new group will be led by Todd Bradley, who has been an executive vice president at HP since 2005. The executive who had led the company's printing business, Vyomesh Joshi, will retire after 31 years with the company. The technology company said in a statement that...

Google has given us a glimpse of its vision for the mobile future with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first phone to launch with Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. Android's been called an early adopter's platform, a true geek's platform — in other words, not the most accessible system. On Tuesday, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer's made the sneering remark that you need to be a "computer scientist" to operate Google's operating system, The Telegraph reported. That night — well, the next morning...

Worry not, Washington. Your two-scoop sundaes are safe for now. Last week's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Friendly Ice Cream appears to leave the family restaurant's local establishments open for now as the company shutters 63 sites along the East Coast . The Wilbraham, Mass.-based food chain wrote in court documents that it has struggled to pay down debt because of the rising costs of commodities, particularly cream, and declining foot...

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a District-based nonprofit, is raising concerns that the merger of Capital One Financial and ING Direct USA will create another behemoth bank whose failure could cripple the financial system. The $9 billion deal , which would catapult McLean-based Capital One from being the eighth to the fifth largest U.S. bank by deposits, is an important test of whether the regulatory culture has really changed in the wake of the Dodd-Frank legislation, said John Taylor, chief executive of NCRC...

In his July 31 column, " How the Web will kill liberalism ," George F. Will quoted Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch as saying, "Think of any customer experience that has made you wince or kick the cat. What jumps to mind?" What jumps to my mind are a number of bureaucratic morasses, some run by the government, but many more run by good old, lightly regulated, free-enterprise, private companies. The endless automated telephone-menu systems operated by "customer service" departments of most major corporations are a good...