Customer experience: the new retail battleground: the time to convert from customer service to over-the-top customer relationship marketing is right now.(cup service)

Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, May, 2005 by Laflamme, Lon; Morris, David J.

IF YOU ARE ANYTHING LIKE US, when you walk down the street, retailers everywhere are discounting prices on near identical goods and services. The only prayer these fierce competitors have in making their business your place of choice is through exceptional customer service.

A recent Forbes Magazine survey of senior business leaders revealed that 71% of those polled ranked the customer experience as the new century competitive battleground for customers.

The Unique Sales Proposition (USP) marketing approach that started in the 1950s ensured that the product, rather than the brand, was the core differential. For those of you old enough, you remember the classic Timex ad where the watch keeps on ticking.

By the late 1970s we began seeing the...

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