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...r service: preassigned seating and food. Instead, Southwest serves peanuts and...ents an arbitrage opportunity because banks’ P/E ratios are higher than agenci...

... would like to think they offer good, even great, customer service, few companies can prove it because they seldom ask their customers' opinions. Even such notoriously poor customer service companies as airlines think they provide good service. One airline, Southwest, has enjoyed great service ratings for years even though they don't offer two items that many airlines consider essential to good customer service: preassigned seating and food. Instead, Southwest serves peanuts and their customers describe the boarding process as being loaded like cattle. Yet when airline customers are asked which airline provides great service, Southwest gets top billing. The other airlines just don't get it. Southwest's excellence continually pays off. After 9-11-01, they actually reported a profit and were the only large airline not to lay off employees. Their customers sent them cash ... Newsletters Employees Articles Blog Photos Group Connections Reviews IMMS Library Immerse yourself in our stacks. Take some time and browse through our library. We have thousands of articles, checklists, tip sheets, sales letters, and more! Communications Marketing Customer Service Planning Finance/Accounting Risk Management Human Resources Selling Legal and E&O Technology Life/Financial Services Glossaries Management Resources & Links Categories Popular Recent All Back Banks And P/C Agencies Reality Check — Part III: Implement The Plan 4/30/2013 12:00:00 AM by CompleteMarkets Editor , Chris Burand 1 Verified Reviews - 5 of 5.0 1 2 3 4 5 Do bank stockholders benefit from acquisitions of P/C agencies? The answer? Yes, if there's appropriate due diligence, perfect implementation, and the price meets realistic ...

... full of exa.. All Articles by CompleteMarkets Editor Comments (0 ) Consumer Online Access: Help Your Customers Help You This content has not been rated yet. CompleteMarkets Editor , Rick Morgan 4/30/2013 10:43:12 PM CONSUMER ONLINE ACCESS: HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS HELP YOU by Rick Morgan Technology has had a profound impact on our everyday activities from fueling our vehicles to preparing our food .. All Articles by CompleteMarkets Editor Comments (0 ) Eight Ways To Make Direct Marketing Copy Work Harder This content has not been rated yet. CompleteMarkets Editor , Patricia Czech 4/30/2013 12:00:00 AM EIGHT WAYS TO MAKE DIRECT MARKETING COPY WORK HARDER by Patricia Czech Craft a powerful message that will present your products in the best possible light. In direct marketing ... been rated yet. Al Diamond , CompleteMarkets Editor 4/30/2013 12:00:00 AM MAKING MONEY by Al Diamond We're all concerned with it. Some of us are consumed with it. Most of us are doing it (not as difficult in this market as it was in the soft market) . Many of .. All Articles by Al Diamond Comments (0 ) Blunderers Bank Big Bucks, Too This content has not been rated yet. CompleteMarkets Editor , Chris Burand 4/30/2013 12:00:00 AM BLUNDERERS BANK BIG BUCKS, TOO by Chris Burand Whats this? Adopt Worst Practices' to increase earnings? Say it aint so! Yet this document by Chris Burand is full of exa.. All Articles by CompleteMarkets Editor Comments (0 ) Consumer ...

... human intelligence. In this digital economy, individuals and enterprises create wealth by applying knowledge, networked human intelligence, and effort to manufacturing, agriculture, and services. In the digital frontier of this economy, the players, dynamics, rules, and requirements for survival and success are constantly changing. Middleman functions between producers and consumers are being eliminated through digital networks. Intermediaries need to move up the food chain to create new value, or they face being disintermediated. Disintermediation: Cutting out the middleman. In the insurance world, this means eliminating the agent. This new way of thinking demands that the broker have instant access to extensive information. Coupled with strong human relation skills, solid knowledge of key variables, and powerful tools to package deal scenarios, the broker can move up the value ... economy, which industries do you think technology will affect the most? Is insurance one of them, and why? Tapscott: Every industry is being affected profoundly, insurance and, more broadly, financial services are great examples. This is a time of both opportunity and peril. I'm convinced that insurance companies that don't reinvent themselves around the digital media will be gone in a decade. Look at banks. Walter Riston, the former chairman of Citibank, points out that 70% of financial assets in the world used to be owned by banks. Today it's 30 percent. So, who's going to deliver the financial services supermarket? Will it be a bank, an insurance company, Microsoft or AT&T ? Or as Riston speculates, General Electric? I think many insurance companies are ...

... is already a good value. In the food business, McDonalds, Burger King, Chil...how do you think he feels about Kraft Foods? If you want to pull more custom...

... fewer workers. The changes in the job market occur in small ways as well. Networks that link San Francisco Bay-area multimedia developers with high-speed lines allow them to transmit work electronically- which once had to be delivered physically- to special effects houses, post-production shops, and other service providers. San Francisco bicycle messengers, beware. Networks are squeezing the slack out of the system in innumerable ways. Food banks, for example, are reporting a drop in the amount of leftover food they collect from supermarkets as networked inventory systems enable the stores to receive just-in-time deliveries, eliminating waste. The changes are global. When Saudi Arabia solicited bids for upgrading its network, it asked providers whether there was a way to restrict access to sites on the Internet that contained sexual graphics. Singapore has made itself ... regional hub of telecommunications while continuing to restrict the availability of information. The Net is decentralizing radically, putting computing power in the hands of a broad range of people for the first time. Just as the construction of interstate highways in the 1950s helped restructure the nation's geography around the automobile, opening the way for suburban subdivisions and tract malls, the spread of information networks is starting to reshape society around the computer- with unpredictable results. The best way to deal with this is to stay abreast of the changes: To be an actor, rather than acted upon. Jack Fries can be reached at Fries & Fries Consulting, P. O. Box 66, Alexandria, KY 41001, phone (859) 694-1580, fax (208) 293-2086, e-mail: [email protected] , ...

... fuel the way we perceive companies. Don't kid yourself. Just as more customers are embracing self-check out at supermarkets, other operators are rejecting it. They maintain that they want to interact with their customers, particularly in the check out line. Really? Haven't they noticed that many cashiers are texting, talking to other employees, and yawning? Haven't they noticed the way some of them handle the food, with bread and tomatoes stuffed in the bottom of a bag? Why not give customers a choice? All too often, righteous responses by companies are purely self-serving. In this case, it might be the technology cost that's the issue, not "personal service." Get customer-friendly communication right. Who doesn't dial an 800 customer service number without trepidation, doubt, and angst? Between ... dive on the second step. When they "trip," many businesses either don't recover or remain badly injured. Yet, their missteps can make us more aware of the dangers and how to avoid them. Here are a few examples: Never compromise credibility. Too many companies can't resist "putting a spin" on their actions, which only makes them look stupid or worse. Take what Bank of America's global strategy and marketing officer Anne Finucane said after her company pulled the plug on its $5 a month debit card charge in the face of a nationwide revolt led by a 21-year old part-time nanny. "We were too aggressive. We were convinced, given the environment, given the reaction, given the mood of the country that it just wasn't the thing to do," ...

...eir customers dropped down to fast food, business sank however Applebee’s resp...

...neral Merchandise Stores (SIC 53); Food Stores (SIC 54); Hotels, Rooming House...anking 61 Credit Agencies other than Banks 62 Security and Commodity Brokers...

... How do we feel about a fast food restaurant when we’re forced to wait i...hat they think when they see it. Many banks still picture themselves in terms ...