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Secondary keywords are how you capture that extra traffic. They’re the supporting terms that help your page rank for more searches without creating separate content for each variation. In this guide, you’ll learn what secondary keywords are, how to find…Read more ›View the full article

AI copy guardrails and expanded YouTube non-skip video formats headline this week’s Google Ads updates in PPC Pulse. The post AI Max Brand Controls Expand, VRC Non-Skip Ads Go Global – PPC Pulse appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Grocery Outlet is joining the ranks of retailers planning to shutter storefronts this year. The discount grocery store chain announced its fourth-quarter and full 2025 fiscal year results on Wednesday, along with a plan to close 36 stores. This move to close stores follows a previous restructuring plan concluded in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, another attempt to “improve long-term profitability” and optimize growth. The company reported an increase in net sales, but an operating loss of $234.8 million and a net loss of $218.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. The optimization plan, which is expected to be largely completed during fiscal year 2026, is estimated to result in $14 million to $25 million in net total restructuring charges. This doesn’t include the company’s estimated gross profit loss due to sales discounts or product markdowns as the impacted locations close. At the same time, the fourth-quarter fiscal report noted seven store openings. Trade publication Grocery Drive reported that 24 of the closing stores are on the East Coast, and the company does not intend to slow its expansion, even as it experiences closures. The California-based chain ended the fourth quarter with 570 stores across 16 states, according to its earnings release. Shares of Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: GO) plummeted after its report. The stock closed down more than 27% on Thursday and is down more than 37% year to date. Fast Company reached out to Grocery Outlet for additional information on which stores will face closures and the expected impact on surrounding areas. Food access is a growing concern The ongoing trend of grocery store closures continues to raise concerns about food access. Kroger announced closures last year, sparking conversations in local communities about jobs and grocery deserts. Food deserts, or communities that are both low-income and lack a grocery store, are becoming more common across the United States. It’s an impact from the 1980s, when the government stopped enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act, an antitrust law that prohibited supplier price discrimination. Now millions of Americans live in food deserts. Organizations like the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) map these food deserts, which can spread in response to these store closures. More than 280 Grocery Outlet stores are in California, where approximately 2.7 million people live in a food desert, according to ILSR data. View the full article

It sounds like a brag-worthy business coup: not just snagging a high-profile client, but doing so just after your chief rival’s deal with that same client unraveled in a brutally public way. But artificial intelligence pioneer OpenAI’s Pentagon deal didn’t end up being a brand-halo event. To the contrary, “it just looked opportunistic and sloppy”—and that’s the judgment of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. Given widespread concerns about the potential downsides of AI, ranging from mass layoffs to robot overlords, “opportunistic and sloppy” are just about the last attributes OpenAI wants to be associated with, perhaps especially in the context of a Department of War partnership. But this isn’t just an image headache; the brand backlash has included a surge of signups for the rival OpenAI seemed to have bested, Anthropic, whose Claude AI leapt past OpenAI’s ChatGPT to the top of the app charts. Some of that surge can be attributed to Anthropic’s behavior and rhetoric matching up to its brand image as a thoughtful steward of AI that’s mindful of its possible consequences. It’s a brand image that was tested recently when Anthropic wanted to add some caveats to the Pentagon’s desire to use its tech for “all legal purposes.” Anthropic’s Claude, then the only AI agent cleared for use in classified operations, had already been used to plan the recent military action against Venezuela (and was used in preparing for the attack on Iran.) But this evidently harmonious relationship snagged on Anthropic seeking guardrails that would prevent its technology from being used to enable mass surveillance or autonomous lethality. The Pentagon pushed back, and over a few weeks, this spiraled into an acrimonious and very public split that included petulant criticism from the president. The Department of War not only signalled it wanted more compliance as it added AI partners, but threatened to kneecap Anthropic by labeling it a “supply chain risk.” In sticking to its guns, so to speak, Anthropic stayed true to its brand as the serious, non-reckless AI company. In general, Silicon Valley seemed to rally around Anthropic, with employees at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon circulating petitions and open letters urging corporate leadership to follow Anthropic’s example and “hold the line” against objectionable government uses of AI. That was the backdrop when OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon was announced. While the Department of War had already been in talks with various AI firms to add them to classified use cases, the timing of the announcement came across as if OpenAI was effectively replacing Anthropic. While Altman promised the company had the same “red lines” as Anthropic, it agreed to Pentagon language that permits the technology’s use for “all lawful purposes.” OpenAI insists the contract details establish guardrails, and Altman has said Anthropic should be offered the same deal, and should not be tagged as a security risk. But the timing and what some observers saw as capitulation led to a backlash. Aside from online sniping at OpenAI, the results were plain enough in the app charts, as Anthropic downloads and paid subscriptions spiked. The big-tech Information Technology Industry Council, whose members include Nvidia and Apple, weighed in with a letter of concern about “the Department of War’s consideration of imposing a supply-chain risk designation in response to a procurement dispute.” Research firm Sensor Tower found ChatGPT mobile uninstalls jumped 295%. It was almost the Anthropic vs. Pentagon story run in reverse: Instead of a client battle oddly burnishing a brand, a prestigious new-client deal seemed to blow up in a brand’s face. Altman has called the backlash “really painful,” and the result of poor optics rather than any substantial capitulation or opportunism. He reportedly told an all-hands meeting that the deal was a “complex” decision with “extremely difficult brand consequences” in the short term, but ultimately the correct decision. And this may prove right in the long run. Anthropic is back in talks with the Pentagon about salvaging their relationship. And its investors reportedly want to see more diplomacy and less ego from the company; the brand won’t mean much without clients. Meanwhile there’s still plenty of room for OpenAI to be opportunistic, but maybe do a better job at not looking opportunistic—because the best way to avoid “difficult brand consequences” is to anticipate them. View the full article

For the past few years, leaders have been trying to decode what’s happening to attention at work. We’ve debated burnout, quiet quitting, and whether younger employees simply approach productivity differently than previous generations. But new workplace data suggests something far more basic may be happening: many employees aren’t disengaged—they’re visually exhausted. New research from VSP Vision Care and Workplace Intelligence found that desk workers now spend nearly 100 hours each week looking at screens, with most reporting that digital eye strain is directly affecting their productivity. Workers experiencing visual discomfort say it reduces their output by nearly a full workday each week—a number that should give leaders pause. It would be easy to frame this as a wellness story or a benefits conversation. But that misses the bigger picture. The data isn’t just about eye health—it’s about how modern work has been designed, and what leaders choose to normalize. We may be measuring engagement while ignoring endurance When performance dips, organizations often look first at motivation or culture. Are employees committed? Are they resilient enough? Do they care about the work? Those questions matter, but they can distract from a quieter reality: the modern workplace now demands an unprecedented level of visual intensity. According to the research, desk workers spend roughly 93% of their waking weekday hours focused on screens. Think about what that means in practice. Back-to-back video calls. Endless message notifications. Constant toggling between documents, dashboards, and email threads. Even roles that once involved physical movement or conversation have shifted toward screen-based workflows. Over time, that level of visual demand changes how people sustain focus. Fatigue builds slowly, and when it finally shows up as distraction or irritability, leaders often interpret it as disengagement rather than overload. But human attention isn’t limitless. And when work requires uninterrupted visual concentration for hours on end, the issue isn’t necessarily a lack of commitment but rather a lack of thoughtful design. Digital fatigue is a culture issue hiding behind a health statistic One of the most revealing findings in the study isn’t just how much screen time employees report, but how little organizational support exists around it. Only about a third of workers say their company actively encourages eye breaks or provides education about managing digital strain, even though most HR leaders acknowledge more should be done. That gap tells us something important about workplace culture. Many organizations have unintentionally equated productivity with constant digital presence. Being visible online becomes a proxy for being valuable. The result is an environment where stepping away from a screen—even briefly—feels risky. Leaders rarely intend to create this pressure. But when expectations around responsiveness remain unclear, employees fill in the blanks themselves. They stay online longer, respond faster, and push through discomfort to signal commitment. Eventually, that behavior becomes the norm. And when productivity starts to slip, we look for explanations everywhere except the most obvious one: we’ve built a system that asks people to maintain visual intensity longer than is sustainable. Why Gen Z isn’t resisting work—they’re questioning the structure Working closely with Gen Z students and early-career professionals has shown me something important: younger employees aren’t rejecting effort. They’re challenging assumptions about what effective work actually looks like. They question camera-on expectations that prioritize appearances over outcomes. They ask why meetings need to run an hour when decisions could be made in twenty minutes. They push for clearer boundaries around communication instead of constant availability. Some leaders interpret this as impatience or a lack of resilience. I see it differently. Gen Z entered the workforce during a period of rapid digital acceleration, and they’re often the first to notice when systems create friction. Their questions can feel uncomfortable, but they also offer valuable feedback. If an entire generation is pushing back on nonstop screen time, it may be less about generational differences and more about a workplace model that hasn’t caught up with human limits. Leaders don’t need more wellness programs. They need better structure. Addressing digital eye strain doesn’t require a complicated initiative. It requires leaders to rethink how work is organized day to day. That might include: Designing meetings with built-in visual breaks or audio-only segments Leaving intentional gaps between calls so employees can reset their attention Setting clear expectations around response times to reduce the pressure of constant monitoring Modeling healthy digital boundaries rather than praising nonstop availability These shifts may seem small, but they change the message employees receive. Productivity stops being about how long someone stays glued to a screen and starts being about the quality of their contribution. In my own leadership work, I often talk about balancing kindness, fairness, and structure. Visual fatigue sits at the intersection of all three. Acknowledging human limits reflects kindness. Creating clear expectations around availability reflects fairness. And designing workflows that support sustainable focus reflects strong structure. When one of those elements is missing, employees feel it, even if they can’t articulate why. The real risk isn’t eye strain. It’s misreading the signal. When attention dips, leaders often assume disengagement. When someone turns their camera off, we question their commitment. But what if those behaviors aren’t signs of withdrawal at all? What if they’re adaptive responses to an environment that demands more visual endurance than most people can sustain? When leaders misread these signals, they create unnecessary tension. Employees feel misunderstood. Managers feel frustrated. And the real issue—an unsustainable rhythm of work—goes unaddressed. The modern workplace has quietly redefined focus as nonstop visual attention. But people don’t perform at their best by staring at screens longer. They perform better when leaders design work with intention. Digital eye strain isn’t just a health warning. It’s a leadership signal. And the future of work won’t belong to organizations that demand constant presence, but to those that know when it’s time to look up, step back, and lead differently. View the full article

Google's John Mueller confirmed that most sites don't need to use a disavow file but if you need to be sure, do it. The post Google Says Disavow Links If You’re Conflicted And Need To Be Sure appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

While some girls dream of getting their first designer handbag, Lela Rose—who grew up in Dallas—dreamt of getting her own pair of boots from Lucchese, the legendary luxury bootmaker founded in 1883 in San Antonio. When she got married, her whole family got fitted in Lucchese boots, blending their formal wear with a nod to their Texas roots. Nearly three decades later, Rose is not just wearing the brand—she’s designing for it. Rose’s eponymous clothing label, which she launched in 1998, and Lucchese, the 143-year-old bootmaker, will launch a collaboration on March 10. It’s a partnership that makes sense: two brands with deep Texas roots finally finding each other. The collection comprises three boots, each bearing Rose’s signature blend of femininity and Western romanticism. The standout is a white boot adorned with a sculptural 3D flower and intricate quilted stitching, which is already creating a stir among brides. The partnership goes beyond footwear: Rose’s team has developed an accompanying clothing line that connects directly to the boots, and both brands will cross-sell in their respective stores. (Boots start at $1,295, and clothes start at $650.) The Cowboy Look Is Here to Stay Rose has always wanted to design boots, but she acknowledges that her team didn’t have the skills to make them at the level of craftsmanship she wanted. So she was thrilled when Lucchese was interested in working together. “We are not experts in footwear,” she says. “This was such a great opportunity to partner with someone who completely knows quality and fit, and then we could bring our design aesthetic to that, and vice versa with clothing.” The collaboration feels timely. Historically, Western style has entered the fashion cycle every decade or so, with brands incorporating cowboy boots and shirts into their collections. But over the last several years, something has changed. The Western look has become embedded within the American aesthetic, alongside the preppy look and sportswear. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour sent Stetsons and fringe flying off shelves. Louis Vuitton staged a Western-inspired runway show featuring real cowboys. Boot brands like Tecovas and Miron Crosby are growing with remarkable speed. And the customer base has shifted—it’s no longer just Texans and ranchers, but New Yorkers, Angelenos, and Bostonians who are wearing boots year-round. The cowboy boot is beginning to be thought of more like a loafer—a wardrobe staple that transcends region and occasion. Lela Rose Has Always Loved Western Style Rose launched her brand in 1998, creating clothes that appealed to her: dresses for a busy social calendar of parties and events that stand out for their sculptural silhouettes, colorful prints, and unapologetic femininity. (Her pieces are at a luxury price point, with dresses that easily hit $3,000 or $4,000, and tops that start at $400.) For Rose, this focus on ranch style isn’t a pivot. Eighteen years ago, she developed a collection of Western-influenced pieces—bead shirts, intricate Western-chic separates—and tried to sell them to Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Bergdorf Goodman. “They all just looked at us like, ‘what?’” she recalls. The timing was wrong, and the collection was quietly shelved, though she loved the shirt so much that she kept it in her permanent collection. When Rose moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, five years ago, she decided it was time to pursue her longtime dream of launching a Western line, called Lela Rose Ranch. She’s opened a shop in Jackson Hole that’s built around her personal vision of Western chic and stocked with vintage Navajo silver, one-of-a-kind pieces sourced from her own travels, and clothing designed entirely according to her instincts. The Ranch collection is now being integrated into the main Lela Rose line. Rose started her namesake label at a time when the only way to be relevant in fashion was to have a rack at Neiman Marcus and a runway show at New York Fashion Week. She did both. One year, the theme was “The Roseminster Dog Show,” a tongue-in-cheek riff on the Westminster Dog Show. “I look back on some of our shows as some of my favorite things that we’ve ever done,” she says. “We’re always trying to entertain you as much as show you the clothing.” But the industry Rose launched into no longer exists. The wholesale model and department stores have been disrupted by e-commerce, then disrupted again by social media, then disrupted yet again by a pandemic. These changes scrambled every assumption about how and where people shop. Rose has navigated all of this without outside investors, bootstrapping from a studio with one seamstress to a brand with three retail stores and two more locations opening this year. Over the last 25 years, she’s cultivated a well-heeled, well-traveled customer—a woman with a full social calendar who jets frequently from fundraisers in big cities to more rural locations like Jackson Hole and Aspen, Colorado. Her collections are designed to help these women look appropriate as they navigate across these different situations. That customer, Rose believes, is exactly the person who has been waiting for this Western moment. The pieces she has designed aren’t supposed to look like a costume from a spaghetti Western, but a nod to the outdoors and the heritage of cowboy style. “It’s not like I’m putting on a holster and wearing chaps every day,” she says. “I love this aesthetic, but I want to weave it seamlessly into the rest of my wardrobe.” A denim skirt, she argues, can be worn with a concho belt in Aspen or with heels in New York or with tennis shoes in Paris. The West, in other words, is not a destination anymore. It’s an aesthetic vocabulary, one that Lela Rose has been speaking her whole life. View the full article

If you walked into Oyuna Uranchimeg’s office at the University of St. Thomas’ emerging media department, you’d see a poster from the Beijing 2022 Olympics and two other tokens of Olympic memorabilia. It’s not something you’d likely think twice about. She’s not the only person to have sports-themed office decorations. What you won’t know—unless you’re told—is that Uranchimeg is herself a Paralympian. She competed in Wheelchair Curling for Team USA in 2022, and will do so again in the 2026 Games. But that hasn’t stopped her from working full-time for the university’s emerging media department as an administrative assistant. She’s the department’s problem solver. People file into Uranchimeg’s office all day with an array of different questions. When the department needed to add adjunct professors to take on an expanding course load, Uranchimeg was the one that was on top of the contracts. If a student or faculty member is having an issue with a new online resource, she’s the one who they go to. “She’s the person that everybody sends their folks to,” department chair Dr. Peter Gregg says. “Let’s see if Oyuna can help, or let’s get in touch with Oyuna. So she’s essential to what we do.” Uranchimeg didn’t start curling until 2016, but within just six years, she was on the biggest stage in the sport. It didn’t surprise Gregg. “Oyuna is a pretty extraordinary person,” Gregg said. “So there’s not a lot that she could do that would surprise me.” And she’s not the only Paralympian who works full time outside of their training. From hobby to Team USA Austin Anderson knew Sean O’Neill from their days at Harvard Law School. He thought of O’Neill as a “successful and competent person,” and recommended him for a position at his law firm, Anderson & Kreiger in Boston. They’d kept up from time to time over the last decade, and Anderson knew that O’Neill had picked up curling as a hobby. “I was thinking more like weekend bowling league level stuff,” Anderson says. In March, O’Neill will be going to the Paralympics as part of Team USA Wheelchair Curling. He’s one of approximately 665 athletes from 50 countries that will compete in one of six adaptive sports at the 14th winter Paralympic Games. His coworkers didn’t know that this was a possibility until he told them that he needed to travel to go to Paralympic tryouts. Another coworker, Libby Bowker, remembers O’Neill telling her that he was into curling around the time they first met, but had to “peel back the layers,” over the next few months to learn he was competing at a world-class level. Just before Thanksgiving, O’Neill was selected for the Paralympic team, and since then, he says he’s been traveling every other week. Whether it’s international trips or trips to Wisconsin or Minnesota, he hasn’t been in the office a ton. Despite spending his mornings on the curling ice when on these trips, O’Neill comes right back to his computer and works asynchronously and remotely. Instead of draining his energy, these weeks are what O’Neill lives for. “Activities can reinforce each other and build momentum of a kind,” O’Neill says. “When I’m at a training camp and have a great day of training, and then the next day I’m working on a brief all day, and then I’m kind of jacked up from doing that and have a great training day the next day. I think it all feeds off of each other.” Kombucha instead of coffee He doesn’t need caffeine. Only a kombucha in the morning. But that powers him to accomplish two full days of work within a single day. “I can curl in the morning until 2 o’clock,” O’Neill says. “And still have plenty of time to put in a full day’s work. I come off the ice not necessarily tired, but often energized, and needing an outlet for that energy. It’s not much else that I’m looking to do at that point other than putting some time working.” He’s just another member of the team. He commutes from Cape Cod to Anderson & Kreiger’s downtown Boston office. When Anderson asks him for help around the office, he doesn’t feel like he’s bothering a world-class athlete, but it certainly impacts the way that he views O’Neill from a general perspective. “I’ve developed a new appreciation for the dedication and that work he’s putting into (curling),” Anderson said. “I think I’m a little bit more in awe of him than I used to be.” The job of a lawyer is high-stakes, high-pressure, and intense. It’s time consuming and stress inducing. Many get sucked into a cycle of endless work and don’t find time for themselves. Watching O’Neill at the Paralympics has proven to his coworkers that your life doesn’t have to be all about work. Bowker has been inspired to find her hobbies again. She rediscovered her love for photography, going outside with the camera and just taking pictures. It won’t take her to the Paralympics, but it doesn’t have to in order to improve her quality of life. “I feel like a lot of people abandon interest and personal pursuits especially in their 30s and 40s,” Bowker says. “It definitely has been an inspiration to go back into what I like to do.” “Seeing how wildly different his life is now than like five years ago or when he was in law school, or when he was doing all this important public interest work on the Cape, this is just a totally different, unexpected thing, and it really is inspiring,” Bowker continued. “It does make me wonder, what else is out there? What more can I do? It seems like potential is really limitless, and he’s kind of a walking-talking example of that.” O’Neill struggles with the idea of being an inspiration simply for being a wheelchair user. But he appreciates when people can draw that feeling from his double passions. “The idea of committing to something, whether it’s a hobby, or something you’re driven to get in at the highest level at, or a hobby that turns into that,” O’Neill says. “I think there’s a lot to be said for finding that commitment, finding that drive. Finding other aspects of life, communities, other spaces where you can flourish.” Part of a larger community This month, Uranchimeg and O’Neill will be teammates for Team USA Wheelchair Curling in the Milan Cortina 2026 Paralympic Games, which begin March 6. Both St. Thomas and Anderson & Kreiger are looking forward to seeing their coworker compete for Paralympic glory. In 2022, NBC reached out to St. Thomas to put a camera in their viewing party so it could be shown over the air. Gregg is expecting to do the same once again. “We got a big room with a large projection screen,” Gregg said. “And we brought in a bunch of faculty and students and members of the community and watched her team play. It was really convivial and exciting, and a great bonding moment for us.” Gregg said that it bonded students and faculty in ways that don’t typically occur in academia, all coming together to cheer for one of their own on the big screen. “That’s an important part of being a member of a community,” he added. “I think it’s in the spirit of the Olympics. This idea that we’re all people, and let’s celebrate our excellence as humans.” Meanwhile, in Boston, the Anderson & Kreiger team has really leaned into it. Van Dyke says that there is a firm function planned for O’Neill to teach his coworkers all about wheelchair curling and show them how to curl. “He promised that he was going to take us curling,” Bowker added. “And I’m going to hold him to it.” Anderson said that there are plans for viewing parties and a send-off celebration before O’Neill goes off on the plane. “Every time it comes up,” Anderson said. “It’s like you’re shaking your head, can’t believe it’s happening, ‘how awesome is that?’ Because again, he’s the last guy you’d expect it from because he’s so down to earth and self-deprecating.” Those two aren’t the only ones that will have their offices buzzing. A few of their Team USA Wheelchair Curling teammates also work full-time jobs. Wisconsin’s Matthew Thums is an accountant, and Montana’s Katie Verderber, like O’Neill, is a lawyer. For a few days, they’ll be the pride and joy of the country, performing on national television for all to see. Then, they’ll fade back into anonymity, back in the office, helping their coworkers. View the full article

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Agentic commerce is changing online shopping. Learn what it is, how it works, and how to prepare your business for it. View the full article

Gas producer says it will take ‘weeks to months’ to restore deliveries after Iranian drone strikeView the full article

Imagine sitting with friends in front of a charcuterie board and a bottle of Syrah at a French bistro. If you reach for your smartphone, a waiter blows a referee’s whistle, issues you a “penalty card,” and tells you a second infraction will get you eighty-sixed. Such faux-pas enforcement is routine at Le Petit Jardin in Montpellier in southern France, which implemented a strict “no-phone use” policy in 2017. While this approach seems farcically extreme, the idea of restricting phone use in restaurants and bars is gaining traction in the U.S., and not just in the “coastal elite” cities. Sneaky’s Chicken, in Sioux City, Iowa, for example, offers compliance incentives: the long-beloved local fried chicken and wing joint now offers discounts every Wednesday night for diners who put their phones in a box. In Nashville, Tennessee, Monell’s is a family-style all-you-can-eat Southern comfort food restaurant that maintains a “no-phones-at-the-table” rule in order to encourage an authentic communal dining experience. Other places, typically ritzier, are starting to require patrons to relinquish their devices at the door, too. With phones at hand, “all of a sudden you hear the little ding or something, and your attention leaves your dining experience, and you’re in a different place,” says Kara Nielsen, a San Francisco Bay Area-based food trend expert with deep experience in the culinary world. She’s not surprised by the appeal of phone restrictions. “Experiential dining is getting very popular with younger people, and it definitely seems part of the millennials’ and Gen Z’s turn toward the analog. So, I think we’re going to see an increase in this type of phone-free experience in the future.” “Going out is a commitment, and guests are seeking out experiences like this.” “If you can’t possibly deal without your phone for two hours, then this is not the place for you,” celebrity chef Tim Love told NBC not long after opening Caterina’s in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2022. The cozy, upscale Italian restaurant has maintained a strict no-phone policy that doesn’t seem to deter patronage, given the restaurant’s continued popularity. As Love said: “You’re, like, ‘I’m just going to sit here and enjoy myself.’ And that’s what happens. It’s been really refreshing.” Britnee Wentworth is the assistant manager and lead bartender and server at Caterina’s. “I was part of the opening team . . . and at the very beginning, the cellphone policy did get a lot of questionable remarks, but I wouldn’t say that necessarily affected business in a negative way,” she says. “It’s actually been contributing to our business in a positive way, especially in the last year and a half or so. Once in a blue moon, we have somebody who is upset by the policy and chooses not to dine with us because of it. But I would say that’s few and far between at this point.” Despite a common misconception, Wentworth says, the cellphone stays with the guest the entire time, in a locked pouch—“similar to what they use at comedy shows and concerts, so that definitely eases a lot of worry.” Echoing Nielsen, she says younger patrons seem “more excited about locking up their cellphones than the 50-and-above customers.” One of the best parts of her job, Wentworth says, is getting to see the fortuitous outcomes that often occur when people are disconnected from their devices. “We have a lot of tables that leave becoming friends with the table next to them, even when there’s a generational gap between them, just because of the conversations that are started,” she says. “It’s definitely been one of the coolest social experiments to be a part of.” About 250 miles south, in San Antonio, Nicosi Dessert Bar opened in June 2024. The Michelin-starred establishment offers “an 8-course tasting menu of 4 bites and 4 mains” in an “intimate 20-seat venue that wraps around the kitchen, inviting guests into a show-and-tell journey alongside the chefs.” Cellphones and photography are prohibited. One Yelp reviewer remarked: “This all-dessert fine-dining experience was creative, unpretentious, interactive, and full of delicious surprises.” In Phoenix, the Trophy Room opened inside a high-end steakhouse and supper club in 2023. The swanky Arizona cocktail bar features an extensive drink menu, plenty of rich dark-wood paneling, and luxuriant furnishings, and is adorned with antique rifles and taxidermy-mounted animals that convey old-school hunting lodge aesthetics. Guests are instructed to check their phones in locked boxes contained within a vintage library card-catalog system. “The Trophy Room is about intimacy and focusing on [what is] in front of you,” says cofounder and operating partner Thor Nguyen. It’s an “escape where there are no distractions, selfie lights, text vibrations . . . from our digital lives.” As for the policy’s impact on business, Nguyen doesn’t think it “affects the bottom line at all. It actually gives our guests an experience, and for them, that’s value,” he says. “Going out is a commitment, and guests are seeking out experiences like this. For other business owners [considering cellphone restriction policies], if you do it, commit to it. You’ll get pushback, but those will be the guests that don’t get it. And that’s okay. You have to believe the intent and make sure you’re creating a complementary experience.” Antagonist, a cocktail bar in Charlotte, North Carolina, is slated to open later this year, and it promises on its website: “Strong drinks. Sharp dialogue. No phones. No distractions.” The list goes on—and is growing. The future of unplugging Restaurants began introducing QR codes for menu access in response to COVID, but they’ve since become ubiquitous. While they may offer a convenient transaction method for getting fast food or coffee at the airport, they also represent a presumptuous push toward a more automated world that contradicts the industry’s foundational promise, and the experience we so crave: to break bread and connect. Meanwhile, an endless stream of ink continues to track the perils of our cellphone-centric lives. In 2013, studies revealed how reliance on cameras impairs memory—the “photo-taking-impairment effect”—and, in effect, dulls our actual experience of life. Research in 2014 found that cellphone use leads to significant changes in brain activity, reaction time, and sleep patterns, and subsequent research has linked it to higher risks of Alzheimer’s disease. Other studies directly correlate cellphone and social media use with a range of mental health issues, especially for young people. In fact, the current landmark lawsuits against Meta (Instagram) and Google (YouTube) are focused on issues of youth safety and the addictive nature of their platform designs. As noted last year in a Washington Post piece about the positive response to phone bans in local D.C. bars, “there is a dawning realization that this constant exposure to the digital world makes us feel less connected to the real one.” Julio Alvarez is a leadership coach, podcaster, and former tech executive who’s been on both sides of the screen, and he senses a seismic shift underway. “To actually be present with another human being in an exchange, in a real connection—that’s becoming the rarest commodity,” he says. With the advent of AI, Alvarez is hopeful the screen-free trend will expand beyond the food and beverage sector. “We’re going to enter a new phase, with an opportunity to combat our addiction to screens with whatever new tech comes out over the next decade,” he says. “There’s a lot of positioning around not adding new screens, but removing them. And what is that going to do? It’s going to force us to deepen our connectivity skills . . . and be present with one another again.” View the full article

“Sean,” the CEO of a health technology startup, invited Garry to join what he called a strategy offsite. By mid-morning, it had become something else. Six people, a whiteboard, a Series A closing in ninety days. The question on the table: where do we invest next? More engineers? A bigger sales team? Another content hire? Garry set down his coffee and asked a different question. “What if we stopped asking what we can afford to build, and started asking what we can now imagine building—that we genuinely couldn’t have a year ago?” The room shifted. So did the conversation. And that reframe—from resource allocation to possibility expansion—is the strategic inflection point that most leadership teams have not yet reached, and it is the one that will separate the companies that use AI to compete from the ones that use it to lead. The research reinforces this point. A recent report from Deloitte finds only 34% of organizations are using AI to deeply transform their work. Another report from McKinsey confirms that companies using AI to pursue growth are 3.5x more likely to achieve enterprise-level impact than those focused on cost reduction. Drawing on our work with senior leaders—Jenny as an executive coach and leadership development expert, and Garry as a physician-entrepreneur who mentors and advises early-stage startups—we have identified three strategies for leading innovation in the age of AI. 1. Start with the Friction, Not the Platform When Garry first met with the founding team of “Axiom Health,” a startup focused on next-generation cardiometabolic biomarker analytics for early disease detection, their conversations were almost entirely about technology. The platform was front and center; the patient was not. He pushed them to slow down. Before talking about what to build, he asked them to map the real tension their future patients and physicians were living with: Where were clinicians hitting walls? What workarounds revealed unmet needs? And what would need to be true for a better solution to be trusted at scale? This is the discipline Marilee Adams calls “question thinking” in her classic business book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: the shift from judger questions to learner questions. In an era where AI accelerates execution, the quality of the question matters more, not less. Ask yourself: What are the top ten friction points our customers experience—including the ones they’ve stopped mentioning because they’ve assumed they are unsolvable? What alternatives and workarounds do they use today, and what does that tell us about what they actually value? What would need to be true—operationally, culturally, and technically—for our solution to be trusted and adopted at scale? For the Axiom Health team, working through those questions revealed that the core problem was not inconvenience or cost. It was that existing exams produced qualitative, non-reproducible data that couldn’t add any predictive value, leaving physicians making consequential decisions about asymptomatic patients with instruments designed for acute diagnosis. The technology didn’t drive what came next. The friction did. Pro-tip: Before your next product or strategy cycle, run a structured “friction audit” with customers and frontline staff. Surface the frustrations people have stopped voicing. Those shelved grievances often mark the most significant opportunities—and AI may have already made them solvable. 2. Redesign the Process, Not Just the Speed “Lisa,” chief editor of a healthcare media startup, contacted us to collaborate on a strategic repositioning. The picture was stark: double-digit subscription declines, the loss of two anchor advertising partnerships, and a flagship content collaboration with a medical society that had quietly let its contract lapse. The board was asking hard questions. The team was exhausted. Lisa’s first instinct had been to move faster: more content, tighter timelines, a leaner editorial process. When we began the engagement, a different diagnosis emerged. Her team’s publication, “Pulse,” wasn’t failing because it was slow. It was failing because it was building for a media model that no longer existed. As research documents, digital publishing collapsed the advertising revenues that once sustained medical media, and open-access journals grew from 22 to nearly 17,000 by 2021, diluting any single voice’s authority. At the same time, the underlying market opportunity was growing. The healthcare digital content creation market is projected to reach $32 billion by 2030, driven by video, community, and personalized formats. The window wasn’t closing. It was shifting toward platforms and models that Pulse hadn’t yet built. We helped Lisa and her team ask a different question: not how to produce more content faster, but what a media company genuinely designed around the modern clinician would look like. Drawing on models from industry news outlets, YouTube education channels, and AI-powered consumer newsletters, the framework they developed had three components. 1. Shift from content production to community curation. With AI handling synthesis, editors could instead focus on shaping stories and community. That freed up the team to launch a deferred YouTube channel, specialty newsletters by clinical area, and live case discussions that built a genuine practitioner community. 2. Use AI to personalize at scale. Rather than one newsletter for all physicians, AI-assisted segmentation allowed Pulse to tailor content format and cadence by career specialty, stage, and stated interest, creating the experience of a curated resource rather than a broadcast channel. 3. Look outside the category. Durable media businesses across industries had made the same pivot—from audience to community, from passive readership to active membership. Pulse had the clinical credibility to lead that shift in healthcare. The leaders who win won’t be the ones who optimize their existing model. They’ll be the ones who redesign it around what their audience actually needs. Pro-tip: Map your content’s “jobs to be done” for the practitioner: what decision, conversation, or action does your content help them take? If the answer is unclear, the format and cadence are probably wrong—regardless of how good the underlying journalism is. 3. Innovate in Micro-Pilots, Not Master Plans Six months in, the board wanted a diversified revenue model: events, licensing, CME partnerships, sponsored research summaries. Lisa arrived at our next session with the question many overstretched leaders share: how do you innovate when you’re already running at capacity? We pushed back. Recent research from the MIT Media Lab found that 95% of generative AI pilots delivered no measurable business impact, with most stalling because they were disconnected from real workflows (and lacked feedback loops that could help them learn and adapt). The answer to board pressure for innovation is not a bigger plan. It is a smarter experiment design. What we proposed was a micro-pilot framework: structured, time-boxed experiments designed to generate learning quickly and fail cheaply. For each revenue stream, the team would spend no more than six weeks testing the smallest viable version, with AI accelerating both ideation and iteration. Using AI to accelerate ideation velocity and stress-test format concepts (like sponsored series, CME modules, specialty subscriptions), the team surfaced ten viable ideas in the time it once took to develop a single brief. Lisa’s team launched three micro-pilots in the first cohort to pressure test pricing, licensing, and marketing: A specialty cardiology digest with a paid tier hit break-even subscriber numbers within five weeks. A sponsored research summary format generated strong advertiser interest but poor reader engagement and was modified. A marketing pilot was shelved entirely. The cost of the failure was two weeks of editorial time. The learning it produced shaped the next cohort of experiments. The leadership posture the AI era demands is not the confidence to predict which innovations will succeed—it’s the discipline to find out quickly which ones won’t. AI compresses the time between hypothesis and evidence. Leaders who build that loop into their team’s work gain a structural advantage that compounds. Pro-tip: For each strategic bet, define the smallest version you could test in thirty days with AI-accelerated ideation. Ask: what would we need to learn to make the next decision? That question, not the size of the pilot, is what separates useful experiments from expensive distractions. The Imperative The offsite conversation we opened with didn’t end with a bigger budget. It ended with a better question—and that question changed what the company built. The pattern holds across every engagement: the leaders who make the most meaningful progress are not those with the most resources or the most sophisticated tools. They are the ones willing to slow down long enough to ask what actually needs solving, to redesign instead of accelerate, and to treat a failed experiment as data rather than defeat. Start with the friction. Redesign the process. Experiment at speed. These are not technology strategies. They are leadership disciplines. What has changed is that AI now makes them executable at a scale and pace that was previously out of reach for most organizations. The bottleneck was never the tools. It was the quality of the questions leaders were willing to ask. Efficiency will keep the lights on. Imagination is what decides whose lights are worth watching. View the full article

Emirates begins Dubai connections while Lufthansa sees jump in demand for long-haul direct flights to Asia and Africa View the full article

Counter-terror police apprehend one Iranian and three dual British-Iranian nationalsView the full article

Feeling numb as your boss announces your promotion. Fighting back tears as you skim the email offering you a new stretch opportunity. Knowing you “should” be excited to grab coffee with the industry leader who could open doors, but really it just feels like a drain. On paper, you’re doing everything right and hitting the milestones you once worked so hard to reach. And yet, internally, you feel exhausted. Disconnected. Frustrated by a success that looks good, but doesn’t feel good. This doesn’t mean you need a vacation. It means you may be burned out for a reason no amount of time off or spa days will fix. While burnout has become so common that the World Health Organization now recognizes it in their classification of diseases, most burnout advice still focuses on strategies that help temporarily but miss the real issue. In my work coaching and facilitating workshops for more than 5,000 corporate leaders, one pattern shows up consistently: solving burnout is rarely just about setting firmer boundaries or adding more self-care. Yes, some people are burned out because of an unhealthy work environment. But plenty of others have roles that are objectively “good” and yet are still draining them. That’s because burnout isn’t always about what’s happening around you, but about what’s happening inside of you. When your definition of success stops working Most high-achieving professionals begin chasing a version of success early in life. The script is familiar: work hard, get into a great school, land a prestigious job, prove yourself, get promoted. Repeat. Over time, the extrinsic markers that once made the long hours feel worthwhile lose their charge. The promotion you thought would energize you lands with a thud. The next milestone feels less like a win and more like an obligation. Research on motivation shows that while external rewards can drive performance in the short term, sustained engagement depends on internal factors like autonomy, meaning, and a sense of connection. When those are missing, achievement alone isn’t enough to offset the drain. This is where many high performers get stuck: continuing to optimize for a definition of success they’ve quietly outgrown. And when burnout is rooted in misalignment, self-care alone isn’t enough. Treating it with time off is like treating chronic pain with painkillers. It may dull the symptoms, but it doesn’t address the cause. Without changing what you’re working toward, burnout has a way of returning—often faster than before. Redefine success for who you are today The most effective way to address this kind of burnout isn’t to do less—it’s to update your definition of success to reflect who you are today, not who you were when you started your career or what others say you should care about. Try asking yourself a few questions you may not have considered before: What goals am I striving for that I no longer value? What results or impact makes me feel most satisfied? What do I wish my performance was assessed on? If someone wrote a retrospective on my career, what would I want that story to say? Take the common themes and distill them into your personal definition of success, or the intrinsic motivations that feel deeply satisfying and renewing. For example, you might decide: “Success is building with intention—not just toward scale or speed. I want to lead teams where people leave better than they came.” Or: “Success used to mean proving I belonged. Now it’s about using my seat at the table to drive real change, not just deals. I want to mentor more women and diversify the leadership pipeline.” To help you dig deeper, I’ve created a worksheet with additional prompts and examples to help you define what matters to you most today. Staying ambitious even as you shift your success marker Updating your definition of success doesn’t mean opting out of your career or undoing what you’ve built. For some, it means finding deeper meaning within their current role. A marketing executive I worked with realized that while advancement still mattered, what energized her most was building strong teams and developing people. Refocusing her effort gave her renewed motivation—and made her more effective. For others, redefining success leads to careers that look different than expected but fit better. Another client was accelerating quickly in high-growth startups when she decided to step into a leadership role within her family’s business—not to slow down, but to lead in a way that aligned with her values. And for some, redefining success means recognizing that personal milestones matter, too. One client gave herself permission to prioritize starting a family rather than chasing the next career move. She was promoted while out on parental leave. When success reflects who you are now, your ambition doesn’t disappear—it becomes more focused, more sustainable, and far more powerful. In other words? Burnout isn’t telling you to quit. It’s asking you to evolve. View the full article

Like many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Jake Sussman struggled in elementary school, especially in areas that required quiet concentration, like reading. “I’m very sensitive to sound, so the smallest noises can be distracting,” says the now-30-year-old, who was diagnosed in sixth grade. “Silence is sometimes loud for me.” After the diagnosis, Sussman’s parents switched him to a school that specialized in helping students with learning differences. His mom also started playing brown noise to help him relax or fall asleep, after she read that low-frequency (lo-fi), deep rumbling sounds—like heavy machinery or strong rainfall—can soothe those with ADHD. Research into the effects of sound on brain activity, especially when it comes to promoting rest and focus, has come a long way in recent years. While experts are confident that a link exists, there is still much to be discovered. In the meantime, it’s hard to know what kind of music will have what kind of effect on what kind of person—but the existing research does suggest the impact can be especially profound on those with ADHD or some ADHD-like symptoms. Unconventional music with unconventional effects Sussman’s ability to focus dramatically improved in college when he started working while listening to very specific sounds. He explains that lyrics, tempo changes, and track changes can pull his focus—meaning that conventional music often proves distracting. “I found if you combine movie score music with some brown noise in the background, I can lock in for hours,” he says. “The beat of it helps me work in a rhythm, and I need to have this internal rhythm as I’m focusing. Otherwise I’m going to stop whatever I’m doing.” In 2019, Sussman founded Superpower Mentors, which pairs young people who have ADHD, dyslexia, and other learning differences with successful adults who have similar interests and neurological conditions. “I literally built a company with movie scores in the background,” he says. Sussman’s sibling even made him a playlist to help him focus, titled “Movie Scores for Better Test Scores.” But Sussman isn’t the only one who’s benefiting from it. In fact, that playlist now has more than 13,000 subscribers. “He’s using a form of self-stimulation to sustain his attention, and movie scores are in that category of lo-fi; it’s a genre of music that accidentally checks all the boxes for focus music,” explains Kevin Woods, the director of science for the music-based productivity app Brain.FM. “In the case of movie scores, that’s functionally deliberate; it’s meant not to grab your attention.” Woods began studying auditory neuroscience while pursuing a PhD in neurobiology and behavior at Harvard University, but he says that he was initially skeptical of the connection between sound and focus. That is until he began running large-scale experiments online, first as an academic and later for Brain.FM. “Most music is made to grab your attention. And if you’re a great music producer, your job is to make things bright and punchy to make people sit up and turn their head—which is bad if you’re trying to work,” he says. “We make music that is suited for that purpose.” “A fidget spinner for the auditory system” The research into why sound can be such a powerful focus tool has uncovered several possible explanations, some of which may be occurring in tandem. For example, those with ADHD or attention issues can be more easily interrupted by subtle sounds, making non-distracting background noise an effective shield against minor auditory distractions. “The ADHD brain needs more stimulation to function best, which is why you see things like fidgeting and bouncing the leg; that’s the brain trying to self-stimulate so it can pay attention,” Woods says. “Braim.FM is a fidget spinner for the auditory system that lets you do things with your hands at the same time, while providing extra stimulation so the brain can focus.” Woods explains that focus requires a certain balance of stimulation: Too much creates anxiety, and too little leads to boredom. Both can break focus. “The set point is different for ADHD brains, such that you need to add stimulation to the system to get the ADHD brain to the peak of that curve,” he says. “Using the auditory system to drive rhythmic brain activity has been done for a couple of decades, but the stimuli used to do that was always extremely boring. You can’t listen to a truck backing up all day.” Brain.FM seeks to apply the same concept to more engaging musical content, created by in-house composers and neuroscientists. The platform’s original tracks—which are “super-duper long,” according to Woods—layer rhythms that correspond to brain wave patterns with repetitive soundscape designed to fade into the background. The result is lengthy tracks that seem well suited for an after-hours club, cocktail lounge, massage parlor, or hotel elevator. Tracks are organized into categories like “deep work,” “motivation,” “creativity,” “learning,” and “light work,” with an added “ADHD Mode” optimized for brains that need the extra stimulation. It “turned out to work really well on the half of the population that was more ADHD-like,” Woods explains. “People that had more symptoms—even if they weren’t even close to being clinically diagnosed—were helped” by listening to the tracks. Taking a scientific approach Research into the effects of certain sounds on focus is promising, but far from complete. Part of the challenge is that it can be difficult for individuals to find a personal auditory answer to their concentration challenges. “This effect, as we see in the research, varies wildly from person to person,” says licensed psychologist Andrew Kahn, the associate director of expertise and strategic design for the neurodiversity nonprofit Understood.org. “Some people need a certain frequency of noise at a certain volume for a certain time, and other people need a much different one.” Whether it’s movie scores, apps, brown noise, or something else entirely, Kahn says that finding the right background sound can be a game changer, especially for those with ADHD. That’s proven true for the ADHD-diagnosed clinician, who says music has had “a really significant effect” for him personally, as well as for many of his clients, who range from children to adult professionals. The key, Kahn says, is taking a scientific approach. “Anytime you’re experimenting with a technique, it’s really important to see how you are feeling before you start. Then select a stimulus—let’s say brown noise—for a period of time, and then set a reminder to check on your progress,” he says. “So three times today I’m trying brown noise, then I’ll try [shallower, more subtle] pink noise three times tomorrow. And you can get some really good data if you do that over the course of a week.” Unlike many solutions for addressing attention needs—like medication, therapy, or exercise—this one benefits from being low-stakes and easy to implement on your own. “Using white noise, music, and playlists has so little negative potential outcome, that trying them seems like a really wise thing to do. It can’t hurt,” Kahn says. “I’m excited to see what people do, and what research they can generate.” View the full article

Back in November 2025, Business Insider reported that job applicants have roughly a 0.4% chance of landing the job they’re applying for—something that isn’t exactly news to anyone who has been forced to navigate waves of hirings, firings, and everything in between. Employers have reported being overwhelmed by applicants for open positions, and would-be employees have reported something else. There’s a kind of résumé black hole, wherein information is sent out but nothing—not even a rejection—ever comes back. According to new data from the Hays 2026 U.S. Salary & Hiring Trends Guide, the overabundance of qualified applicants isn’t the only reason you’re not hearing back after applying for a job. (And it might not even be the most prominent one.) The guide reported in February that the problem is multifold: Employers are hiring more selectively, and hiring is frequently impacted by economic signals, budgets, and internal restructuring that changes what roles are available and how many people are needed to do them. 42% of employers told Hays Americas that they’re prioritizing upskilling their existing workforce over bringing on new people. Employers are looking for candidates who immediately bring value to their organization. Artificial intelligence is used by nearly 70% of organizations at some point in the hiring process by applicants, which has resulted in a “sea of sameness.” If job seekers really want to stand out in that sea of homogeneity, they’ll need to find a way to marry newer AI advances with old-school job-seeking strategies, Hays Americas CEO Dave Brown tells Fast Company. That will definitely mean adjusting the résumé that AI generates, and it should also mean venturing out into the world (be it physically or online) and networking with real people who can help. Plus, there are AI tools built to detect if AI was used to generate a résumé in the first place. The mistake many job seekers make is simply copying and pasting the résumé they receive without any personalization. Instead, Brown says: “Use it to help draft [a résumé], but then personalize it and make it human—so that if a company is using a screener for AI, or if it’s obvious that AI is used, you at least pass that hurdle.” Another frequent problem (that’s very obvious to many employers) is that most résumés are far too generic. “One of the AI tells is generalities,” Brown says. Instead, applicants should get very specific about what they’ve done, and how it impacted their organization. “Include ‘I worked on this project, and I did this specific thing, and I delivered that outcome,’” Brown says. “‘And we achieved these results. And I worked with these people. And we increased our revenue by 15%. Or we did very specific, demonstrable things.’” In addition to filling in the details of what you’ve achieved, adding “specific stories about how you were able to impact [your organization], or the feedback from what a customer said, or a quote, or a testimonial from someone—those are all things that are not going to be on your standard AI-driven résumé. It’s going to be specific to you,” he continues. Even a résumé that is both personalized and assisted by AI-generation might not beat what used to work back in the day—that is, connecting with people who work in the field you’re entering, or with whom you’ve worked before. “Still to this day, a lot of hiring or a lot of shortlisting will happen through word of mouth or referral or doing something outside of just submitting your résumé and hoping,” Brown says. And if all else fails? Brown says that adding a video to your proposal or résumé is never a bad idea. “If you’re really interested in a deep experience and you know who’s hiring for the position, remarket yourself in a different way. Record a video,” he explains. “Do creative things to get attention for yourself. Show that you are paying attention to what’s going on with the organization.” Spending time catching up on the organization’s latest news can go a long way, especially if you can back that up with your own experience solving a similar problem, or creating a similar strategy. The internet can help here, he notes. “You can do that through a LinkedIn email or an email. Or again, like I said, record a video. I have people that record videos and send them to me on LinkedIn—and I remember those people.” View the full article

Val Blair had climbed mountains to get to the pinnacle of her career. An accomplished marketing executive, she navigated high-pressure environments with a combination of dedication and discipline that set her apart from her peers. But in 2017, she was at the top of a different mountain. A real one. She was suddenly struck with vertigo. Instead of seeking help from those around her, she sat down and decided to wait it out. She’d figure out a way to get down on her own. “I sat there for an hour, thinking, ‘This is just going to be my life, and I’m not going down that mountain,’” she recalls. Finally, two women approached her and offered to help. At first, she declined. Then, they convinced her and carried her down the mountain, as tears streamed down her face, she says. “Looking back, I think the incident happened because I was at an internal breaking point between who I had been and who I was becoming,” she says. It was Blair’s first indication that the self-discipline she imposed on herself—insisting that she could do everything perfectly on her own—wasn’t healthy. In addition to the significant stress of her high-pressure job, she was also still carrying the grief of losing her partner five years earlier. She believes that her body was signaling that pushing through, no matter what she was feeling, was something that needed to change. When Control Goes Too Far Some high-performing colleagues seem to do everything just right. They’re controlled and committed. They collect achievements and optimize every moment. However, the very self-discipline and control that can spur achievement can also veer into negative territory. Overcontrol has been linked to chronic depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other issues. Licensed counseling and sports psychologist Blakely Low-Sampson sees this often in her work with executives and athletes. “Many high performers believe more discipline is better, and that often leads to burnout, exhaustion, and stalled performance,” she adds. Executive coach Brooke Taylor, author of Healing the Success Wound: Align Your Ambition, Find Lasting Career Fulfillment, and End the Cycle of Never-Enough, had a similar experience when she was a team lead at Google and found herself “really struggling with my relationship with my ambition and achievement and productivity,” she recalls. She felt burned out and was also in recovery from addiction. When Taylor tried to find literature to help, she found frameworks for issues like how to give feedback or better manage time. At the same time, she was getting sober and developing mindfulness practices. And she made the connection that, just as some people fill a void or feeling of emptiness in their lives (something Taylor calls “part of the human condition”) with alcohol, drugs, or other methods, “high-performers fill that with achievement, significance, productivity.” She also points to a 2023 study that linked effort with moral character, and that, in some settings, hard work is linked with morality, even when the effort is for its own sake and isn’t producing results. Taylor calls the void and drive to fill it with achievement the “success wound—which is the pain that comes from mistaking success, productivity, and achievement for self-worth.” The combination of rigidity in routine or goal pursuit veers into damaging perfectionism and not allowing for nonlinear progress, says executive leadership coach Allie Stark. “In reality, human behavior and habit formation are nonlinear and often winding. You might take two steps forward and one step back,” she says. Addressing excessive self-discipline As a high performer, you may begin to notice that you’re crossing the line into excessive self-discipline in your behavior, Stark says. “What that can feel like is a contraction in your body, a sense of overwhelm, anxiety, worry,” she says. An inability to be flexible or frequently getting angry or irritated with those around you may also be signs. Low-Sampson says psychological flexibility is necessary to keep overcontrol in check, calling it “one of the most predictive factors of peak performance.” In other words, self-discipline must be tempered by an awareness of thoughts, emotions, and sensations to mindfully discern the best approach in any given moment. So, when your self-discipline pushes you toward powering through, such self-awareness allows you to determine when you need rest, recovery, or other approaches to be most effective overall. In addition, high performers need to work on self-awareness and on understanding what it is that’s feeding their drive in order to ensure it’s healthy, Taylor says. Ask yourself questions like, “What am I using this self-discipline for?” and “What part of me is being expressed through that self-discipline?” “In my own life, if that comes from a place of fear, self-hatred, wanting to manage and control, then that’s how I know it’s gone too far,” she says. However, there are times when being highly disciplined and focused is healthy and can help you get to your goals. “That’s when it’s coming from a place of desire, creativity, inspiration, and something that I’m wanting to work toward.” For Blair, that mountaintop realization that she needed to include both others and self-care in her life was transformative. “I had self-discipline, but I wasn’t asking my team to come in and help me. I wasn’t asking to take a pause, maybe to walk around the block and to catch my breath,” she recalls. When she began to do those things—keeping the discipline she needed to achieve while also not being a soloist perfectionist—she found new strength. “Being mindful of high performance doesn’t mean we become soft,” she says. View the full article

Customer surveys play an important role in comprehending what your customers think and feel about your products and services. By utilizing specific survey samples, you can gather targeted insights that will help boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. From measuring overall experiences to evaluating website navigation, each question serves a purpose. Explore these ten vital survey samples to improve your feedback collection strategy and drive meaningful advancements in your business. What questions will you start with? Key Takeaways Include general satisfaction questions to assess overall customer experience and gather insights for improvement. Utilize industry-specific questions to gain targeted feedback relevant to your sector, enhancing understanding of customer needs. Implement customer support satisfaction metrics to evaluate responsiveness and resolution effectiveness, informing support strategy enhancement. Gather feedback on website and mobile app usability to identify navigation issues and improve user experience. Measure customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) regularly to track satisfaction levels and inform pricing and retention strategies. What Are Customer Satisfaction Surveys? Customer satisfaction surveys are vital tools that help businesses understand how well they meet customer expectations. These surveys are designed to measure customer happiness with products, services, or interactions, providing valuable feedback for improvement. By asking targeted questions, a customer survey sample can effectively gauge satisfaction levels and pinpoint areas needing improvement. Survey results samples can reveal important insights, such as customer sentiment, through CSAT scores. Higher scores indicate better customer experiences, which are fundamental for improving loyalty and retention. To maximize effectiveness, it’s best to send surveys shortly after major interactions, capturing immediate feedback. This approach not only strengthens the relevance of the data collected but additionally encourages customers to share their thoughts. In the end, an effective customer satisfaction survey leads to actionable insights that can greatly drive improvements, helping businesses better align with customer needs and expectations. General Satisfaction Questions When evaluating general satisfaction, you’ll want to analyze your overall experience and how it measures up to your expectations. Questions like “How satisfied are you with your experience today?” can provide valuable insights into both your contentment and any gaps between what you expected and what you received. Overall Experience Assessment How can businesses effectively measure their customers’ overall satisfaction? Overall experience assessment surveys are essential for gauging customer sentiment across various touchpoints. These surveys typically ask you to rate your satisfaction on a scale (like 1 to 10), providing insights into areas needing improvement. Here’s a simple table showcasing common questions you might encounter in such surveys: Question Rating Scale Purpose How satisfied are you with our service? 1 (Not Satisfied) to 10 (Very Satisfied) Assess overall service satisfaction Would you recommend us to others? Yes/No Gauge customer loyalty How well did we meet your expectations? 1 (Not at all) to 10 (Exceeded) Measure service delivery effectiveness How likely are you to return? 1 (Not Likely) to 10 (Very Likely) Understand repeat business potential How would you rate our communication? 1 (Poor) to 10 (Excellent) Evaluate interaction quality Regularly conducting these assessments nurtures a culture of continuous improvement. Expectations vs. Reality Evaluation Grasping the gap between customer expectations and actual experiences is crucial for businesses aiming to improve satisfaction levels. Conducting an expectations vs. reality evaluation can effectively gauge customer satisfaction by comparing anticipated service or product performance against what they actually experience. A typical general satisfaction question might be, “How did your experience with our product/service compare to your expectations?” Analyzing responses reveals discrepancies that contribute to dissatisfaction, allowing you to address specific concerns. Regular evaluations not just highlight trends in customer expectations but likewise inform necessary product or service improvements. This ongoing feedback process nurtures a culture of continuous improvement, eventually enhancing overall customer loyalty and ensuring your business meets or exceeds customer needs effectively. Industry-Specific Satisfaction Questions When you create customer surveys, industry-specific satisfaction questions are essential for gathering relevant feedback. In the banking sector, you might ask about online banking services or clarity of fees, whereas in hospitality, focusing on check-in experiences and room cleanliness can provide valuable insights. Tailoring your questions to these unique contexts not just enriches the data collected but additionally promotes a deeper comprehension of customer needs in each field. Banking Industry Insights In today’s banking environment, grasping customer satisfaction is vital for financial institutions aiming to improve their services and retain clients. To effectively measure satisfaction, banks should consider specific questions that align with customer experiences. Here are some key areas to focus on: How easy is it for you to navigate our online banking platform? Do you feel well-informed about the fees and terms associated with your accounts? How effectively does our bank help you achieve your financial goals? How likely are you to recommend our services to friends or family? Hospitality Experience Metrics Comprehending hospitality experience metrics is essential for Marriott and resorts aiming to improve guest satisfaction and loyalty. These metrics focus on key aspects like check-in efficiency, room cleanliness, and service quality, which directly impact retention rates. Surveys often include questions about the quality of amenities and interactions with staff, helping assess guests’ perceived value against the price paid. Furthermore, measuring satisfaction with dining experiences, such as food quality and service speed, provides insights to improve overall guest enjoyment. Tracking feedback on the booking process, including website usability, identifies pain points affecting conversion rates. Many hospitality surveys use a Net Promoter Score (NPS) approach to gauge guests’ likelihood of recommending services, a significant indicator of customer loyalty. Customer Support Satisfaction Questions How can businesses effectively gauge their customer support satisfaction? By asking targeted questions that focus on key aspects of the support experience, you can identify strengths and areas for improvement. Consider these important metrics: Rate the responsiveness of our customer service team on a scale of 1 to 5. How satisfied were you with the resolution of your inquiry? Can you share a positive experience you’d with customer service? How helpful did you find our self-service resources, like FAQs and support documentation? These questions not only reveal the effectiveness of your support team but also highlight what’s working well. Moreover, asking about customers’ likelihood to seek future assistance can provide insights into retention and loyalty strategies. By gathering this feedback, you can make informed decisions to improve the customer support experience. Website and Mobile App Satisfaction Questions Collecting customer feedback on website and mobile app satisfaction is vital for comprehending user experience and identifying areas for improvement. You can assess user satisfaction by focusing on ease of navigation, loading speed, and overall interface satisfaction. Common questions in this category include “How satisfied are you with the ease of navigation on our website?” and “How would you rate the speed of our mobile app?” These inquiries help pinpoint specific features, like the checkout process or search functionality, which can provide actionable insights. Surveys often use Likert scales, allowing you to express your satisfaction level on a range. This approach provides a more nuanced view of customer sentiment. Timing is significant; sending these satisfaction surveys shortly after your interaction with the website or app can yield more accurate and relevant feedback. By gathering this information, you can make informed decisions to improve your platform and better serve your users. Pricing and Value Satisfaction Questions When evaluating pricing and value satisfaction, you need to take into account how your customers perceive the worth of your product or service compared to its cost. Questions like “How satisfied are you with the value for money of our product?” can provide insights into their willingness to pay and how your prices stack up against competitors. Comprehending these factors can help you make informed pricing decisions that improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. Perceived Value Assessment Comprehending perceived value is essential for businesses aiming to align their pricing strategies with customer expectations. By evaluating how customers view the pricing of your products or services in relation to the benefits they receive, you can gain significant insights. Regularly asking customers about their satisfaction with pricing helps determine if they feel they’re getting fair value. Consider including questions like: “How would you rate the value for money of our product?” “Do you believe our prices reflect the quality of our service?” “What additional benefits would make our pricing more acceptable?” “Are you willing to pay more for improved service?” These inquiries can inform product development and marketing strategies, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and retention. Price Comparison Insights How do you gauge your pricing against competitors? Comprehending how customers perceive your pricing can markedly impact your business strategy. By conducting surveys focused on pricing, you can assess customer satisfaction with your current pricing structures. This feedback reveals whether customers feel they’re receiving adequate value for their money. Specific questions about perceived value and price sensitivity will help you gather actionable data to refine your pricing strategies. Analyzing this feedback can additionally uncover correlations between your price points and customer loyalty, which is crucial for developing effective loyalty programs or promotional strategies. In the end, these insights enable you to identify areas for adjustment, ensuring competitive pricing that aligns with customer expectations and improves profit margins. Willingness to Pay Comprehending customer perceptions of value is pivotal for setting effective pricing strategies. Grasping your customers’ willingness to pay helps you establish competitive pricing that resonates with their expectations, ultimately enhancing your revenue potential. Surveys focused on pricing and value satisfaction can reveal important insights about price sensitivity, allowing you to adjust product offerings or pricing models accordingly. Here are some key considerations for your willingness-to-pay surveys: Gauge how much customers value specific features or services. Compare perceived value against actual pricing. Identify customer segments for tiered pricing strategies. Optimize pricing models to boost customer satisfaction and retention. Measuring Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) What metrics do you use to gauge customer satisfaction? One widely recognized metric is the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, product, or service. Typically, CSAT is represented on a scale from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. To capture real-time feedback, businesses often deploy CSAT surveys immediately following a customer interaction. A high CSAT score indicates strong customer satisfaction and is usually linked to increased customer loyalty and repeat purchases. To be considered successful in meeting customer expectations, businesses should aim for a CSAT score of 80% or higher, based on industry benchmarks. Including follow-up questions in your CSAT surveys, like “What made you feel that way?”, can provide deeper insights into customer experiences and highlight areas for improvement, making it an effective tool for enhancing overall service quality. Best Practices for Creating Effective Surveys Creating effective surveys is essential for gathering valuable insights, and it starts with a clear comprehension of your survey’s objective. By defining this objective, you guarantee all questions are relevant, enhancing data quality and engagement. Here are some best practices to take into account: Use neutral wording to avoid bias, allowing for accurate feedback. Keep questions simple and direct to prevent confusion and improve completion rates. Incorporate various question formats, like Likert scales and multiple-choice, to capture a wide range of insights. Test your questions for clarity and effectiveness before distribution to verify they elicit the desired information. Examples of Customer Feedback Questions Gathering customer feedback requires asking the right questions that can yield valuable insights into their experiences and perceptions. You can assess customer satisfaction levels by using key metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES). Effective questions include, “What do you like most about our product/service?” and “What challenges are you trying to solve?” These open-ended queries encourage customers to provide specific insights. Furthermore, consider asking, “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” to gauge loyalty and identify potential brand advocates. Mixing closed-ended and open-ended questions improves the richness of your data, allowing for a thorough analysis. For instance, you might likewise include, “Is there anything you’d like to add?” This combination of quantitative metrics and qualitative insights helps you understand your customers better and improve your offerings. Free Online Customer Satisfaction Survey Templates When you’re looking to improve your customer feedback process, free online customer satisfaction survey templates can be an invaluable resource. These templates provide a quick and efficient way to gather valuable feedback, enhancing the survey design process. You can customize them to fit your specific needs, ensuring relevant data collection that aligns with your objectives. By using certified templates, you save time creating surveys from scratch, allowing you to focus on analyzing results instead. Here are some benefits of using these templates: User-friendly interfaces make it easy for anyone to create and distribute surveys. Pre-designed structures can greatly improve response rates by engaging customers effectively. Customizable questions help you gather targeted feedback specific to your business. Time-saving features let you streamline your feedback process without sacrificing quality. Utilizing these templates can lead to better insights and more informed decisions for your business. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Good Survey Questions for Customers? Good survey questions for customers should be clear and specific, focusing on your survey’s objective. Use neutral language to avoid leading respondents, ensuring you gather unbiased feedback. Incorporating various formats like multiple-choice, Likert scales, and open-ended questions can improve engagement and provide deeper insights. Timing matters too; sending surveys shortly after customer interactions can boost response rates. Finally, analyze the results systematically to identify trends that can inform your business decisions. What Are 5 Good Survey Questions? To create effective survey questions, consider these five examples: 1) On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with our service? 2) What features do you value most in our product? 3) How likely are you to recommend us to a friend? 4) What improvements would you suggest? 5) How often do you use our service? These questions are clear, unbiased, and designed to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback effectively. Can You Think of Examples of Surveys in Your World Today? In your daily life, you encounter various types of surveys. For instance, after dining at a restaurant, you might receive a feedback survey about your experience. Similarly, online retailers often send post-purchase surveys to assess delivery speed and product satisfaction. Event organizers frequently use surveys to gather attendee opinions, whereas Microsoft conduct usability testing surveys to improve user experience. Each of these surveys aims to collect valuable insights for future improvements. What Are Some Good Customer Service Questions to Ask? To improve customer service, consider asking questions that evaluate key areas. You can ask, “On a scale of 1 to 5, how responsive was our team?” This helps measure performance. Additionally, include open-ended questions like, “What could we do to improve your experience?” These provide valuable insights. Finally, inquire about self-service resources by asking, “How helpful did you find our FAQs?” This feedback identifies gaps and aids in enhancing customer support. Conclusion In summary, customer satisfaction surveys are crucial tools for comprehending and improving customer experiences. By utilizing the ten sample questions outlined, you can effectively gather valuable insights into various aspects of your service and product offerings. Implementing best practices in survey design will improve the quality of feedback received. Remember, continuous improvement based on customer input not just boosts satisfaction but also nurtures loyalty, finally contributing to your organization’s success in a competitive market. Image via Google Gemini This article, "10 Essential Customer Survey Samples You Can Use Today" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Customer surveys play an important role in comprehending what your customers think and feel about your products and services. By utilizing specific survey samples, you can gather targeted insights that will help boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. From measuring overall experiences to evaluating website navigation, each question serves a purpose. Explore these ten vital survey samples to improve your feedback collection strategy and drive meaningful advancements in your business. What questions will you start with? Key Takeaways Include general satisfaction questions to assess overall customer experience and gather insights for improvement. Utilize industry-specific questions to gain targeted feedback relevant to your sector, enhancing understanding of customer needs. Implement customer support satisfaction metrics to evaluate responsiveness and resolution effectiveness, informing support strategy enhancement. Gather feedback on website and mobile app usability to identify navigation issues and improve user experience. Measure customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) regularly to track satisfaction levels and inform pricing and retention strategies. What Are Customer Satisfaction Surveys? Customer satisfaction surveys are vital tools that help businesses understand how well they meet customer expectations. These surveys are designed to measure customer happiness with products, services, or interactions, providing valuable feedback for improvement. By asking targeted questions, a customer survey sample can effectively gauge satisfaction levels and pinpoint areas needing improvement. Survey results samples can reveal important insights, such as customer sentiment, through CSAT scores. Higher scores indicate better customer experiences, which are fundamental for improving loyalty and retention. To maximize effectiveness, it’s best to send surveys shortly after major interactions, capturing immediate feedback. This approach not only strengthens the relevance of the data collected but additionally encourages customers to share their thoughts. In the end, an effective customer satisfaction survey leads to actionable insights that can greatly drive improvements, helping businesses better align with customer needs and expectations. General Satisfaction Questions When evaluating general satisfaction, you’ll want to analyze your overall experience and how it measures up to your expectations. Questions like “How satisfied are you with your experience today?” can provide valuable insights into both your contentment and any gaps between what you expected and what you received. Overall Experience Assessment How can businesses effectively measure their customers’ overall satisfaction? Overall experience assessment surveys are essential for gauging customer sentiment across various touchpoints. These surveys typically ask you to rate your satisfaction on a scale (like 1 to 10), providing insights into areas needing improvement. Here’s a simple table showcasing common questions you might encounter in such surveys: Question Rating Scale Purpose How satisfied are you with our service? 1 (Not Satisfied) to 10 (Very Satisfied) Assess overall service satisfaction Would you recommend us to others? Yes/No Gauge customer loyalty How well did we meet your expectations? 1 (Not at all) to 10 (Exceeded) Measure service delivery effectiveness How likely are you to return? 1 (Not Likely) to 10 (Very Likely) Understand repeat business potential How would you rate our communication? 1 (Poor) to 10 (Excellent) Evaluate interaction quality Regularly conducting these assessments nurtures a culture of continuous improvement. Expectations vs. Reality Evaluation Grasping the gap between customer expectations and actual experiences is crucial for businesses aiming to improve satisfaction levels. Conducting an expectations vs. reality evaluation can effectively gauge customer satisfaction by comparing anticipated service or product performance against what they actually experience. A typical general satisfaction question might be, “How did your experience with our product/service compare to your expectations?” Analyzing responses reveals discrepancies that contribute to dissatisfaction, allowing you to address specific concerns. Regular evaluations not just highlight trends in customer expectations but likewise inform necessary product or service improvements. This ongoing feedback process nurtures a culture of continuous improvement, eventually enhancing overall customer loyalty and ensuring your business meets or exceeds customer needs effectively. Industry-Specific Satisfaction Questions When you create customer surveys, industry-specific satisfaction questions are essential for gathering relevant feedback. In the banking sector, you might ask about online banking services or clarity of fees, whereas in hospitality, focusing on check-in experiences and room cleanliness can provide valuable insights. Tailoring your questions to these unique contexts not just enriches the data collected but additionally promotes a deeper comprehension of customer needs in each field. Banking Industry Insights In today’s banking environment, grasping customer satisfaction is vital for financial institutions aiming to improve their services and retain clients. To effectively measure satisfaction, banks should consider specific questions that align with customer experiences. Here are some key areas to focus on: How easy is it for you to navigate our online banking platform? Do you feel well-informed about the fees and terms associated with your accounts? How effectively does our bank help you achieve your financial goals? How likely are you to recommend our services to friends or family? Hospitality Experience Metrics Comprehending hospitality experience metrics is essential for Marriott and resorts aiming to improve guest satisfaction and loyalty. These metrics focus on key aspects like check-in efficiency, room cleanliness, and service quality, which directly impact retention rates. Surveys often include questions about the quality of amenities and interactions with staff, helping assess guests’ perceived value against the price paid. Furthermore, measuring satisfaction with dining experiences, such as food quality and service speed, provides insights to improve overall guest enjoyment. Tracking feedback on the booking process, including website usability, identifies pain points affecting conversion rates. Many hospitality surveys use a Net Promoter Score (NPS) approach to gauge guests’ likelihood of recommending services, a significant indicator of customer loyalty. Customer Support Satisfaction Questions How can businesses effectively gauge their customer support satisfaction? By asking targeted questions that focus on key aspects of the support experience, you can identify strengths and areas for improvement. Consider these important metrics: Rate the responsiveness of our customer service team on a scale of 1 to 5. How satisfied were you with the resolution of your inquiry? Can you share a positive experience you’d with customer service? How helpful did you find our self-service resources, like FAQs and support documentation? These questions not only reveal the effectiveness of your support team but also highlight what’s working well. Moreover, asking about customers’ likelihood to seek future assistance can provide insights into retention and loyalty strategies. By gathering this feedback, you can make informed decisions to improve the customer support experience. Website and Mobile App Satisfaction Questions Collecting customer feedback on website and mobile app satisfaction is vital for comprehending user experience and identifying areas for improvement. You can assess user satisfaction by focusing on ease of navigation, loading speed, and overall interface satisfaction. Common questions in this category include “How satisfied are you with the ease of navigation on our website?” and “How would you rate the speed of our mobile app?” These inquiries help pinpoint specific features, like the checkout process or search functionality, which can provide actionable insights. Surveys often use Likert scales, allowing you to express your satisfaction level on a range. This approach provides a more nuanced view of customer sentiment. Timing is significant; sending these satisfaction surveys shortly after your interaction with the website or app can yield more accurate and relevant feedback. By gathering this information, you can make informed decisions to improve your platform and better serve your users. Pricing and Value Satisfaction Questions When evaluating pricing and value satisfaction, you need to take into account how your customers perceive the worth of your product or service compared to its cost. Questions like “How satisfied are you with the value for money of our product?” can provide insights into their willingness to pay and how your prices stack up against competitors. Comprehending these factors can help you make informed pricing decisions that improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. Perceived Value Assessment Comprehending perceived value is essential for businesses aiming to align their pricing strategies with customer expectations. By evaluating how customers view the pricing of your products or services in relation to the benefits they receive, you can gain significant insights. Regularly asking customers about their satisfaction with pricing helps determine if they feel they’re getting fair value. Consider including questions like: “How would you rate the value for money of our product?” “Do you believe our prices reflect the quality of our service?” “What additional benefits would make our pricing more acceptable?” “Are you willing to pay more for improved service?” These inquiries can inform product development and marketing strategies, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and retention. Price Comparison Insights How do you gauge your pricing against competitors? Comprehending how customers perceive your pricing can markedly impact your business strategy. By conducting surveys focused on pricing, you can assess customer satisfaction with your current pricing structures. This feedback reveals whether customers feel they’re receiving adequate value for their money. Specific questions about perceived value and price sensitivity will help you gather actionable data to refine your pricing strategies. Analyzing this feedback can additionally uncover correlations between your price points and customer loyalty, which is crucial for developing effective loyalty programs or promotional strategies. In the end, these insights enable you to identify areas for adjustment, ensuring competitive pricing that aligns with customer expectations and improves profit margins. Willingness to Pay Comprehending customer perceptions of value is pivotal for setting effective pricing strategies. Grasping your customers’ willingness to pay helps you establish competitive pricing that resonates with their expectations, ultimately enhancing your revenue potential. Surveys focused on pricing and value satisfaction can reveal important insights about price sensitivity, allowing you to adjust product offerings or pricing models accordingly. Here are some key considerations for your willingness-to-pay surveys: Gauge how much customers value specific features or services. Compare perceived value against actual pricing. Identify customer segments for tiered pricing strategies. Optimize pricing models to boost customer satisfaction and retention. Measuring Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) What metrics do you use to gauge customer satisfaction? One widely recognized metric is the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, product, or service. Typically, CSAT is represented on a scale from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. To capture real-time feedback, businesses often deploy CSAT surveys immediately following a customer interaction. A high CSAT score indicates strong customer satisfaction and is usually linked to increased customer loyalty and repeat purchases. To be considered successful in meeting customer expectations, businesses should aim for a CSAT score of 80% or higher, based on industry benchmarks. Including follow-up questions in your CSAT surveys, like “What made you feel that way?”, can provide deeper insights into customer experiences and highlight areas for improvement, making it an effective tool for enhancing overall service quality. Best Practices for Creating Effective Surveys Creating effective surveys is essential for gathering valuable insights, and it starts with a clear comprehension of your survey’s objective. By defining this objective, you guarantee all questions are relevant, enhancing data quality and engagement. Here are some best practices to take into account: Use neutral wording to avoid bias, allowing for accurate feedback. Keep questions simple and direct to prevent confusion and improve completion rates. Incorporate various question formats, like Likert scales and multiple-choice, to capture a wide range of insights. Test your questions for clarity and effectiveness before distribution to verify they elicit the desired information. Examples of Customer Feedback Questions Gathering customer feedback requires asking the right questions that can yield valuable insights into their experiences and perceptions. You can assess customer satisfaction levels by using key metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES). Effective questions include, “What do you like most about our product/service?” and “What challenges are you trying to solve?” These open-ended queries encourage customers to provide specific insights. Furthermore, consider asking, “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” to gauge loyalty and identify potential brand advocates. Mixing closed-ended and open-ended questions improves the richness of your data, allowing for a thorough analysis. For instance, you might likewise include, “Is there anything you’d like to add?” This combination of quantitative metrics and qualitative insights helps you understand your customers better and improve your offerings. Free Online Customer Satisfaction Survey Templates When you’re looking to improve your customer feedback process, free online customer satisfaction survey templates can be an invaluable resource. These templates provide a quick and efficient way to gather valuable feedback, enhancing the survey design process. You can customize them to fit your specific needs, ensuring relevant data collection that aligns with your objectives. By using certified templates, you save time creating surveys from scratch, allowing you to focus on analyzing results instead. Here are some benefits of using these templates: User-friendly interfaces make it easy for anyone to create and distribute surveys. Pre-designed structures can greatly improve response rates by engaging customers effectively. Customizable questions help you gather targeted feedback specific to your business. Time-saving features let you streamline your feedback process without sacrificing quality. Utilizing these templates can lead to better insights and more informed decisions for your business. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Good Survey Questions for Customers? Good survey questions for customers should be clear and specific, focusing on your survey’s objective. Use neutral language to avoid leading respondents, ensuring you gather unbiased feedback. Incorporating various formats like multiple-choice, Likert scales, and open-ended questions can improve engagement and provide deeper insights. Timing matters too; sending surveys shortly after customer interactions can boost response rates. Finally, analyze the results systematically to identify trends that can inform your business decisions. What Are 5 Good Survey Questions? To create effective survey questions, consider these five examples: 1) On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with our service? 2) What features do you value most in our product? 3) How likely are you to recommend us to a friend? 4) What improvements would you suggest? 5) How often do you use our service? These questions are clear, unbiased, and designed to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback effectively. Can You Think of Examples of Surveys in Your World Today? In your daily life, you encounter various types of surveys. For instance, after dining at a restaurant, you might receive a feedback survey about your experience. Similarly, online retailers often send post-purchase surveys to assess delivery speed and product satisfaction. Event organizers frequently use surveys to gather attendee opinions, whereas Microsoft conduct usability testing surveys to improve user experience. Each of these surveys aims to collect valuable insights for future improvements. What Are Some Good Customer Service Questions to Ask? To improve customer service, consider asking questions that evaluate key areas. You can ask, “On a scale of 1 to 5, how responsive was our team?” This helps measure performance. Additionally, include open-ended questions like, “What could we do to improve your experience?” These provide valuable insights. Finally, inquire about self-service resources by asking, “How helpful did you find our FAQs?” This feedback identifies gaps and aids in enhancing customer support. Conclusion In summary, customer satisfaction surveys are crucial tools for comprehending and improving customer experiences. By utilizing the ten sample questions outlined, you can effectively gather valuable insights into various aspects of your service and product offerings. Implementing best practices in survey design will improve the quality of feedback received. Remember, continuous improvement based on customer input not just boosts satisfaction but also nurtures loyalty, finally contributing to your organization’s success in a competitive market. Image via Google Gemini This article, "10 Essential Customer Survey Samples You Can Use Today" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. HR wants me to give someone a bad review they don’t deserve, to cover up HR’s own mistake I am a manager for a small team of engineers. One of my direct reports was given a new role that was supposed to come with a promotion and pay bump this year. It turned out that our local HR did not have the authority to actually increase his payband and rebranded the new role as a “lateral move.” Now reviews are due, and I am being told to artificially give another person on my team a bad review so that we can give a larger raise to the person who took on a new role. It feels really bad and unethical to do this. Especially since this is all due to local HR making promises that they couldn’t keep. I am looking for any advice on how to proceed. Whoa, yeah, that’s awful. It’s bad enough that they promised someone a raise that they can’t deliver on, but now they want you to give a bad review to someone who doesn’t deserve one so they can try to cover for their own mistake? You should refuse to give the bad review. Say this: “I can’t ethically give someone a bad review that they don’t deserve. If there’s not enough raise money to go around, I can work with you to figure out the messaging on that, but I can’t give someone a bad review when they’ve performed well. Given that, how should we proceed with the dividing the salary increases?” If they keep pushing you, you should escalate this over their heads. 2. Company is cutting retirement benefits while giving extra money to employees’ kids As you may know, starting in July parents and guardians will be able to open a new type of individual retirement account for kids under age 18 (the the 530A account); individuals and employers can contribute up to a total of $5,000 per child per year. The Big Boss at our company announced that the company will contribute several hundred dollars per child for those born in a four-year time span (2025-2028) to full-time employees. That’s great! We are a very large company with a fairly young demographic. However, we are also flush with middle-aged employees and no small amount of much older employees … and those older employees got dinged at least twice when the company stopped 401K matching and then brought the match back at a significantly lower level. When I asked HR about the match reduction equating to a reduction in compensation (along with increased insurance premiums and very reduced benefits; the company is self-insured) I was essentially told that’s just how it is. We have also previously been given half-days off prior to certain holidays, adding up to three days, but they stopped that practice this year. I asked HR if we would receive additional compensation for that time and was told no. We’re constantly told how the company is struggling and how we need to work harder, smarter while they cut back tangible benefits. And while I think working parents need all the help they can get, the contribution to these accounts for a select few without making comparable contributions to our 401K seems off balance. Your thoughts? I’d have no problem with this if they hadn’t cut benefits for everyone, while then adding a new benefit that only goes to people with kids. Cutting contributions to retirement accounts for employees while investing money in employees’ kids’ retirement accounts — and increasing insurance premiums across the board — is not good. I don’t know that I’d lump the canceled half-days for holidays in there, but it’s understandable that taken all together, it feels awfully tone-deaf for them to be adding a new benefit that goes to non-employees while shortchanging their actual employees. 3. Conference attendee told me I looked “bored” I work for an organization that runs a conference for a few hundred people each year. I play a variety of roles, from doing social media at the event, to running session logistics, to doing tech during conference-wise keynotes, etc. This year, the tech table with the laptop and soundboard were fairly near one of the projection screens. During one 90-minute event, I ran the Powerpoint, answered questions on my phone, and posted about the conference, all at the same time. It went off flawlessly, which was a huge relief because it takes a lot of planning. Lo and behold, a conference attendee came up to me afterwards and told me how “bored I looked.” Um, okay? I’m a woman, so, is he essentially calling me out for having resting bitch face? I spent the rest of the conference extremely self-conscious about how my face looked, which was exhausting. In the moment, I just politely laughed it off, which I feel like made him feel like he was right to say something. But this is also a rare instance that I have way more organization capital than this person, who is a partner but not an employee. What could have been a better response in the moment that stood up for myself and got him to back off? “Nope, just really focused on running the program.” Far too many men love to give women unsolicited input when they have no standing to offer it. Men, y’all need to cut this out. 4. Should I be offended by the ad for the job I’m leaving? I work in an agency setting in public relations. I have consistently received positive reviews for my client work and have been promoted twice since I started seven years ago, but I haven’t been as successful with new business development, which is a prerequisite for my next promotion. I started job searching late last year and was just offered a job at a company where new business development is not a requirement for bonuses or advancement, so I gave my notice this week. Yesterday our HR posted a job listing for my replacement and asked for me to share it if I knew of any good candidates. My eyes popped out of my head a little bit when it said they were looking for someone with 2-5 years experience. Does it reflect badly on me that they think they can replace me today with someone who has even less experience than I did when I joined the firm seven years ago? If so, I don’t want to share it, obviously. I have a handoff meeting next week with HR and would like to be able to respectfully address it if it is a reputational problem for me. It’s not an insult to you. It could be that they’re switching up the role a bit and have reasons for wanting to bring someone in at a more junior level, or they could be ignorant about what it takes to perform well in the job, or they could be open to a wide range of candidates and that’s the minimum experience they’re looking for but not necessarily what the successful person will end up having. You can certainly offer your feedback about their hiring plan, framed as, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is the profile of candidates who will be well-suited for the work; you’re likely to need some with more experience because of ___.” But avoid seeing it as a reflection on you; it’s more likely just HR being HR, in any of the ways described above. And of course, you’re under no obligation to circulate the job description; that would be a favor to them regardless, and you can simply decline to. The post HR wants me to give someone a bad review they don’t deserve, conference attendee told me I looked “bored,” and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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