For answers to questions like that, you need to put in some hard yards and engage with real customers. Pretending that data has all the answers is, of course, easier.

Mysteries every day

My recent podcast guest, Tessa Stuart, dives into that exact mystery almost every day. She works in the food and drink retail space, helping brands to decode customer behaviour and gain insight into their perception. She has to ‘go native’, too. As she says herself, if customers see a clipboard, they run a mile. So, she has to be respectful, engaging and maybe a little cunning to get at mindsets behind the metrics and bring the numbers to life.

She calls herself ‘The Shopper Stalker’, and she helps companies transform they present themselves to customers when it matters most – at the point of purchase.

Food for thought

There’s plenty of food for thought (pun intended) for other types of business, too. It’s rare that clients don’t have a choice, and there are critical moments that tell you much more than whether they clicked or purchased. So, I summarised the 19 things that Tessa highlighted in the podcast.

1. Why customers make the choices they do. Sales data shows what sold but not why it was chosen over something else.

2. What customers almost bought but didn’t. Hesitation, browsing or abandonment of a selection isn’t captured in sales data.

3. How shoppers navigate your category. In Tessa’s world, that’s all about being considered on the shelf among similar products. In B2B marketing, that’s all about what happens when people review a shortlist with your company on it.

4. What catches a shopper’s eye. You can’t tell what packaging or presentation elements are working to attract attention.

5. How shoppers emotionally react to your brand. Laughter, confusion, curiosity and delight don’t show up in your spreadsheets.

6. How your product performs against competitors in real-time. What is your potential customer thinking when they’re comparing options?

7. Why people don’t buy your product. Price concerns, guilt, brand confusion or lack of trust won’t appear in sales reports.

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8. What messages do consumers actually notice. Your core benefit might be missed entirely if it isn’t visually obvious. Marketers often assume that customers study their product and marketing in detail, but they frequently don’t. So, what messages are getting through?

9. Which competitor’s products are stealing your sales. Where did the sale go instead? Are they buying like-for-like, or are customers looking for features you don’t offer or the solution to a problem you don’t solve (or reference)?

10. How shoppers talk about your brand in their own words. We know our products intimately, but how do customers and clients understand them, and how do they fit into their lives or jobs? Sales data doesn’t capture emotional language or consumer storytelling.

11. How the store environment changes behaviour. Mood, lighting, layout, and timing all significantly influence purchasing decisions. How does when and where (or through what channel) your client or customer arrives impact your likelihood of a sale?

12. Does your actual shopper match your ideal target. Are you actually appealing to the types of customers you’re targeting? It’s hard to validate buyer personas with direct interaction.

13. What unmet needs exist in your category. Sales data is like looking in the rear-view mirror. Nothing wrong with that, but it won’t unearth desires for new formats, flavours or benefits.

14. How loyal or occasional your buyers really are. Patterns may not reflect true sentiment or intent.

15. How well your product communicates its purpose. Critical info may be overlooked if it’s not clear at a glance.

16. How category disruptors are reshaping expectations. Emerging brands or competitors may be shifting perception faster than sales show. What are they going to choose next time?

17. What delights or frustrates shoppers. Packaging that sparks joy or causes confusion is invisible to data. Not all sales are equal (in some senses). Are you attracting fans, not just customers?

18. How consumers interpret buzzwords. Shoppers may misunderstand or disregard claims, leading to misplaced trust or rejection. In the supermarket, terms such as ‘plant-based’ or ‘sustainable’ may be used. I’m sure you can think of numerous examples in your field.

19. What barriers exist to trial or switching. Do customers feel it would be difficult to change suppliers? Any emotional, ethical, social or other concerns that make them loyal or reluctant aren’t evident in your purchase history.

To find out how Tessa uncovers the why behind the what. Check out the full podcast.

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My name is Stephen Morris. I help put the problems your customers and prospects care about at the heart of your marketing so it matters and creates opportunities. If you’d like to know more, book a discovery call or ask me a question.

Of course, I only know it’s called Maslow’s hammer or ‘the law of the instrument’ because I asked ChatGPT about it (“What’s it called when things are good at what they’re good at?”).

When you’re a hammer…

In a moment of self-mocking, I then asked ChatGPT, ‘What did the Luddites ever do for us?’

Brilliantly, after complimenting me on the question (nice touch), it pointed out that the Luddites weren’t people who hated technology, but rather, they were skilled workers who “protested specific uses of new machinery”. Apparently, they pointed out the problems of innovations such as ‘stocking frames’. This particular innovation allowed mill owners to produce hosiery much faster. The Luddites’ issue was that the products were of lower quality and paid workers less, as the owners could employ unskilled workers and children.

ChatGPT wraps all this up rather neatly: “They [the Luddites] fought bad management of technology, not technology itself.”

Of course, the machines improved in time and, I imagine, eventually turned out hosiery of a better quality. I would also imagine that it has led to a significant premium on high-quality, handmade stockings. (I don’t know that from personal experience, of course.)

The victors of history have, however, reduced the Luddites to protesters opposed to new technology.

Is it optimism bias?

AI is good at what it’s good at. Of course, that’s true of everything, isn’t it? Myself included.

I don’t think it’s how AI is being presented, though. Perhaps that’s because there are share prices and multiples riding on it? Or maybe it’s because of (checks with ChatGPT) optimism bias.

It’s the same with data, software, best practices, or any tool or model. They’re good at what they’re good at. You need to be aware of the blind spots and check the output, especially if you’re seeking competitive advantage.

Answers + Curiosity = Understanding

The latest Curious Business podcast touches on this topic. I interviewed Tessa Stuart, a point of purchase researcher - aka The Shopper Stalker. She describes how she fills in the gaps in sales data with rich, focused in-store research. She adds an understanding of why people buy to the outline data creates. What she’s observed and learned is also transferrable to other customer scenarios. There is a lot of food for thought (pun intended).

Like AI, data is good at telling us what happened and how often. It also tends to come with a degree of certainty and self-confidence. But it doesn’t tell us why or what they were thinking. Likewise, it doesn’t tell us why people didn’t buy, what they considered as alternatives or what they bought from someone else instead.

Listen to What Data Doesn’t Tell Us with Tessa Stuart now.

I recently interviewed employee advocacy (EA) expert Andrew Seel for the Curious Business podcast. He explained how organisations can encourage employees to post about them on social media. In a world where authority and attention are essential, there are sound reasons for gaining this type of exposure.

We had a very engaging chat, and Andrew highlighted how his career had led to this role. Starting as a Travel Editor at AOL before starting web and social media agencies, his passion has always been humanising the internet and building communities.

The penny drops

Among the many lessons and insights in the interview is a great, big obvious doozy. You can hear my response when the penny drops about 11 minutes in. Andrew has learned that if you want to encourage your employees to talk about your business and, ultimately, start business conversations and create opportunities, you need to focus on what's in it for them. To that end, Andrew's agency – Togethr – effectively trains and supports employees so they feel comfortable posting and can do it better. It gives them a skill and helps them in their career, raising their own profile while, of course, raising that of their employer.

Whether we call it empathy, emotional intelligence or just good positioning, it's crucial to consider that your audience will want an answer one the key question:

What’s in it for me?

Andrew highlights that, firstly, rewards and incentives tend not to work, especially in the longer term. They often encourage the wrong behaviour and reduce the authenticity of activity, even encouraging people to set up fake profiles and so forth. Secondly, he recommends that you don't try to get everyone in the organisation to participate. Instead, focus on those already active and those who just need a push. These people don't need incentives to motivate them; they value support and professional growth.

Finding the motivation

This approach creates a win-win situation where the employee's growth aligns with the company's. Homing in on those people and structuring an employee advocacy programme in this way puts the focus on authenticity and meaning. It helps organisations create genuine engagement. Focusing on what people want from their participation is a crucial step. It's the same reason I obsess over putting the problems that prospects are wrestling with at the heart of marketing and content (rather than just presenting them with a menu of products or services).

In the podcast, Andrew also shares his insights and experiences of…

• How EA benefits marketing, sales, recruitment *and* employees

• The best ways to encourage, motivate and help people participate

• Togethr's step-by-step guide to establishing employee advocacy and their ten-level advocacy scale

• Some of the unexpected benefits of writing and posting on LinkedIn.

Listen to the full interview at podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk (or search for “Curious Business” wherever you get your podcasts).

Find out more about Togethr at www.wearetogethr.io.

The word occurred to me as I thought about how important intuition is to me. I then reflected on people I’ve met who seem to have a deficit of it, which made me wonder what the opposite of intuition is. And so Untuition was coined.

Time to Focus or Time to Explore?

Initially, I was thinking about people who don’t (seem to) reflect on - or look for - the bigger picture or alternative possibilities in a situation. Of course, sometimes we need to laser focus and do some completer-finishing. In the past, I might have pointed to a lack of curiosity or critical thinking. Maybe it’s borne of an over-reliance on ‘best practice’ or pre-determined responses, rather than ‘trusting one’s gut’ or looking for different solutions.

Today, though, untuition might also refer to the gradual erosion of our ability to trust our instincts — a byproduct of outsourcing too much of our decision-making to data, algorithms, and external validation. I’m not against the use of data, obviously. That would be ridiculous. Facts, measurements, and outcomes are the point of much of what we do. I’m wary, though, of imbalance: when the scales tip too far away from the wisdom in our gut.

The Illusion of Certainty

Whether it’s Spotify recommendations, Chat GPT or other peoples’ sales forecasts, AI and data models are increasingly embedded in our lives. They can help us optimise, predict, and streamline. They remove uncertainty — or rather, can create the illusion that we have removed uncertainty.

Note how unequivocal ChatGPT can be - until you point out something that is categorically incorrect in its output. The quieter, more nuanced voice of the gut could easily be drowned out.

In business, this tension is especially palpable. The Great Founders of Legend would make moves based on hunches, vision, or what “felt right.” Now, decisions are expected to be data-backed — every pivot justified by a chart, every innovation A/B tested. While data can reveal patterns, it rarely tells the whole story and is, naturally, skewed to what happened (in the past). It’s not such a great guide when we want to create something new. Furthermore, data doesn’t tell you why a situation is as it is, or explain why people have made the choices they have. It just tells you what those choices or actions are.

Sometimes, your gut knows something your metrics haven’t caught up to yet.

When Intuition Matters Most

Intuition isn’t magic. It’s the synthesis of experience, pattern recognition, and emotion. Sometimes it happens in real time, often it’s a process that goes on in the background of your thoughts.

It’s what helps a seasoned negotiator sense that something is. off in a deal, or makes a designer feel when a product isn’t quite right — even if users haven’t complained (yet). It’s what flags up the fact that we’re looking at the wrong problem, not taking a broad enough perspective, making unjustified assumptions about cause and effect, or not looking for ways to change the game rather than just tweak the details.

In moments of uncertainty or novelty — when past data isn’t enough to predict the future — intuition becomes not just useful, but essential. It gives us the courage to take leaps that logic alone might veto.

Untuition creeps in quietly. It shows up when we over-rely on what can be measured, and undervalue what can’t. It’s the paralysis that comes from conflicting inputs. It’s the analysis fatigue or overwhelm that causes us to ignore our gut, not because it’s wrong, but because it’s unverifiable.

Trust, But Verify Too

This isn’t a call to abandon data or AI, but to (re)calibrate our relationship with it. Data should inform, not dictate. AI should assist our thinking and analysis, not replace them. And intuition should be treated as a valid — if complex — form of intelligence.

Here are a few ways to guard against untuition:

• Research widely and seek out diverse inputs. You need to be ready to see things differently.

• Create space for reflection. Insight usually arrives in stillness, not in spreadsheets.

• Ask what the data isn’t telling you. Every model has blind spots. What’s missing?

• Listen for the “yes, but…” moments. When your gut protests despite good-looking numbers, that friction deserves investigation.

Asking the Right Questions

As we move deeper into a world shaped by AI, the most effective leaders and practitioners won’t just be data-savvy — they’ll be deeply intuitive. They’ll know when to trust the model and when to go off-script. They’ll recognise that while data is great at answering questions, intuition is often what helps us ask the right ones.

Perhaps the biggest misstep in B2B marketing - IMHO, of course - is 'menu marketing'. By that, I mean presenting 'our products and services' and describing 'what you do' on your website or in your collateral, rather than framing all that in terms of the problems you solve (or opportunities you create).

Why is it a misstep? Because it's the equivalent of a salesperson encountering a prospect, whipping out a menu and saying, 'Which one of these do you want to buy?'

How conversations start

With no reference, relevance or interest in why the prospect might need your products or services, you wouldn't expect to start many successful business relationships. Marketing that is, effectively, just 'talking about yourself' doesn’t engage people. However, there's another fundamental reason to make your marketing about your prospects and their problems. It makes it easier for them to understand your products and services and, ultimately, easier to buy from you.

This point was reinforced when I listened to the Uncensored CMO podcast's interview with Yum! Brands global CMO Ken Muench. Now, I'm really focused on B2B - ie. helping service and consultancy-led businesses to stand out and create opportunities to serve other companies. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from how consumer businesses engage customers.

Make it easier

Yum! Brands encompasses Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. At first glance, you wouldn't imagine marketing fast food, sorry, Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs) has much relevance to B2B services, consultancy and expertise. However, it quickly becomes apparent that there is.

Muench shares that the most impactful marketing strategy in the QSR playbook is to make eating at their restaurants as easy as possible. Despite investing significantly in branding, promotion and influence, making the relatively mundane things easier far outweighs anything else when it comes to increasing sales. Improving the ability to order, choose and pay is a far better investment than creating cultural relevance or trying to raise awareness.

Make it understandable

The same phenomenon is visible at Yum! Brands, when it comes to launching new products, something that QSRs do a lot. Muench's experience is that successful innovations balance familiarity and novelty, recounting the launch of 'Naked Chicken Chips' at Taco Bell. This slightly odd-sounding product was a flop despite, he assures us, being delicious. The name and concept didn't resonate with consumers. They couldn't grasp what it was, and consequently, it didn't gain traction despite being sold in a place where there was already a large, relevant audience.

It's the same in B2B. If the people you want to serve don't understand how you can help them, you won't get very far.

Make it about them

Of course, being understood by people entering a fast-food restaurant is different to trying to engage decision-makers in businesses. If anything, B2B is more of a challenge. The prospects haven't self-selected by walking through the door. So you've got to work even harder to make it even easier for them to understand you.

That's why the 'menu marketing' approach is disconcerting for prospects. They don't understand your products and services like you do (and why should they). They don't know why they should be interested. They don't know what it can do for them. On top of that, 95% of the time, they're busy running their business, not looking for a new supplier. They don’t care about your business, they care about their business.

By translating what you're offering into terms that reflect prospects' needs, experiences, challenges and even aspirations, you're showing that you understand them. You're making it easy for them to understand why they need you. Which is a much better place to start a business relationship.

—

The rest of the podcast is worth a listen too. It covers all kinds of topics including:

• How to take bigger risks in marketing

• The importance of independence and empowerment in creating great marketing

• Why the CMOs should be idea-driven

• How should you evaluate creative and, if it’s good, does it matter if it’s on-strategy.

This interview between organisational psychologist and TED-talker Adam Grant and Open AI CEO Sam Altman is worth a listen. IMHO, Open AI’s PR budget is likely to be responsible for the whirlwind of AI hype/excitement that hit the mainstream early last year. However, Altman is a thoughtful and hype-free speaker and thinker on AI.

Short-term vs. long term

Altman suggests that – like many innovations – we’re overestimating AI’s short-term impact and underestimating how it will change things in the long term. He also discourages those seeking historical parallels for the transformation that AI will initiate. He proposes that it’s more like the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution rather than the growth of the Internet from the 1990s onwards.

It feels unlikely that the AI Revolution will take 80-100 years to transform the lives of most of the population. However, the impact on how we live, work, research, innovate and communicate will surely be equally dramatic when we look back. Can we predict what the changes will likely be?

In a world where AI can provide many answers, Altman proposes that asking the right questions will be more valuable than finding answers. I’ve long since stopped trying to carry facts and figures around in my head. Most information is easily accessible, and very little is secret or proprietary – in my world, anyway – so focusing on critical thinking, analytical skills and vision works. It also has implications for our education systems.

Humans should play to their strengths

Commentators often suggest that we should focus on our human qualities. However, Grant highlights that studies have shown that people feel more empathy from AIs than humans (unless they know it’s an AI they’re engaging with). Perhaps this reflects more that we don’t always play to our strengths. Likewise, Altman suggests that using AI to turn bullet points into prose when drafting an email is a fool’s errand. Keep your thinking clear and your communication direct. (This is likely why that Apple Intelligence ad that heroes a doofus feels so incongruous to me.)

Be useful today

Altman advises that rather than spend too much time thinking about what humans will be useful for in some distant AI realm, focus on being useful to other people today. Use AI tools to augment your knowledge, thinking and output, and be open and adaptable to change. Seems entirely sensible.

Curiosity and optimism

Ultimately, I was impressed by Altman’s openness and lack of hyperbole. If you listen to the podcast, you’ll hear him promote ChatGPT’s latest release (of course). However, you’ll also hear someone who seems to be working with AI with a genuine sense of techno-optimism and scientific curiosity.

Listen to the full interview here:
https://pod.link/1554567118/episode/1b18cd3ca45e8dd89ad38c44415683f0

Daniel H. Pink’s The Power of Regret opens by exploring how the ‘no regrets’ school of self-help has come to dominate the topic of reflection and success. As a signal to where the book is heading, he then points out that tattoo removal is a $100million industry in the USA alone. As a sidebar, he also reveals that Edith Piaf only came into possession of her signature song (No, Je Ne Regrette Rien) three years before she died (somewhat prematurely, and diminished by hard living, at the age of 47).

Deluded, depressing or directional?

Based on extensive research, the book looks at what regret means for the individual and often focuses on their personal life. Pink argues that regret is a valuable, powerful trigger for reflecting on our response to and performance in the face of external events. Acknowledging that ignoring regrets is delusion and dwelling on them is depressing, he suggests that their real purpose is to trigger reflection directed at learning, understanding, better decisions and improved performance.

Regret and the organisation

The unfortunate side effect of the ‘no regrets’ mode of thinking is a lack of reflection. I think that the real opportunity is to leverage the book’s lessons and models for learning in the sphere of work and leadership. Great strides have been made to make individuals, teams, and organisations more agile and responsive to reality so that services, products, and systems better fit their users and markets. Ideas like ‘failing quickly’ also require preparing appropriately and learning effectively from experience.

The objective isn’t to fail; it’s to succeed but to accept that the road to success isn’t always a straight one. Learning from the bumps in the road and even pondering whether successes could have been bigger, better or different is the lesson.

Regret and future performance

Pink argues that regret reduces the cognitive biases that see people often increasing their commitment to the failing strategy. The theory is that the stab of negativity that regret involves can slow us down and consider a broader range of options. Perhaps ironically, being open to regret can make us more persistent – something that almost always leads to better performance. He details a range of studies that show that simply getting test subjects to consider regret led to better performance - as long as they didn’t dwell on it too long.

And that seems to be the key takeaway: how do we help people deal properly with balancing regret, reflection and carrying on.

Continue reading: Daniel H. Pink ‘The Power of Regret’ (Canongate, 2022) Amazon

We discussed the psychology and dynamics of selling, as well as everything from the surprising (even shocking) lengths some buyers will go to gain leverage and how not to sell, to when to start building your power and the hardest thing about negotiation.

“I do meet quite a few entrepreneurs who say ‘I don’t like sales’. I don’t know how you can, other than if there’s two of you… How can you run a business if you don’t like selling.” Karen Green, author of Buyerology.

One of the central themes in Buyerology is that buyers are human. Despite working inside companies with governance and ‘best practice’, a purchase often has an emotional element. It’s not just a logical decision based on facts and pricing. Karen’s BUYER-ology framework underscores the importance of being prepared to find an approach that addresses the individual needs and personality of your buyer.

Born to sell?

Having been born into retail as the daughter of a department store owner before beginning her career as a professional buyer for Tesco and Boots, retail and sales are in Karen’s blood. She then moved across the negotiating table, from buyer to seller. After several commercial roles, she now helps businesses sell to professional buyers, most frequently in retail and FMCG.

Dominant and analytical

Karen’s analysis of buyer personalities suggests that people who buy for a living tend to be dominant and analytical. They’re focused on doing the deal and boosting the P&L in their area. Very much not ‘people people’.

The lesson here is that, like any buyer you will encounter, they are thinking much more about their business and bottom line than what you’re offering. Even for professional buyers, seeing suppliers only represents as little as 20% of their time. The rest goes on tasks like dealing with operations, preparing and onboarding, analysis and presentations, fighting fires, building their category or range, etc.

Room for emotion?

All that said, most companies need suppliers, especially retailers. If they’re not looking for new options, they risk missing out on innovation, fresh ideas, and market share. It isn’t all just about securing the best price for what they already buy. That means there’s still room for emotion in buying decisions. But, says Karen, to succeed, they need to know about your offer long before they start a sales process or issue a tender.

Ultimately, how you need to sell must be baked into your business plan, not left until it’s time to starting pitching. Karen’s advice is to start with the end in mind so you know what evidence, funding, audience and awareness you need to build in order to make the key sales that will grow your business.

Check out the Curious Business podcast for more of Karen’s insights and experiences on preparing, pitching and keeping going post-sale, including the shocking lengths professional buyers will go to for leverage. Listen here.

Their podcast isn’t something I listen to for business insights, but it does tend to touch on the decisions musicians and record companies make. But, of course, inspiration can come when you least expect it.

Whilst paying tribute to the late Quincy Jones (producers, composer, conductor, trumpeter and bandleader across a seven-decade career), they recalled a story about the first day of the making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (37 consecutive weeks at number one in the USA, 32m copies sold during 1983 alone, seven of the nine tracks were released as singles etc.). His approach was like that of a filmmaker, and he unveiled a hugely ambitious mission for Thriller to “save the music industry”.

Jones gathered the key players to galvanise them for their mission, knowing that having the central idea of Thriller would help them make the record. He worked out their limitations (Michael Jackson didn’t interview well, so video would be the critical medium) and created an idea to focus, inspire and guide the process.

Think of it like starting with the film poster and creating something that would attract viewers. Before making the film, work back from the customer and understand why they would watch it. Beginning with the end in mind is crucial for leaders and marketers. You’re bringing the outcomes to life for the team – and probably yourself, too. I always try to do this using one of the following methods:

• What does the press release for launch talk about? What’s the news? What are we doing different? Who are we doing it for?

• How does a stellar news article about your product, service or business read? What do they highlight? What are the metrics it’s measured by? Where does it appear?

• What does billboard poster campaign look like? If you’ve got five seconds to get a message across (as someone passes an ad) what do you want them to know? What emotion do you want them to feel?

Doing a piece of time travel like this helps you to see what you’re trying to achieve and understand what success looks like. What headlines do you want to make? What succinct message do you want people to take away?

Do that, and whilst you might not make the best-selling album of all time, you might make a difference to your business and your clients or customers.

Listen to Word in Your Ear’s discussion of Quincy Jones here.

From starting the business as the result of a bet (!) and choosing perhaps the most difficult category to establish in e-commerce (electricals and, yes, it was that long ago), the story begins with a fair amount of ‘fake it till you make it’ and shares some tricks to make them seem more established than they were.

AO.com introduced services like next-day and weekend delivery options. Choosing a difficult category is a double-edged sword, of course, it made it hard to build the operation, but - Roberts argues - provided a significant barrier to entry, keeping AO.com ahead of the competition.

Working back from the customer

Of course, delivery is one of the key concerns for people buying white goods. They tend to have strong preferences on when and how things are delivered. Focusing his business around the customer’s perspective is a recurring theme, along with the observation that often “the thing that’s missing from logistics is logic”. He reasons that Sunday is a better day to do deliveries, because the roads are clearer and people are more likely to be in.

Working back from the customer - rather than what’s convenient for the logistics operation - led to a different way of thinking. Ultimately, what customers want is for their delivery to go smoothly and reliably. He highlights their investment in a high-quality, empowered service team but points out that it’s much better for everyone if they don’t have to get involved. Not just from a financial point of view, but also from a customer satisfaction perspective. Every time they need to intervene in a customer delivery, it costs in terms of money but also in brand and experience terms too.

So every week Roberts leads a weekly meeting where they review customer issues and walk through everything that went wrong. The results is “thousands and thousands of iterations systemically that we’ve done to make those things work properly.”

What differentiates you?

Why is this so important to AO.com?

They offer next-day delivery, but so do their competitors.

They have a big range; but so do their competitors.

They offer keen prices and a price match promise, but so does everyone else.

How they do it, is what differentiates them.

So obsessing about the experience is what sets them apart. That extends to their delivery experience. Roberts shares how they have Smile Police auditors who will visit a customer ahead of the delivery to rate the doorstep experience. The aim is to make sure that, no matter how the driver’s day is going, he’s positive with the customer and doesn’t just rush in and dump the appliance.

Why is that important? Because the reality is that the customer will forget all about the experience if it goes to plan. “Nobody gets up in the morning thinking the way they buy electricals is a problem,” say Roberts. “The terror only manifests itself because you’ve got it all wrong.”

It’s all about the repeat rates

Repeat rates in electricals are much, much lower than for groceries or smaller purchases. AO.com’s repeat rates increase dramatically as the customer buys for a second or third time, so getting the repeat purchase is absolutely critical. And that’s why you invest more in making everything just work, over trying to put things right when they’ve gone wrong.

There’s a wealth of other fascinating nuggets in the interview including what they paid to move to a two-letter domain and the initial downsides of doing so. Check out On Brand with ALF and Rory Sutherland, S3 E6.