For customers
Pointing fingers at other other generations is never a good idea
Inter generational verbal warfare has always struck me as a particularly dumb idea and this week an Astralian CEO of a multinational company created a huge amount of damage by deciding to stick the boot in to millennials. Muffin Break general manager, Natalie Brennan...
Lime Scooters need to earn public trust
Every newly introduced product is going to have the odd teething problem, and Lime Scooters have proven to be no exception. Since they were released on New Zealand’s streets and pavements last year, Lime Scooters have come in for a healthy dose of media attention...
“Build it and they will come”
There's been a lot of talk recently about Eden Park. The future of the stadium is in serious doubt and requires substantial financial investment and support. Auckland ratepayers are being asked to take on $40 million in existing debt and $64 million maintenance costs...
When your imagination is a deluded fool
I celebrated one of those milestone birthdays recently where, if I were playing cricket, I would slightly raise my bat to the crowd and then take guard hoping to amass another half tonne. One of the gifts I received was a ticket to see Marlon Williams at Villa Maria...
Football gets it right – and dreadfully wrong
Sport tends to mirror the best, and the worst of real life and that is possibly its greatest attraction. Sure there's the drama, the comebacks, the domination, the fierce contests between rivals - but I think sports is at its greatest and most dire, when it reflects...
Plucking out a name and hoping for the best
In the past few weeks I have had to book some accomodation and travel for an upcoming overseas holiday. All of it has been done online. I haven’t exchanged one word with another human being, except for a quick online chat with the good people at Eurostar to ask what I...
Our day of sporting infamy
In 1981, New Zealand sports teams were involved in two events that have significantly shaped our sporting and cultural legacy. The first was the Springbok Tour - where the South African rugby team’s visit to our shores deeply divided the nation - resulting in...
You can’t put an Elastoplast on a gaping wound
I’ve never considered using Viagogo to purchase tickets to concerts or gigs, and after following up on an online story recently, I doubt I ever would. Usually I would got to a site like Ticketmaster - their prices are transparent, selecting seats is easy to do, and...
Sundazed and confused
For roughly a month between the middle of December and the end of January, New Zealand enters into, what is commonly known as, the silly season. It’s summer, the sun is blazing and the beach is calling. Kiwis take their annual holidays - to relax, socialise, spend...
There’s nothing wrong with a healthy dose of suspicion
Not too many years ago it was common for people to knock on your door. Encyclopedia salespeople, the Avon ladies, charities, odd jobbers, the religious – they would all come and hope to sell something or other. It is the purest example of cold calling. You didn’t ask...
Being taken for a ride
The first car I bought was a total lemon. I was young, eager, and stubbornly oblivious to the great advice I had been given, before forking over my hard earned cash to a gentleman who sold second hand cars through the classified section of the Christchurch Press....
Walls and bridges
It was one of the most iconic moments of the last century - Germans who had been divided by political differences for decades, dismantling a wall that had been constructed to keep them apart. In a move that signalled the demise of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall coming...
Video killed the radio star, part 2
I talk to thousands of business owners and consumers each year. While they are all obviously different - in age, gender, racial and ethic background and life experience - the one thing they have in common is that they are trying to connect - with customers and with...
We have been relying on reviews for millennia
Online reviews, online reputation marketing. referrals, testimonials. More than ever before we rely on the verified reviews of others to help guide the purchasing decisions we make and the choices we consider before engaging a business. I have been thinking a lot...
Start-up businesses and reviews go hand in hand
Starting up a new business is hard. It takes a lot of work and a great deal of preparation and research. The best ideas in the world, and the most skillful tradespeople, craftsmen, artisans, service providers, and product sellers, still require determination, skill...
Happy customers are your best asset
We all want to move ahead in business, to grow, to be profitable, to create a solid foundation for the future and what is the key to that? Customers, happy satisfied customers who come back, time and time again, and tell their friends and family about their...
How does NoCowboys help your business? Read on . . .
Not so long ago online reviews were something novel, surprising, and enigmatic. Today they are very much an accepted part of the vast majority of consumers' experience and motivation. Even still, a number of business owners have yet to connect the dots and embrace...
Small company with a huge heart grows with help from NoCowboys
Secure Communications Alarms & Security, based in Onehunga, Auckland is a small company with a huge focus on customer satisfaction. I spoke with owner Dave and administration manager, Clare, about the things that matter to them in business and the ways that...
Top tips for 2020? Reputation, reputation, reputation
We are two weeks into a new year and a new decade and more than ever consumers are looking for one thing above all else - a viable and visible online reputation, before even thinking of contacting a business. I read a recent study from the US that said that...
If you can’t lead, leave and shut the door behind you
On Sunday the sky over various parts of New Zealand emitted a strange orange glow. The light was infused with more than just the drifting smoke particles from the catastrophic fires from across the Tasman - it was symbolic of the apocalyptic glow that signifies the...
Control, it’s all in your hands
In the last blog piece I wrote I featured and discussed the latest survey results into online consumer reviews by BrightLocal. Since then I've been pondering a question that often has me stumped - why do some businesses neglect to market their reputation? Why, when...
Survey establishes absolute primacy of online reviews to consumers
For the past six years, US research organisation, BrightLocal has published the findings of its annual survey into consumer reviews. Year in and year out, the findings establish the absolute supremacy of online reviews as the primary driver of consumer behaviour and...
You make your bed – you lie in it . . .
Great Britain's royal family are no strangers to scandal and over the years has assembled top notch PR experts to control and spin unsavoury events and in doing so, continue to garner popular support throughout the UK and the rest of the world. In the past few weeks...
Reviews – it’s not all about the star rating
It's important to remember that reviews are a subjective opinion of a consumer's experience of a service or product, and for other consumers reading reviews, they don't just focus on the number of stars - they read the text of the feedback itself. So what makes a good...
I still haven’t found what I’m looking for . . .
Irish rock group, U2 were in New Zealand last week with their Joshua Tree tour - celebrating the album of the same name released in 1987. To Kiwis it's one of their more fondly held albums, mainly because of the song, "One Tree Hill", that serves as a commemoration...
Website reviews need to be transparent and honest
It's been a practice that a number of businesses have carried out for years, but a decision in the Auckland District Court last month puts into sharp focus the importance, and indeed, the legal requirement of presenting website reviews honestly and accurately, and not...
NoCowboys reviews – FAQs
Since 2006, NoCowboys has been New Zealand's leader in authenticated consumer reviews. With a robust and thorough feedback verification system, consumers can trust that the feedback they rely so heavily on is genuine and authenticated. For registered businesses,...
When you can’t find real fault, pick on the haka
Is there anything that raises the ire of certain Northern Hemisphere rugby critics and fans more than the All Blacks' haka? Whenever the World Cup rolls around it's always the same, tired, ignorant, and insensitive criticisms of a tradition of our game that has been...
Guide the conversation
I read many, many articles, news stories, reports and academic papers about online consumer reviews. A casual Google search will bring up thousands of observations about the greatest consumer motivation to connect with businesses - legitimate, authenticated online...
If I could turn back time
Reputations are fragile things – they take many years to forge and can be destroyed in a heartbeat. In public life there has been a massive recent shift in the way that certain reputations are perceived and while some villains prosper, others are wiped from history....
Reputation on the line . . .
Well, if there's anything to make anyone feel a little bit older, it's the sooner than expected arrival of the latest installment of the Rugby World Cup. Without giving away my age, I can vividly remember trooping along to Lancaster Park in Christchurch, to witness...
The massive benefits of ethical reviews
Recently I was reading an article on business.com that got me thinking about a word that really describes the nature and vitality - as well as the huge importance of online reviews: ethical. I've talked before about trust and transparency and the ways that drives...
Honesty is such a lonely word
Despite everything, the quality we look for most in business is honesty. We all have an innate desire to believe in what we buy and who we do business with. While the world may look at times like a trust free zone, in business transparency and honesty are everything....
We don’t know how lucky we are, mate
My mum is sick, the sort of sick where you don't get better, and for the past few months my family has gone through the best of times and the worst of times. The worst because we are preparing to lose someone who means the world to us, and the best because we have all...
It’s boring winning all the time
All Blacks fans are a tough crowd and it’s getting all a little tedious. Two games against Australia in the past two weeks saw two fantastic contests– one a comprehensive, record-breaking loss for the men in black, the other a complete turnaround where they played the...
“it’s a freaking tree in a lake’
People are strange creatures - some us us miss the point entirely and some of us can never be pleased. A story I read online recently put that into stark effect - in a humorous way as well. A collection of reviews of our country's popular tourist attractions...
A healthy review profile substantially increases revenue for small businesses
A recent study in the US analysed the impact of reviews on revenue for small businesses and the results are extremely telling. Marketing and CRM software company, Womply, produced a research piece entitled "How online reviews impact small business revenue",...
Online reputation significant driver for potential employees
Reviews are obviously a major factor in driving customers toward businesses but they also massively impact upon job seekers' choices when selecting companies to work for. A study released last year in the US by indeed.com found that over 95% of potential employees...
Losing when you haven’t lost is hard to take
Cricket is a marvellous game. It's a contest of skill, patience, aptitude and derring do. It's also sometimes as cruel as all hell. The final of this year's World Cup saw the Kiwis and England play out what well may be one of the most intriguing and dramatic one day...
Etiquette is not a universal truth
Etiquette is a strange concept. While some would think that there was a right way of doing something, based on their own notion of manners or social niceties, others will have an entirely different point of view and will act accordingly. Driving is a great example,...
Cafe owners’ reputation garners unwanted attention
Hospitality is a hard industry to work in. The customer is always right and customers are pickiest about what they eat, where they stay, and how they are treated in the process. I've worked in hospitality, many years ago, and I can still remember being summoned to a...
UK regulators in mission to stop the sale of fake reviews
With every innovation comes those looking to exploit it through manipulation and fraud. Online reviews are no different and the unscrupulous go to great lengths to make money out of the sale and dissemination of fake reviews. In the UK, the Competition and Markets...
How free is our freedom of expression?
Yesterday a Christchurch man was sentenced to 21 months in jail for disseminating the video posted to Facebook by the perpetrator of the March Mosque attacks. His conviction has raised issues and questions about hate speech and free speech and the rights of...
We want the world and we want it now!
The other day I was driving through a part of Auckland I used to live in, when I first came up from Christchurch, many moons ago. The small assortment of shops remained the same, all apart from one glaring omission - the video store. What had now become yet another...
Reviews keep a business on its toes
Last year I had a conversation with the owner of a large plumbing business about online reviews and the ways they helped his business. Apart from the usual generation of more enquiries through online searches where the reviews and five stars were visible, he told me a...
“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention”
A story in recent weeks got me thinking about the nature of our human species and the ways our evolution appears to be falling behind the fearsome speed of technological innovation. Be warned - this piece contains no spoilers but will further the odd generalisation....
Kiwi leadership grabs global attention
Now that the Australian election is done and dusted and Scott Morrison and the Liberal/National coalition returned to power, it's a good time to pay some attention to a story that emerged a few weeks ago, regarding our cousins across the ditch and their preferred...
I’ve got a golden ticket
Along with millions of children (and adults), I was enthralled with Roald Dahl's magical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the subsequent 1971 film, starring the ethereal Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Children love many things and two of the most enduring are...