Derek Halpern of the blog DIYThemes recently had an interesting customer-service experience with Brita water. He bought a filter, but when he got it home, it didn’t fit his faucet. When he called Brita, its customer-service rep immediately said it would mail him off some additional parts that would make it fit — for free, no [...]

This is the time of year when business strategists are asked to give their take on the future of the web and online entrepreneurship in general. I’ve been asked no less than a dozen times between October and the end of December to prognosticate in writing about trends and predictions for the upcoming year. And to date, I’ve successfully [...]

Everybody’s already published their “Top 10″ predictions or trends. So I thought I’d add mine to your list. This is one about customer service. Let me know your thoughts. Customer service is a perennial issue that is critical to all small business owners. Although it is included in every company mission statement, no one wants [...]

Blame it on the cold weather, but online conversations about barbecue in Denver are scarce right now. To heat it up, we’re going where we know people who love barbecue are already gathered – to the Facebook pages of competing restaurants in town. We created the concept of “Little Ribbin,” commenting on these pages in [...]

Many small businesses are still scrambling to grasp what federal healthcare reform will mean for them. Some are still in denial, hoping the healthcare bill can still be given a “mandate-ectomy,” or that their industry will be exempted. Possibly no industry has been more focus on reform impacts than restaurant. In this business, it’s all [...]