Couverture de Marginally Better

Marginally Better

Marginally Better

De : Joe Taylor Jr.
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Marginally Better is a thought-provoking business podcast from Joe Taylor Jr., a Master Certified User Experience consultant and customer service veteran. It explores how investing in exceptional customer experiences drives sustainable growth and profitability.

Join Joe as he explores the intersection of business performance and customer satisfaction, revealing how companies can achieve what seems impossible: improving their margins by investing in customer experience.

Each episode explores triumphs and cautionary tales in customer experience, from industry giants to emerging disruptors. Through deep-dive analysis and compelling storytelling, Marginally Better examines how businesses navigate the delicate balance between innovation and customer needs in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace.

Whether you’re an executive, entrepreneur, or passionate about excellent customer experiences, Marginally Better delivers actionable strategies and thought-provoking perspectives on building businesses that truly put customers first. Thoughtful, engaging, and always focused on practical insights, Marginally Better is essential listening for anyone interested in the future of business, innovation, and customer experience.
2026 Economie Management Management et direction
Épisodes
  • The Capacity Catastrophe

    The Capacity Catastrophe
    Jul 14 2026
    The Season You Saw ComingTIGTA — “The Internal Revenue Service’s Readiness for the 2026 Filing Season” (memorandum, Jan. 26, 2026: staffing down ~19,000/19% to October 2021 levels; key processing inventories at ~2.0 million items in Dec. 2025 vs. 871K pre-pandemic; phone level-of-service goal lowered to 70% from 85%; last time LOS was ≤70% was the 2022 filing season, at 18% — “fewer than one-in-five incoming calls”; Accounts Management onboarded 2,300 of 3,500 approved hires, with new hires trained only to screen calls and answer basic refund questions; $2.6B in interest paid to individuals in Processing Year 2025)Journal of Accountancy — “About a quarter of callers to two IRS lines got poor service, TIGTA says” (June 16, 2026; TIGTA June 10 report: 26% of a 200-call sample on two lines, Feb. 15–May 15, 2025, did not receive quality service; extrapolated to ~1 million of 3.8 million callers)TIGTA — “Taxpayers Continue to Experience Customer Service Issues…” (Report 2026–10–0030, June 2026 — underlying report for the above)Federal News Network — “After missing hiring goals, IRS dials back taxpayer phone assistance targets,” Jory Heckman (Jan. 2026; National Taxpayer Advocate: LOS metric covers only ~a quarter of total call volume, and the IRS exceeded the 85% LOS metric in fiscal 2024; ~35 of 360 Taxpayer Assistance Centers closed as of Dec. 2025)BCG — “How Retailers Can De-Risk the 2025 Holiday Shopping Season,” Alex Barocas and Shilpa Sharma (Sept. 17, 2025; “beautifully wrapped disappointment”; reshape the plan to demand / execute with excellence / tune and scale with agility; holiday command center)Retail Dive — “Smaller retailers face their toughest holiday season in years,” Daphne Howland (Oct. 14, 2025; Xero research: 37% of small business owners worry about Black Friday traffic, 32% about holiday inventory, 30% about burnout; Astrid Vigeland of Folly 101, Portland, Maine)Xero — U.S. Black Friday survey (media release cited by Retail Dive)The Feature: The PudderyHouston Public Media — “The Puddery in Pearland temporarily closes due to ‘Keith Lee effect’ that prompted spike in customers” (Dec. 7, 2023; one-woman show; Nov. 28, 2023 review; 9/10, “immaculate,” “absolutely insane”; lines within hours and for ~10 days; shipping suspended; urgent care visit and strained chest muscle; “Usually I would just thug it out”; closed until Saturday, Dec. 9)CultureMap Houston — “TikTok food critic Keith Lee awards $50,000 to Pearland dessert shop,” Eric Sandler (Mar. 25, 2025; Toast partnership; food trailer purchase; move to larger space in the same shopping center; best banana pudding he’s ever had)KHOU — “The Puddery owner talks life after TikTok food critic Keith Lee’s visit”Click2Houston — “Pearland dessert shop The Puddery closed for days after going viral due to ‘Keith Lee effect’” (Dec. 7, 2023)The Counterweight: Fireworks StandsFreakonomics Radio Network — The Economics of Everyday Things: “Fireworks Stands,” Zachary Crockett (Phantom Fireworks VP Alex Zoldan; ~1,500 pop-up tents; consumer fireworks = $2.2B/year; “80 percent of our entire year sales are one month”; “90 plus percent planning and 10 executing”; typical stand grosses $25K–$60K, ~20% net considered good; ~1,000 California stands run by nonprofits; six-week shipping from China, next year’s orders placed by July)Marketplace — “How much profit do fireworks stands make?”, Janet Nguyen (Dec. 2022; PyroSpot’s Craig LaFleur: 20% margin is “a great job”; BU economist Jay Zagorsky: ~3x wholesale markup; ~10 weeks full-time work plus ~6 weeks part-time prep for a seasonal stand)Company MentionedJohns & Taylor — blog and newsletter
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    22 min
  • The Forgotten Middle

    The Forgotten Middle
    Jun 24 2026

    The Gym: Paying Not to Go

    • DellaVigna & Malmendier, “Paying Not to Go to the Gym,” American Economic Review 96(3), 2006, pp. 694–719 (members on flat monthly contracts averaged ~4.3 visits/month, >$17 per visit vs. a $10 ten-visit pass; monthly members slower to cancel than annual)
    • Full working-paper PDF (UC Berkeley)


    Loyalty Programs: The Forgotten Member

    • Bond Brand Loyalty — The Loyalty Report 2023 (U.S. consumers belong to ~18 programs, active in about half)
    • McKinsey — “Next in loyalty: Eight levers to turn customers into fans” (programs built around top-tier customers; active members spend ~10% more, redeemers ~25% more than inactive)


    The Design Principle: Perpetual Intermediates

    • Alan Cooper, About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design — most users are “perpetual intermediates”; interfaces neglect the majority in the middle


    The Office Ribbon: Jensen Harris

    • Jensen Harris, “The Story of the Ribbon” (Microsoft Learn archive of his Office UI blog)
    • Jensen Harris, “No Distaste for Paste (Why the UI, Part 7)” — command-usage data from the Customer Experience Improvement Program (Paste ~11%; top 5 commands ~32% of all usage in Word)
    • “The Most Frequently Used Features in Microsoft Office” — summary of Harris’s Word 2003 command data
    • Harvard Business Review, “Why Microsoft Had to Destroy Word” (2009) — customers kept requesting features Office already had, just buried; the Ribbon was built to surface them


    Product Mentioned

    • Website Reality Check — Johns & Taylor Services
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    20 min
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