Episodes

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Your Next Customer May Never Visit Your Website

Your Next Customer May Never Visit Your Website

Episode 26 · · 28:12

Cloudflare and the Crawl Economy Cloudflare - Control Content Use for AI Training Cloudflare - Crawlers Click AI Bots Training Data Cloudflare - Content Independence Day: No AI Crawl...

What If Software Only Got Paid When You Succeeded?

What If Software Only Got Paid When You Succeeded?

Episode 25 · · 20:14

For decades, software companies got paid the same way whether you succeeded or failed. You bought the licenses, you paid the bill, and if nobody at your company ever figured out how ...

The Wrong Metric

The Wrong Metric

Episode 24 · · 22:56

The Stopwatch CMS Provider Data Catalog — Hospitals: Timely and Effective Care (public reporting of ED time measures) The Joint Commission — ED-1: Median Time from ED Arrival to ED D...

The Capacity Catastrophe

The Capacity Catastrophe

Episode 23 · · 22:25

The Season You Saw Coming TIGTA — “The Internal Revenue Service’s Readiness for the 2026 Filing Season” (memorandum, Jan. 26, 2026: staffing down ~19,000/19% to October 2021 levels; ...

The Onboarding Opportunity

The Onboarding Opportunity

Episode 22 · · 25:26

The Cost of a Bad First Window Fenergo — “Global Financial Institutions Struggle with Rising Client Losses and Compliance Costs as AI Adoption Increases” (2025 survey of 600 senior d...

The Forgotten Middle

The Forgotten Middle

Episode 21 · · 20:04

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 v...

The Review Revolution Reversal

The Review Revolution Reversal

Episode 20 · · 20:42

The Research: Why Perfect Doesn’t Sell Northwestern University Medill Spiegel Research Center — How Online Reviews Influence Sales (purchase likelihood peaks at 4.0–4.7 stars; “five ...

The Hidden Cost of Disengagement

The Hidden Cost of Disengagement

Episode 19 · · 20:08

The Cost of Disengagement Gallup — The World’s $8.8 Trillion Workplace Problem (State of the Global Workplace) Employee Experience Drives Customer Experience Glassdoor Research — Th...

The True Cost of Bad Customer Experience

The True Cost of Bad Customer Experience

Episode 18 · · 24:13

What do a billion-dollar retail collapse, a broken app, and an abandoned shopping cart have in common? They’re all part of the same hidden bill, and most companies don’t realize they...

The Repair Relationship Revolution

The Repair Relationship Revolution

Episode 17 · · 25:20

A century ago, companies deliberately made products that wouldn’t last. Today, that model is being dismantled—by regulators, by consumers, and by a new generation of businesses built...

The Community Currency

The Community Currency

Episode 16 · · 20:50

A productivity app on the brink of collapse rebuilt itself in a small apartment in Kyoto—and a decade later became an $11 billion company with 100 million users. What changed? Not th...

The Transparency Tax

The Transparency Tax

Episode 15 · · 21:49

Everyone says customers want transparency — open salaries, open supply chains, open decision-making. But when does sharing become oversharing? In this episode of Marginally Better, J...

The Senior Surge Opportunity

The Senior Surge Opportunity

Episode 14 · · 22:47

By 2030, all 73 million U.S. Boomers will be 65+—and they control the majority of household wealth. So why do so many products, stores, and apps ignore them? In this episode of Margi...

The Waiting Game Winners

The Waiting Game Winners

Episode 13 · · 23:21

Americans spend 37 billion hours a year waiting—about 118 hours per person—but smart brands are turning that dead time into delight. In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor,...

The Ghost Kitchen Customer Catastrophe

The Ghost Kitchen Customer Catastrophe

Episode 12 · · 24:56

Ever ordered from three “different” restaurants and gotten the same fries, same sticker, same address? This episode of Marginally Better digs into the ghost-kitchen gold rush—and the...

The Repair Renaissance

The Repair Renaissance

Episode 11 · · 22:53

What if telling customers not to buy is the smartest growth move you can make? In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor, Jr. explores the Repair Renaissance—from Patagonia’s ...

Designing for Trust: Inside the Privacy Economy

Designing for Trust: Inside the Privacy Economy

Episode 10 · · 23:43

Do customers really value privacy—or will they trade it for a coupon code? In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor, Jr. unpacks the “privacy paradox” where 86% of people cla...

The Death of the Phone Call (And Why That's a Problem)

The Death of the Phone Call (And Why That's a Problem)

Episode 9 · · 26:03

In a world where Gen Z would rather lose a finger than make a phone call, how do businesses keep real human connections alive? In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor, Jr. e...

The Privacy Paradox

The Privacy Paradox

Episode 8 · · 23:18

What do your customers really want: personalization or privacy? In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor, Jr. explores the “Privacy Paradox” reshaping modern business. We’ll ...

Breaking Things, Returning Things, and Getting Things Right

Breaking Things, Returning Things, and Getting Things Right

Episode 7 · · 26:08

“Move fast and break things” might’ve been the startup mantra of the early 2000s—but in 2025, it’s costing companies customers, credibility, and billions in returns. In this episode ...