Digitalization is the greatest change project that we have ever known, and data is circulating in unimaginable quantities and at unimaginable speed. In this book, the author urges managers and business leaders to embrace this constant state of change in cooperation with their team. He addresses how corporate culture and hierarchies have to change to adapt to new digital workspaces and value chains. These changes also include questions about the use and storage of data, customer relations and international teamwork. The book is especially geared towards managers in manufacturing industries and companies.

Consumers' beliefs and attitudes towards online sales significantly influence buying behavior on the internet. However, the impact of these thoughts and beliefs on the decision to make an online purchase is not direct. It can be moderated by the emotions experienced while browsing an e-commerce website. Impulse buying in particular is influenced by a number of factors, for example how stimulating the e-shopping platform is, and how easy it is to click on the cart a certain product, for instance a smartphone. But what happens after an online impulse buy is made? Often the customer can regret the purchase and in the throes of anxiety, look for reasons to justify the choices made. Consumer behaviour scholars and pyschologists call this phenomenon cognitive dissonance, and certain individuals are more sensitive than others in developing this than others. This book offers a deep investigation around online impulse buying and subsequent cognitive dissonance. Specifically, the authors present a research case study of a group of millenials who are shopping for smartphones to study whether an initial positive state can reduce the onset of cognitive dissonance in consumers. Based on substantial research and a sample of 212 impulsive millennial buyers, the book provides a comprehensive, but simple and synthetic framework of impulse buying, cognitive dissonance and positive affect state, highlighting their relationships.

In today's global economy, social media and technological advances have changed the way businesses interact with their clientele. With new forms of communication and IT practices, companies seek innovative practices for maintaining their consumer loyalty. Customer Relationship Management Strategies in the Digital Era blends the literature from the fields of marketing and information technology in an effort to examine the effect that technological advances have on the interaction between companies and their customers Through chapters and case studies, this publication discusses the importance of achieving competitive advantage through implementing relationship marketing practices and becoming consumer-centric. This publication is an essential reference source for researchers, professionals, managers, and upper level students interested in understanding customer loyalty in a technology-focused society.

Customer focus is the most important challenge of the future. Providing good customer service depends on how well companies know their customers and clearly identify their needs. Availability of customer knowledge, which is knowledge from, for and about the customer, thus becomes crucial in offering customized products or services. This can be gained most efficiently from direct interaction with customers, but requires the use of interpersonal and organizational soft skills. This book presents the interrelationship between customer knowledge management, customer focus and soft skills and also provides concrete advice on how the management of customer knowledge can be optimized.

The Trainer's Workshop Series is designed to be a practical, hands-on roadmap to help you quickly develop training in key business areas. Each book in the series offers all the exercises, handouts, assessments, structured experiences and ready-to-use presentations needed to develop effective training sessions. In addition to easy-to-use icons, each book in the series includes downloadable resources with PowerPoint (TM) presentations and electronic copies of all supporting material featured in the book. Customer Service Training provides practical, hands-on guidance to help you quickly develop customer service training. Dozens of field-tested exercises, games, activities, icebreakers and assessment instruments help you teach employees the importance of customer service and improve their performance. Contains exercises, handouts, assessments and tools to help you: * create fantastic customer service to meet your specific needs * raise the bar for service excellence * become a more effective and efficient facilitator * ensure training is on target and gets results "This book is a complete training programme. Its practical learning activities and embedded assessment tools will help any company understand that first-rate training equals first-rate customer service." Fred S. Anton, Chief Executive Officer, Warner Bros. Publications Other books in this series: Leadership Training, New Supervisor Training, New Employee Orientation Training, Leading Change Training.

Players on the golf course must battle the course and conditions in order to succeed. While a caddy might lend a hand carrying the load, individuals must rely on their own strengths to accomplish goals.Business is also a singular endeavor, and owners and managers must battle market conditions, competitors, and unexpected challenges. To succeed, a business must hire the right people, invest in the right training, and deliver world-class customer service.Golfer and business owner Elizabeth knows these lessons well; hoping to help her friend Matt, she teaches him the lessons she's learned over a friendly game of golf. What ensues is a detailed tutorial on how to successfully operate a business.As Matt plays each hole, he learns why vision is so important in reaching goals, how to clearly articulate an end game, ways to avoid hazards and how to escape them, and many other lessons from the golf course.If business owners managed their businesses the way professional golfers play the game, they will find themselves more successful and more profitable-and they'll have more fun in the bargain Find out how to succeed in business with "Lessons from the Links."

Due to the growth of internet and mobile applications, relationship marketing continues to evolve as technology offers more collaborative and social communication opportunities. Managing Customer Trust, Satisfaction, and Loyalty through Information Communication highlights technology's involvement with business processes in different sectors and industries while identifying marketing activities that are affected by its usage. This reference is a vital source for organisational managers, executives, and professionals, as well as academics and students interested in this constantly changing field.

Geoff Ramm has a passion for incredible customer service. In this book, he's hand-picked THE most original, unique and quirky examples of creative customer experiences that are guaranteed to inspire you and your team to outperform, outmanoeuvre and stand head and shoulders above the competition. This is the book that your competitors wish they had, it's your ticket to service superstardom and it's going to reveal to you: The gap in your service that you never knew existed. Smart techniques to help you generate clever experiences of your own. Simple, cost-effective ideas and touches that will mean the world to your customers. Fun, fresh and exciting new perspectives that will inject your entire team with enthusiasm. Fantastic ideas and inspiring stories that will get you spectacular results. Why not join Geoff on this highly enjoyable, eye-opening and rewarding customer service journey around the world? He'll introduce you to some of the amazing people he's met who have discovered extraordinary ways to deliver world-class experiences, and he'll show you how you can use their strategies to make your own brand unforgettable, your business unmissable and your customers coming back for more. So, are you ready to become a true Celebrity Service Superstar?Great! It's time to get started on getting people talking...about you! "Entertaining and thought-provoking! Geoff Ramm's knowledge and insight will reshape the way you think about customer service" Heather McNamee, Area General Manager, Fraser's Hospitality UK

The tenets of excellent customer service are central to any organization that creates or delivers products or services In fact, excellent customer service is a bigger differentiator today than it was twenty years ago. Customers are hungry for good service; they are hungry to establish long-term relationships with those who provide not only a one-time solution but serve as a long-term resource. There is a problem, however. Organizations and the people who work within them have difficulty implementing the principles of customer service. The vast majority of books and training materials on customer service teach the concepts, but do not provide the tools to implement them. In Building a Customer Service Culture, we take you on an enjoyable journey where you will learn about the foundational principles of customer service and acquire the tools to implement those principles. These application tools will help make you more successful in your job and simultaneously contribute to an enhanced service culture in your organization. In the pages that follow, we blend classic knowledge with new information to create valuable insights about how to make customer service a sustainable competitive advantage in your job and for your organization.

The dynamic changes in the market and the competitive environment demand a reorientation of marketing strategies. Developing and cultivating direct customer relationships and building customer trust are becoming key success factors. With new technologies such as broadband internet and mobile communication, companies are able to create closer dialogs with key customers. These new technologies will have far-reaching consequences for marketing, sales and customer service. This book analyses the enduring changes marketing is undergoing and present the four most important new concepts: Holistic brand management, customer relationship marketing, real-time marketing and multi-channel marketing. The text is accompanied by selected case studies from all over the world.

Discover the secrets of world-class leadership

When it comes to refined service and exquisite hospitality, one name stands high above the rest: The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. With ceaseless attention to every luxurious detail, the company has set the bar for creating memorable customer experiences in world-class settings. Now, for the first time, the leadership secrets behind the company's extraordinary success are revealed.

"The New Gold Standard" takes you on an exclusive tour behind the scenes of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Granted unprecedented access to the company's executives, staff, and its award-winning Leadership Center training facilities, bestselling author Joseph Michelli explored every level of leadership within the organization. He emerged with the key principles leaders at any company can use to provide a customer experience unlike any other, such as: Understanding the ever-evolving needs of customers Empowering employees by treating them with the utmost respect Anticipating customers' unexpressed needs and concerns Developing and conducting an unsurpassed training regimen

Sharing engaging stories from the company's employees--from the corporate office and hotels around the globe--Michelli describes the innovative methods the company uses to create peerless guest experiences and explains how it constantly hones and improves them.

"The New Gold Standard" weaves practical how-to advice, proven leadership tools, and the wisdom of experts to help you create and embed superior customer-service principles, processes, and practices in your own organization."

This pioneering book on food study pursues an interdisciplinary approach to service science and the service engineering field. Further, it highlights a range of experiments conducted at actual business sites to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodologies and theories. In modern society, food study has become more complex, as it involves multiple fields of science. For instance, a long-lived society entails a number of problems for human beings. A balanced intake of nutrients is important for a healthy life, but in many cases, healthy food is not the most enjoyable. As such, it is important for the food industry to provide foods that are both tasty and wholesome, based on the sciences of gastronomy and nutrition. Conventional food study proceeds along the lines of a specific field such as nutrition, agriculture, or gastronomy, though it should be conducted in an interdisciplinary manner. This book covers multifaceted research on food study to respond to today's societal demands, based mainly on the natural and social sciences. It addresses a wide range of topics, including: food production management using mathematical modeling, operations research, and production engineering; evaluation of food products based on big data analysis; psychological experiments and ethnography; food products based on consumer behavior; organoleptic assessment and health improvement; design of physical dining environments using virtual reality, pedestrian debt recognition (human indoor position measuring), and observation of behavior. Reporting on and assessing many studies conducted at actual business locations, the book offers a unique and highly practical resource.

"Great retailers are great at service. No exceptions. This book offers a wealth of insight into delivering excellent retail service."

---Leonard L. Berry, Distinguished Professor of Marketing, N.B Zale Chair in Retailing and Market Leadership, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University

"With a growing understanding of service as a phenomenon and perspective of business and marketing, retailers are increasingly seeing the need to transform from distribution of products to service providers. This book includes considerable insight regarding the importance of the service perspective and how it can be implemented in retailing."
--Christian Gronroos, Professor of Service and Relationship Marketing, CERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, Hanken School of Economics, Finland

"Consisting of chapters written by leading scholars in service management and retailing from around the world, this comprehensive book offers rich insights for how retailers can excel and achieve sustainable competitive advantage by invoking and implementing service management principles. This enlightening book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in retailing."

--A. "Parsu" Parasuraman, Professor of Marketing & The James W. McLamore Chair, School of Business Administration, University of Miami Coral Gables, Florida

"Service excellence and service innovation are critical for success in today's competitive retail marketplace. "Service Management: The New Paradigm in Retailing" provides a contemporary and transformative lens for accomplishing these essential goals."

--Mary Jo Bitner, Professor, Director Center for Services Leadership, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University

"

In Synchroservice!, Schonberger, teaming up with Edward M. Knod, Jr., targets leading-edge world-class excellence strategies for the service industry, giving you everything you need to design and execute a synchronized service strategy. Through practical advice gleaned from years of experience, the authors give you the insight to synchronize every aspect of your organization for improved customer service - and enhanced competitive advantage!

Appreciating and satisfying the emotional heads of buyers can be the essential factor contributing to the creation of a competitive edge, particularly where close uniformity of quality, price and service exists between competing suppliers. This book looks at the factors influencing buying decisions and the supplier's response to the customer. Sensitive situations, such as the handling of complaints, are dealt with specifically, as is the way in which companies can implement the cultural changes necessary to move an organisation towards a greater recognition of individual buyers' needs.

The authors argue that the best strategic approach for a company or organization is to regard customer loyalty as a continuing response to changes in society and that this perspective is often neglected in favour of shorter term considerations. They present a new approach that builds upon social and economic research to provide practical guidelines.

When you concentrate on the fundamentals, the restaurant business can be very lucrative. But most servers are making far less money than they should be, simply because they fail to understand what is important or don't bother to work at their craft.

Don't shortchange yourself any longer. In " The Art of Successful Restaurant Service," Dan Licitra, who has done just about everything in the restaurant industry, tells you how to boost your income by a minimum of 32 percent. Learn how to: .Improve your concentration
.Build rapport with guests
.Sell more food and drinks
.Ask the right questions
.Reap the rewards from repeat customers
.Take advantage of special occasions
.And much more

You don't have to work an extra day to make more money. You don't even have to work harder. It's all about working smarter.

When you're ready to beef up your take-home pay, thrive in your job, and open career opportunities, this manual has all the motivation, advice, and practical tools you'll need.

Presenting some of the most significant research on the modern understanding of luxury, this edited collection of articles from the Journal of Brand Management explores the complex relationships consumers tie with luxury, and the unique characteristics of luxury brand management. Covering the segmentation of luxury consumers worldwide, the specificity of luxury management, the role of sustainability for luxury brands and major insights from a customer point of view, Advances in Luxury Brand Management is essential reading for upper level students as well as scholars and discerning practitioners.