Learn about new strategies to improve service, quality, and profitability for quick service restaurants Quick Service Restaurants, Franchising, and Multi-Unit Chain Management examines a variety of issues pertaining to quick service restaurants. Quick-service restaurants (QSR) are the dominant sector of the foodservice industry and a one-hundred-billion-dollar industry. Since their inception in the 1920s, quick-service restaurants have become one of the cultural icons of America. This informative book contains vital information on: growth, change and strategy in the international foodservice industry food safety as an international problem and the formation of outreach committees to combat the challenges faced globally food consumption patterns and the driving forces that influence consumer food preferences the differences between mature and younger customers' expectations and experiences in QSRs, casual, and fine dining restaurants consumer attitudes toward airline food adding quick-service meals to airplane menus factors influencing parental patronage of QSRs a case study on how Billy Ingram, founder of White Castle restaurants, made the hamburger a staple on American menus

Driven by rapidly changing business environments and increasingly demanding consumers, many organizations are searching for new ways to achieve and retain a competitive advantage via customer intimacy and CRM. In this context, new strategic frameworks and cooperation with everybody along the whole value chain are needed to allow managers to deal with the changes in shopping patterns of consumers. This book presents a new strategic framework that has been tested successfully with various global companies. New management concepts such as Collaborative Forecasting and Replenishment, CRM, Category Management, and Mass Customization are integrated into one holistic approach with a view to jointly develop customer bonding and loyalty. Experts from companies like McKinsey, Procter&Gamble, Accenture, and AC Nielsen, as well as authors from renowned academic institutions, offer valuable insights on how to redesign organizations for the future.

For marketers, the internet is increasing in importance. One important marketing issue is how to initiate, develop, and manage relationships with customers through the internet. This holds true for marketing of goods and services, in domestic as well as international markets. This book aims to improve our knowledge on utilization of the internet in marketing. The book will supply theoretical as well empirical knowledge on managing customer relationships on the Internet. This book also contributes to the development of theory to explain the internationalization process of internet firms by proposing that models that emphasize knowledge and network are suitable for this purpose. In doing so, the book answers questions such as:

What types of business relationships are possible to establish and develop on the Internet?
How much face-to-face contact do we need in business relationships?
What are the key driving mechanisms in Internet-based relationship development?

It is a true international comparative management book, including data from Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Finland. The book contains 14 chapters. The evidences supplied in the book are based on research in industries such as health care, bio-technology, information technology, and the air-lines. The contributors to this book are active researchers in the field of internet and marketing. The material supplied in this book is new and original.
*This series: Provides an international perspective to the study of business, with a special emphasis on management and marketing issues
*Deals with such topics as globalization, international business negotiations, cross-cultural communication, entry strategies, doingbusiness in different regions, and future trends
*Also focuses on the development of international business theory, methodological issues, the results of empirical studies and the findings of practitioners

This book presents a new and practical segmentation approach to be used in global customer management in the form of a scale by which to measure the level of corporate globalization. This is a tool that will help companies segment their customers and enable them to adapt customer management strategies when dealing with increasingly global customers. This in turn helps determine the company's own strategic position, thereby enhancing corporate performance. MARKET 1: Academics, Researchers, Libraries and post-graduate students interested in customer management and strategy MARKET 2: Practitioners interested in customer management and strategy

Marketing is one of the most optimistic business disciplines with the goal of serving consumers or organizations and increasing customer satisfaction and happiness. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the optimism of the world, thus hindering these marketing goals. This book explore the challenges faced by marketers during and post-COVID-19 and offers strategies for marketers to invoke a sense of optimism as the world enters the "new normal". It provides success stories and regional case studies to offer marketers new ways in which to serve consumers and satisfy their needs. It also acknowledges the role digital technology and innovation have played a crucial role during these dark times and how they impact current and future customer experiences. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses, and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy's flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review.

This fully updated second edition of Understanding Customers is a recommended textbook for the Understanding Customers Certificate CIM paper. It is divided into six parts covering the social sciences, people as individuals, people in groups, people in society and people in organisations. Each chapter of Understanding Customers consists of: * learning objectives and definitions * the theoretical background * exercises * issues to consider * current examples * implications for marketing * recent examination questions. Chris Rice isSenior Lecturer in the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University. He is a CIM examiner on the Understanding Customers paper and has widespread consultancy experience in both the private and public sector.

The food and beverage aspect of hotel operations is often the most difficult area to control effectively, but it plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction. Improving Food and Beverage Performance is able to show how successful catering operations can increase profitability whilst providing continuing improvements in quality, value and service. Keith Waller looks at the practical issues of improving performance combining the key themes of quality customer service and efficient management. This text will enable managers and students alike to recognise all the contributing factors to a successful food and beverage operation.Keith Waller is Senior Lecturer for the Faculty of Business and Management at Blackpool and the Fylde College. He has extensive experience in the hospitality industry and is a member of the Hotel and Catering International Management Association. He is the co-author, with Professor John Fuller, of The Menu, Food and Profit.

Practical Customer Success Management is a complete "handbook for CSMs", written by a customer success expert who has coached and trained many hundreds of customer success managers across the globe. The book is aimed at increasing both productivity and consistency of quality of output for customer success managers of all levels, from relative newcomers through to seasoned professionals. The book is highly practical in nature and is packed full of good humored but very direct advice and assistance for dealing with exactly the types of real world situations CSMs face every day. Practical Customer Success Management provides a simple-to-follow, best practice framework that explains what the core customer success management steps are at each stage of the customer journey to business outcome success and in what circumstances to apply those steps. It describes and explains which situations each step applies to and provides recommendations for activities or tasks that the CSM can perform to complete each step, together with detailed explanations and step-by-step guidance for successfully completing each activity or task. Included in this book is an entire suite of tools and templates that enable rapid completion of each task and ensure consistency of approach both across multiple customer engagements and by multiple CSMs within a team. Each tool's use is clearly explained within the book, and CSMs are able to adapt and customize the tools to suit their own specific needs as they see fit.

An incisive and accessible blueprint to pricing your company's products and services In The Pricing Model Revolution: How Pricing Will Change the Way We Sell and Buy On and Offline, world renowned pricing expert Danilo Zatta delivers an essential and engaging blueprint to building an enduring competitive advantage with insightful pricing models. In the book, you'll learn to identify the best monetization approaches for your products and how to execute the one that makes the most sense for your business. From freemium to subscription, pay-per-use, and even neuropricing, the author discusses every available option and shows you how to choose. Although it's rigorous and evidence backed, The Pricing Model Revolution avoids an overly academic perspective in favour of providing you with concrete, practical guidance you can apply immediately to start generating more revenue. You'll learn things like: How to make smart and innovative pricing a core component of your next product offering How to distinguish between every new, future-oriented monetization approach Which factors to consider when you're choosing on a new pricing model for your most popular products An essential read for C-level executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and sales team leaders, The Pricing Model Revolution belongs on the bookshelves of every business leader seeking to learn more about one of the foundational topics driving top-line revenue and bottom-line profitability today.

A comprehensive guide to a burgeoning field, this book shows how to design and implement a future-proof post-sales service program focused on proactively addressing customers' needs in a personalized way. For too long, companies have detached from customers after the moment of purchase and done post-sales service in a way that is reactive, generic, and not scalable. Empowered by the boom in data availability and analytics, future-ready companies will offer their customers proactive personalized post-sales service and reap tangible benefits, including higher customer satisfaction and retention and less negative word of mouth - leading to increased sales and customer lifetime value. As the stories in this book demonstrate, companies like Amazon, Adobe, Garmin, and Liberty Global are leading the way, but companies do not have to be global giants to capitalize on the techniques presented in this guide. To excel at customer experience (CX) management, companies need to implement the best customer feedback and data collection and management practices, develop state-of-the-art analytical models, and have the willingness to act. This book's strong vision and actionable roadmap, illustrated with real-life success stories, make this a compelling read for CX and customer analytics leaders, practitioners, and students alike.

As a leader in your organization, you will be very familiar with your organization's key financial statements and monthly management reports. You may have spent countless hours discussing budgets and expenditures. But how much time have you spent reflecting on the fact that these revenues are generated by actual customers-the people who pull out their wallets and pay for your products and services? In The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity, experts Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie, and Michael Ross start you on the path toward really getting to understand your customers' buying behavior as well as the health of your overall customer base. A customer-base audit is a systematic review of the buying behavior of a firm's customers using data captured by its transaction systems. It will help you answer questions such as: -- How healthy is your customer base? How realistic are your growth objectives? -- How do your customers differ in terms of their behavior and value? -- How has the quality of your customers changed over time? -- What changes in customer behavior lie behind period-to-period changes in firm performance? -- What is important to your high-value customers? Which products help you acquire and retain your best customers? Fader, Hardie, and Ross present five "lenses" through which an executive can address questions like those above. The answers are often lurking in various parts of the organization, but it is rare to find all the relevant analyses in one place, let alone performed on a regular basis (as an audit should be). Yet without such a basic, systematic understanding of the foundations of the firm's primary source of cash flow, how can executives make informed decisions? Fader, a Wharton professor, is the author of Customer Centricity and coauthor of The Customer Centricity Playbook, both of which have helped businesses radically rethink how they relate to customers. In this first step of the journey, Fader, Hardie, and Ross assist leaders in gaining a fundamental understanding of their customers' buying behavior-and thus their company as a whole.

Whether it's the interminable hold times, the multitude of buttons to press, or the automated voices before reaching someone with a measurable pulse--who hasn't felt exasperated at the abuse, neglect, and wasted time when all we want is help, and maybe a little human kindness? "Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us" is journalist Emily Yellin's highly entertaining and far-reaching exploration of the multibillion-dollar customer service industry and its surprising inner-workings. Since customer service has a role in just about every industry on earth, Yellin travels the country and the world, meeting a wide range of customer service reps, corporate decision makers, industry watchers, and Internet-based consumer activists. She shows the myriad forces that converge to create these aggravating experiences and the people inside and outside the globalized corporate world crusading to make customer service better for us all. Because of the fast-moving nature of the industry, the paperback will be revised and updated throughout, including a fresh Introduction.
For the first time, Yellin gets at the heart of the human stories behind the often inhuman face of call-center customer ?service--and why customer service doesn't have to be this bad.

Today, consumers have more choice than ever before. It's no longer enough to simply provide a service - companies who want to stay in business must also provide impeccable service with such consistency, integrity and creativity that people who experience it will not only keep coming back for more, but recommend your business to their friends, families, and colleagues. The Customer Rules is entirely focused on one ultimate goal: to help you, no matter what your position or job title, secure the most revenue-boosting asset you could wish for: a reputation for excellent service. Lee Cockerell, former Executive Vice President of Operations at Disney World - a company which has redefined what a business can do for their customers - shows you how: from why you should 'Never say no - except No Problem' to asking yourself 'What Would Mum Do?'. His 39 easy-to-follow rules apply to any industry and any company, large, small, public, private, online or High Street. The principles revealed in this book, tried and tested in one of the world's happiest environments, can give you everything you need to truly connect with your customers.

Much in the same vein as DELIVERING HAPPINESS, LOOPTAIL combines both Bruce Poon Tip's extraordinary first-person account of his entrepreneurial instincts to start and develop G Adventures, a highly-successful international travel adventure company, and along the way, he reveals his unusual management secrets that not only keep his employees fully engaged but also keep his customers extremely happy.

The Seven Myths of Customer Management is required reading for everyone who's job interacts with or impacts customers. Written in a lively, readable and anecdotal style, this book challenges much conventional wisdom and provides a powerful antidote to many potentially dangerous and expensive misconceptions. Written by two experienced and expert practitioners, it offers practical and pragmatic advice on how to unlock customer value and maximise corporate revenues.

'I wish I had had this book in front of me as the Marketing & IT snake-oil men tried to sell me their wares. This is the best exposition I have so far seen on creating focused customer strategies around what really counts and what will ultimately drive the bottom-line. Without ever losing sight of the importance of customers and meeting their needs, it introduces a realistic management-based approach and kills some sacred cows along the way.' Michael Pinder Managing Director, Premier Banking , Barclays Private Clients

'Before launching Switch I was employed in the strategic planning department of a major UK bank concentrating on the personal sector market - I only wish that back in the mid-eighties I had access to this book and the fund of knowledge it contains! A very readable and understandable book, down to earth with many appropriate real life examples - a good and compelling read.' Timothy M Green CEO of Switch Card Services (1991 - 2002)

'We shouldn't be surprised that Paul Hawkes and John Abram have penned a very surprising book. Exploding the myths of customer leadership is the dose of realism we should expect from two people who have always had their feet firmly on the ground. As leaders of one of the most successful marketing organisations of the past 20 years, they are renowned for their radical common sense. In this book, they tear sloppy arguments and widely held mantras to shreds. In their place they present a cogent, integrated framework for maximising the value of your organisation by maximising the value of your customers. Read it before you get your cheque book out; you'll use a lot less ink if you do.' Peter Simpson Commercial Director, First Direct

'Businesses thrive on creating and serving customers. In The Seven Myths of Customer Management, Paul Hawkes and John Abram show managers how to do so successfully and for long-term profits. The book is full of practical and workable advice on how to approach your markets and manage your customers.' Peter Lake Managing Director, Sweet & Maxwell Group

'An enjoyable book that provides lots of practical advice in a straightforward entertaining way. And, it tells the truth about the excesses of the 'CRM industry'.' Catherine McGrath Director Direct to Customer, Prudential Assurance

'Paul Hawkes and John Abram built an unrivalled reputation through their enormously successful consultancy practice for no-nonsense, hugely practical and extremely commercial solutions for every marketing issue imaginable across most industry sectors. An obvious next step was to produce a book that leverages the unique asset they have built over those years, a genuine insight into how to really deliver customer strategies to drive maximum value for shareholders. This is not a book for the office cabinet, it is the best 'policy and procedures manual' I have read relating to the hugely talked about but equally hugely misunderstood subject of CRM. Keep it handy - you'll need it!!' Simon Waugh Group Director of Marketing, Centrica Plc

Making Customer Satisfaction Happen provides a customer focus for your company's Total Quality process. Drawing on actual case studies of 'world-class' customer satisfaction organizations, Rod McNealy clearly illustrates the power of customer satisfaction as a strategic weapon for any business. Significantly, this book provides both an easily understandable and implementable approach to meeting and exceeding your customers' needs and expectations. Making Customer Satisfaction Happen is targeted at a broad audience of managers in any type of organization - large or small, public or private, operating for profit or non-profit. This is a 'hands-on', action-oriented, instructive guide to achieving customer satisfaction. It offers a proven approach for meeting and exceeding customers' needs and expectations to the point of 'delighting' them.

This book provides retail managers with a practical guide to using data. It covers three topics that are key areas of innovation for retailers: Algorithmic Marketing, Logistics, and Pricing. Use cases from these areas are presented and discussed in a conceptual and comprehensive manner. Retail managers will learn how data analysis can be used to optimize pricing, customer loyalty and logistics without complex algorithms. The goal of the book is to help managers ask the right questions during a project, which will put them on the path to making the right decisions. It is thus aimed at practitioners who want to use advanced techniques to optimize their retail organization.

Celebrity Service: discover an inspiring way to serve like never before. Your customers will love you. Your competition will not. Inside this book you will find the answers to set you, your team and your business apart in your industry. From the cabin crew member who gives away prizes, to the restaurant in downtown Philadelphia with knockout entertainments, you'll see how service will always lead to the sale. You'll find out why 5-star service should be outlawed and why one Paralympian continues to inspire the next generation. You'll discover what to do when you can't deliver on your promise and how to offer superb service - even when you're closed! Geoff will reveal the philosophy, the stories and the award-winning results which have led companies across six continents to out-perform their competitors.

COVID-19 forced a dramatic change to customer behavior that resulted in an economic crisis not witnessed by anyone alive. Businesses can no longer operate as before because their customers are no longer operating as before. This book provides customer-centric based guidance for how businesses should adapt to this new reality, deriving insights from academic research, case studies, interviews, and best practice examples from around the world. As validated by hundreds of top-level executives, its readers will gain a better understanding of why customer behavior has changed so they can use the book's solutions to navigate through and succeed in the post COVID-19 future.

This book is about building and delivering great customer experiences. Many companies neglect this, but the physical execution and emotional impact of customer experiences, companies and brands may ultimately determine customer satisfaction and loyalty and commercial success. With the use of compelling examples and cases the authors show that this is key for all companies and organizations.

"There are not many people who understand the new paradigm of the Customer Experience. The emerging gurus on the subject are Colin Shaw and John Ivens with their holistic approach. We will all have to embrace the paradigm they are unlocking and focus on our Customer Experience if we are to be successful in the future. At Microsoft we understand the importance of this and are committing ourselves to this new world."

Steve Harvey, Director of People, Profits & Loyalty, Microsoft

"Many business books look at new companies and how they have become successful. This book bases itself in the reality in which most business people find themselves daily – working in companies which have been established for some time and who are faced with legacy systems, legacy processes, legacy people, legacy channels and an existing culture. It focuses on how you can change an existing organisation in order to build and deliver Great Customer Experiences. Shaw and Ivens are the gurus of the Customer Experience. Whilst we have all recognised the importance of service in the past, their book moves business thinking on apace. It is about more than just customer service, it is about the whole Customer Experience. Their 7 Philosophies for Building Great Customer Experiences explicitly outline the building blocks that are the foundation of good business."

Liam Lambert, Director & General Manager, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London

"John and Colin’s innovative approach deserves applause - their thought leading book is at the cutting edge. Their 7 Philosophies for Building Great Customer Experiences underpin Hilton’s own philosophy on how to delight our customers. My endorsement reflects the importance I personally place on the Customer Experience".

Mike Ashton, Senior Vice President, Hilton International Hotels

"This book hits the strikezone of how marketers, and organizations overall, need to be thinking to win today. It's a clear roadmap for building a high performance organization crystallized around the customer. Importantly, Shaw and Ivens recognize that emotions are at the core of all relationships -- it's no different with customers than our family & friends -- and truly engaging and successful brands."

Barry Herstein, Chief Marketing Officer, Financial Times Group, New York

"The Customer Experience will be a critical differentiator in today's commoditising economy. Colin and John's thought provoking book is essential reading for anyone wishing to create engaging and memorable Customer Experiences. This simple and readable book is littered with the views and thoughts of senior business leaders on the Customer Experience. It not only explains the theory of the Customer Experience but also provides practical advice and insights on how you can begin building and delivering Great Customer Experiences".

Peter Scott, Customer Service Director, T-Mobile

Virtual Worlds and E-Commerce: Technologies and Applications for Building Customer Relationships presents various opinions, judgments, and ideas on how the use of digitally created worlds is changing the face of e-commerce and extending the use of internet technologies to create a more immersive experience for customers. Containing current research on various aspects of the use of virtual worlds, this book includes a discussion of the elements of virtual worlds; the evolution of e-commerce to virtual commerce (v-commerce); the convergence of online games and virtual worlds; current examples of virtual worlds in use by various businesses, the military, and educational institutions; the economics of virtual worlds: discussions on legal, security and technological issues facing virtual worlds; a review of some human factor issues in virtual worlds; and the future of virtual worlds and e-commerce.