This interface is being recognized by business organizations as a key priority for management, and both practitioners and academics alike have placed a greater emphasis on the need to view the supply chain as a whole as the vehicle by which competitive advantage is achieved. As well as drawing upon current research and the experience of firms worldwide, Marketing Logistics uses numerous 'mini-cases' and vignettes to illustrate the key messages in each chapter and bring the theory to life. This book is an invaluable resource for managers who seek to understand more about the way in which the supply chain should be managed to improve their organization's competitive position, as well as students undertaking degree-level courses in marketing, logistics and supply chain management.

This book examines the effective and appropriate integration of project customers in intercultural settings. It first presents the theoretical background and the state of the art in intercultural project stakeholder management. The book then describes the use of qualitative and quantitative (Delphi survey) methods to produce a dataset, and the development of a relational model for customer engagement in intercultural projects based on this dataset. The book can be used to inform future research in the area of international project management, while also serving as a guide for project management practitioners who need to engage culturally diverse users, sponsors and customers.

The current shift in demographics - aging and shrinking populations - in many countries around the world presents a major challenge to companies and societies alike. One particularly essential implication is the emergence and constant growth of the so-called "graying market" or "silver market", the market segment more or less broadly defined as those people aged 50 and older. Increasing in number and share of the total population while at the same time being relatively well-off, this market segment can be seen as very attractive and promising, although still very underdeveloped in terms of product and service offerings. This book offers a thorough and up-to-date analysis of the challenges and opportunities in leveraging innovation, technology, product development and marketing for older consumers and employees. Key lessons are drawn from a variety of industries and countries, including the lead market Japan.

"Inside the Customer Universe" reveals how an organization can become ahead of the game by focusing a its strategy on predicting customer needs rather than following them. This book provides a unique contribution to the field of customer management with a departure from current practice towards understanding customers as 'multi-individuals' and hence solving current confusions surrounding customer behaviour.

"Inside the Customer Universe's" easy to implement tools, models and strategies provide the reader with the ability to create stable and sustainable customer understanding and, therefore, sustainable business growth.

""CUBEical Thinking is a great concept for developing business and the concept of customer types is intriguing as it provides great insights into the drivers behind true customer loyalty,""

Niels Henrik Hansen, Director SAS Corporate Sales, Scandinavian Airlines, Denmark

""CUBEical Thinking has given us the platform for developing an effective sales and key account management organization which has delivered significant top and bottom line results based on targeted up and cross sales,""

Henrik Hubner, Vice President Sales, Sanistal

""CUBEical Thinking has provided us with great customer insights on which we are benefiting in our daily operations and it has helped our organization focus activities and resources,""

Carsten Hetling, Nordic Marketing Manager, Zyxel Communications

Unlike other books which focus solely on the business or profit aspects of measuring the customer experience, this book focuses on the benefits to the consumer as well as the company or financial institution. The book describes how business and government can undertake market research to determine whether the credit and investment markets are functioning properly and providing consumers with adequate information to make sound and safe credit and investment decisions. A discussion of different market research methods abilities to uncover problems in the credit and investment markets is provided. Findings and trends from studies measuring the customers experience in the credit and investment markets during the 1991 - 2009 time periods are discussed along with regulatory guidelines and consumer protection laws. The methodologies used to measure the customer experience and detect misleading sales practices; unfair treatment and discrimination in the financial services market place are described in detail. The techniques of mystery shopping, matched pair testing and consumer surveys are described along with a detailed discussion of study design, data collection methods, sample size determination, statistical testing, reporting and analysis. Sample questionnaires, mystery shop scenarios and profiles and sample analyses and charts are provided.

This timely edited collection offers a multidisciplinary perspective on social commerce, a phenomenon that has gained increasing interest over the last 8 years. Investigating how social media can be used to generate value for brands beyond customer relationship purposes, the skilled authors explore how social media users co-create value for businesses, influence other consumers and generate electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Providing insights from practitioners and academics, this book goes further than simply exploring e-commerce and social media, and addresses the real relevance of social commerce in today's business landscape. With a selection of contemporary case studies and a Foreword written by Inthefrow's creator, Victoria Magrath, Social Commerce will be an engaging read for those studying consumer behaviour, online marketing, and e-commerce.

Targeting, acquiring, and retaining the 'right' customers is at the core of many successful service firms. The objective is to build the relationships and develop loyal customers who will contribute to a growing volume of business with the firm in the future. Managing Customer Relationships and Building Loyalty describes how to acquire and develop desirable, loyal customers within the chosen segments, and the painstaking process to build and maintain their loyalty through well-conceived relationship marketing strategies. This book is the tenth volume in the Winning in Service Markets Series by services marketing expert Jochen Wirtz. Scientifically grounded, accessible and practical, the Winning in Service Markets Series bridges the gap between cutting-edge academic research and industry practitioners, and features best practices and latest trends on services marketing and management from around the world.

In this book, nine librarians from across the country describe their libraries' best practices in this key area. Their contributions range from all-encompassing customer service policies and models any library can both adapt and be proud of to micro-approaches that emphasize offering excellent user-focused technology planning, picture book arrangement with patrons in mind, Web 2.0 tools to connect users with the library, establishing good service delivery chains, and making your library fantastic for homeschoolers. As past Public Library Association President Audra Caplan writes in her introduction to this book, "There is nothing magical about providing excellent customer service; it just takes the right people, the right philosophy and the passion to make it a reality." If you've got all that, here are the best practices to make stellar customer service a reality for your library's users.

This book presents techniques that reflect the vast and varied experience of the authors. They have produced an array of highly effective guest satisfaction techniques from which even the most veteran hoteliers can learn and benefit. With this practical, easy-to-use book, there is no need to sift through pages of narratives in order to identify actionable tactics and strategies that can be applied at the property-level. The book presents one unique and actionable customer satisfaction technique on each page-a useful feature for busy managers.

"Larry's thoughts on customers, culture and talent are immensely valuable for any business, anywhere in the world."
--Sheldon S. Wiseman, President & CEO, Amberwood Entertainment Corp.

"For Larry the relationship between customers and profitability is intuitive and effortless. By reading his book you will be galvanised to do something about it at a time when it couldn't matter more."
--Amanda Mackenzie, Chief Marketing Officer, Aviva

"Larry Hochman understands the business zeitgeist exceptionally well. "The Relationship Revolution" brings together what he has learned from hundreds of customers and thousands of managers. His argument that authentic customer relationships are what will separate the winners from the also-rans is provocative, challenging and a call to action."
--Dr Stan Maklan, Cranfield School of Management

"If you are still denying the importance of Web 2.0, then read this wake-up call from one of the world's foremost speakers on customer relationships. If you "truly" value your customers then "The Relationship Revolution" is required reading - in every part of the world and regardless of the business you are in."
--Scott Gustlin, Vice President, Interactive RTP

"Finally Larry Hochman, one of the world's most popular keynote speakers, has put his wisdom into a book. His insights on management, marketing, leadership, customer service and human resources will certainly help the readers create unique value... at the speed of life."
--Santiago Zapata, Founder and President, HiCue Speakers

In this long-awaited book, leading business thinker Larry Hochman maps out what you have to do to succeed in the coming decades. He gets under your customers' skin, shows you what they really want, and then takes you through what you have to do, inside and outside your organisation, to get there.

Inspirational and enlightening, "The Relationship Revolution" should become a new 'rule book' throughout your organisation.

Phone calls and emails from customers are not just events; they are significant milestones in customer relationships. This book presents a roadmap to significantly improving customer relationships, whether by phone, mail, fax, email, or Website, by getting the most out of call centre technology. The book bridges the business, technical and financial issues in building and managing a customer contact centre. It evaluates call centre technology and its practical implementation to foster enhanced customer satisfaction, while delivering results at a reasonable cost. The author explains how to transform a call centre into an effective cross media contact point staffed by people equipped with the appropriate tools, knowledge and skills to provide responsive answers to emails, faxes and calls requesting service and information. Further, the author explores how to make the call centre an engine of business growth by minimizing costs, enhancing customer satisfaction, and using technology to upsell and generate new revenues from existing customers.

Customer Service: Career Success through Customer Loyalty, 6e provides a systematic process for building service skills that all business people need. Presented in a friendly, conversational manner, the text is filled with examples that demonstrate the link between service skills and career achievement. This edition features more on social networking, trustability, and customer service trends. Information is also included on internal customers, emerging technologies, and stress-reducing techniques. Throughout the text, there is an emphasis on transforming good service intentions into a workable plan that yields loyalty and success.

A revolution is taking place in the way companies organize and manage the "front-end" of their organization, where it meets its customers.
Traditional concepts of sales management, account management, and customer service are being overtaken by initiatives like customer business development, the strategic sales organization, and strategic customer management. This book aims to provide insights into how this revolution is unfolding and to provide a framework for executives and management students to address the issues involved. The book focuses on the transformation of the traditional sales organization into a strategic force leading the strategic customer management process in companies.
Traditionally, the area of sales management has mainly been treated as a tactical, operational topic in the conventional marketing literature--simply part of the communications mix within the planned marketing programme. However, the emergence of major customers as dominant buyers in many sectors as a result of pressures towards consolidation and enhanced scale of operations, is changing the way in which sales issues are addressed in supplier organizations. The growth of new forms of buyer-seller relationship based on collaboration and partnering has encouraged organizations to reconsider the sales and account management operation as an important source of competitive differentiation in commoditized markets. Increasingly, sales is being perceived as a central part of business strategy and attention given to the challenges in better aligning sales processes with strategy. This has many implications for the design of the sales organization and its management strategy, which go far beyond the confines of conventional marketing views.

The focus of marketing is shifting away from transactional marketing and toward relationship marketing. Companies are beginning to recognize the economic value of stable, long-term customer relationships based on a high degree of customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, and loyalty. The book provides a comprehensive overview of both fundamentals and important recent developments in this fast-growing field. It also presents examples of successful relationship marketing in practice."This book makes a landmark contribution in assembling some of the best contemporary thinking about relationship marketing illustrated with concrete descriptions of companies in the automobile industry, consumer electronics, public utilities and so on, which are implementing relationship marketing. I highly recommend this to all companies who want to see what their future success will require."Prof. Philip Kotler, Northwestern University, Illinois

This is an applied handbook for the application of data mining techniques in the CRM framework. It combines a technical and a business perspective to cover the needs of business users who are looking for a practical guide on data mining. It focuses on Customer Segmentation and presents guidelines for the development of actionable segmentation schemes. By using non-technical language it guides readers through all the phases of the data mining process.

Unlike other books which focus solely on the business or profit aspects of measuring the customer experience, this book focuses on the benefits to the consumer as well as the company or financial institution. The book describes how business and government can undertake market research to determine whether the credit and investment markets are functioning properly and providing consumers with adequate information to make sound and safe credit and investment decisions. A discussion of different market research methods abilities to uncover problems in the credit and investment markets is provided. Findings and trends from studies measuring the customers experience in the credit and investment markets during the 1991 - 2009 time periods are discussed along with regulatory guidelines and consumer protection laws. The methodologies used to measure the customer experience and detect misleading sales practices; unfair treatment and discrimination in the financial services market place are described in detail. The techniques of mystery shopping, matched pair testing and consumer surveys are described along with a detailed discussion of study design, data collection methods, sample size determination, statistical testing, reporting and analysis. Sample questionnaires, mystery shop scenarios and profiles and sample analyses and charts are provided.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty in the tourism sector is highly dependent upon the behaviours of front-line service providers. Service is about people, how they relate to one another, fulfill each other's needs and ultimately care for each other. Yet surprisingly there are few or any books which focus on the detailed specifics of the social exchange and interaction between the service provider and customer. Tourist Customer Service Satisfaction fully explores this relationship by defining the specific kind of verbal and non-verbal messages needed for successful exchanges, outlining how the service provider ought to behave & cope in a situation as well as detailing positive approaches that enhance a service provider's role performance. The book uses encounter theory to examine the customer - provider relationship as well as drawing on current research and theories from hospitality, tourism, management, psychology bodies of literature. In doing so the book offers important insight into how employee - centric competitive advantage in this sector can be achieved in various markets. This book is unique in its approach by focusing on the specifics of the social exchange and interaction between the service provider and customer. It therefore offers a novel synthesis of knowledge on service satisfaction in the tourism sector which will serve as valuable pedagogical and research reference for students and academics interested in hospitality and tourism.

Praise For What's the Secret?

"In a world of ever-increasing mediocrity, real customer service and relationship buildingare the keys to competitive differentiation. DiJulius's work is a blueprint to helping businesses exceed customer expectations."
--John Maguire, COO, Panera Bread

"It's no secret that DiJulius helps companies go above and beyond mundane services to stage truly compelling experiences. His real-world, down-in-the-trenches perspective in What's the Secret? is sure to help many managers create an enduring legacy of being the very best they can be."
--James H. Gilmore, coauthor of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want

"DiJulius has an amazing ability to offer clarity and simplicity to the message of creating world-class service. This book offers a road map to creating superior service in any industry."
--Nance Hastings, Vice President, Field Education and

Talent Development, Estee Lauder

"Given the general uniform quality of global products and services, the primary way firms differentiate themselves and drive exceptional margins is through outstanding customer service--secret service! DiJulius's book provides the kind of practical simplicity and depth it takes to achieve industry-dominating customer service. I know, because we've exposed thousands of business owners to DiJulius's approach and results match the promises."
--Verne Harnish, founder, Entrepreneurs' Organization; CEO, Gazelles, Inc.;

and author, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

"In this fast-changing global world, DiJulius has been able to simplify the game of service. People's tastes and time constraints have rapidly changed, but the desire for personalized humancontact still remains the overwhelming factor in winning."
--John Rolfs, General Manager, The Ritz-Carlton

"What's the Secret? delves even farther into the customer service experience and, more importantly, explains how to focus the entire organization on this one key element to all business success. DiJulius has once again delivered a fine addition to any business library."
--Maggie Hardy Magerko, owner and President, 84 Lumber Company

First Published in 1999, this book stresses the service aspects of an organization - especially customer service, marketing, and organizational responsiveness, and how to create and provide outstanding customer value to the target market(s).

Visits to customers by a cross-functional team of marketers and engineers play an important role in new product development, entry into new markets, and in exploring customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The new edition of this widely used professional resource provides step-by-step instructions for making effective use of this market research technique.Using a wealth of specific examples, Edward F. McQuarrie explains how to set feasible objectives and how to select the right number of the right kind of customers to visit. One of the leading experts in the field, McQuarrie demonstrates how to construct a discussion guide and how to devise good questions, and offers practical advice on how to conduct face-to-face interviews.Extensively updated throughout, this third edition includes three new chapters as well as expanded coverage of the analysis of visit data. It also discusses which industries and product categories are most (and least) suitable to the customer visit technique. The author also covers how the customer visit technique compares to other market research techniques such as focus groups.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) introduces the management philosophy of CRM. This is the first book to explore the benefits to the firm of a globally integrated approach to customer relationship management. The authors contend that the best hope for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in a global marketplace is by means of better understanding which customers are in the best position to experience long-term, profitable relationships for the globally-oriented firm. The book offers both an academic and practical viewpoint of the importance of CRM in a global framework. It integrates the topics of knowledge management, total quality management, and relationship marketing with the goal of explaining the benefits of CRM for internationally active firms. The authors have included six case studies which allow the reader to undertake the role of CRM consultant in a 'learning by doing' approach.The book should be required reading for all business executives who desire a customer oriented approach to success, and for all students of business who desire to gain insight into a relationship management approach which will become ever-more important in the years ahead.

This book focuses on unfair contract terms in consumer contracts, in particular the existing legislation and the proposals by the Law Commissions for a new unified regime. In this context it considers, in particular, what we mean by fairness (both procedurally and in substance); the tools used; the European dimension; the move from general principles from the more piecemeal approach typical in UK legal tradition; and the further move in this direction as a result of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive.

On the front lines of customer service, every day presents new and unexpected challenges-and even the most dedicated employees can be caught unprepared. They need confidence. They need training. They need help. Those who work on the front lines of customer service never know what new and unexpected challenges await them each day. But they do know one thing--they will be needed. But how can you prepare for the unexpected? How can customer service reps get the training and confidence required to tackle the unknown? In Be Your Customer's Hero, internationally recognized customer service expert Adam Toporek provides the answers to preparing for the surprises awaiting the CSR. Through short, simple, actionable advice, in quick, easy-to-read chapters, this invaluable guide shows customer-facing CSRs how to: Achieve the mindset required for Hero-ClassTM service Understand the customer's expectations--and exceed them Develop powerful communication skills Avoid the seven triggers guaranteed to set customers off Handle difficult and even irrational customers with ease Armed with the tools and techniques in Be Your Customer's Hero, you will have all they need to transform themselves into the heroes their customers need.

This work offers a state-of-the art survey of information systems research on electronic customer relationship management (eCRM). It provides important new frameworks derived from current cases and applications in this emerging field. Each chapter takes a collaborative approach to eCRM that goes beyond the analytical and operational perspectives most often taken by researchers in the field. Chapters also stress integration with other enterprise information systems. The book is organized in four parts: Part I presents an overview of the role of CRM and eCRM in marketing and supply chain management; Part II focuses on the organizational success factors behind eCRM implementation; Part III presents cases of eCRM performance enhancement; and Part IV addresses eCRM issues in business-to-consumer commerce.

"Designing the Best Call Center for Your Business" examines all key aspects of opening and expanding a live-agent call center here and abroad. Key topics discuss offshoring as well as nearshoring, and consumer and political resistance including the impact of federal "Do Not Call" legislation.