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).

Top presenter and trainer Steven Harris provides a highly charged practical guide to customer service, based on the award-winning principles used by his consultancy Energize Learning. Fired Up and Ready to Go! is packed with tips and exercises to help readers work towards peak performance both as individuals and within the teams they manage. The book is divided into three parts: Part One focuses on techniques for self-management and peak performance; Part Two describes the skills and behaviours required to engage effectively with customers and colleagues alike; finally Part Three focuses on the leadership skills needed to get teams, departments and companies all fired up and ready to go at all times!

Do you want a better understanding of who your customers are? Do you want to learn how to acquire the customer voice? The next decade will be the decade of the customer. Meeting their wants, needs, and desires better than anyone else will be paramount to your organization's success. Acquiring, Processing, and Deploying Voice of the Customer gives you the tools you need to develop a Voice of the Customer (VOC) plan from beginning to end.

Shillito describes the delicate customer-company balance. He covers the various components types of VOC such as voice of the company, voice of the designer/engineer, and voice of marketing that must be integrated through the use of an interdisciplinary team to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for the enterprise. The author not only discusses VOC but also includes a hybrid model - Customer Oriented Product Concepting (COPC) - for deploying VOC into a product or service design that balances the needs of the customer with the needs of the enterprise.

All of these elements go into developing a successful VOC process. However, timing is key. Shillito presents a step-by-step template for integrating VOC into the fuzzy front end of the commercialization process. He demonstrates how product development teams can get an early focus and stay on course during the commercialization process. The book provides a set of breakthrough tools that may be used to obtain and deploy VOC.

The most comprehensive VOC guide available, Acquiring, Processing, and Deploying Voice of the Customer provides you with the techniques required to shape a product or service so that their elements balance customer and company needs while being affordable to both. It describes qualitative and quantitative processes integrated into a system to determine the customer's wants and how you can meet them. The new methods found in this book will put you ahead of your competition and ahead of the crowd.

This text gives examples of how companies can leverage call centre technology to serve their unique needs, and how at the same time they can create a positive experience for customers. Solutions from leading call centres are provided for the problems behind basic call centre functions.

Excellent customer service is crucial to a successful phone-based business - it can secure customer loyalty, while poor service can lose it. This concise guide examines every important scenario that a customer service representative may encounter and shows how to handle each one. It tells how to ask the right questions and solve the problem in an efficient manner. It also explains how to make effective use of voice mail, e-mail, fax, and letters. Stephen Coscia's guide to customer service over the telephone shows how to accentuate the positive, how to determine the customer's problem and how to solve it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Exceptional customer service is crucial to a successful phone-based business. Quality service can secure customer loyalty, while poor service can lose it. This concise guide examines every important scenario that a customer service representative is likely to encounter and shows how to best handle each one. It tells how to determine what the customer's problem is by asking the right questions, and then solving the problem in a timely and efficient manner. It also explains how to make effective use of voice mail, e-mail, fax, and letters.

The Third Edition of A GUIDE TO CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS FOR THE SERVICE DESK PROFESSIONAL explores the changing role of the service desk professional. Each chapter expands upon a particular skill required to provide effective customer support and provides proven techniques for implementing the concepts. Research, references, and resources have been updated in each chapter, and ITIL vocabulary and concepts are reflected throughout the text. New information is also incorporated, such as a discussion of general trends currently affecting the information technology industry and technology trends affecting the service desk. The text focuses on providing individuals with practical instruction on the unique skill set needed to execute the expanding mission of the service desk.

A Book in the University of Michigan Business School Series It's a simple equation: no customers equals no profits. So how can a company ensure that its customers enjoy a consistently satisfying experience? In this book, two experts from the University of Michigan Business School lay out a five-stage process that links all of the key measures of customer satisfaction with marketing strategy and product development to guarantee excellent customer service. Johnson and Gustafsson show managers how to break down the organizational barriers that defy great customer service and instead tie together their customer value chain to create a cohesive customer measurement and management system. So, if like most companies, yours has only a fleeting understanding of its relationship with its customers, this book offers the organizational know-how to make and keep them happy.

The benefits include: cost reduction; increased productivity; improved safety; higher morale; and the ability to meet the changing expectations of your customers.
Step-by-step, the authors guide you through the creation and implementation of a process master. You will learn:

• Identify and gain control of your organization's key processes.
• Get the right people involved.
• Establish boundaries and measures.
• Use the process master to support ISO and HACCP compliance

In a world where there is increasing choice for just about every kind of product and service, winning and holding the best customers is key to the success of any business. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is a concept that senior managers in any kind of business ignore at their peril. At its heart is the successful management of customer retention by being customer-focused as an organization.
The concept is not rocket science, but its implementation is more of a challenge. It involves a fundamental change within the organization.
In this book, John Murphy introduces "The Lifebelt" - quite literally an aid to keeping afloat in this pressured environment. The Lifebelt is a framework that offers a practical way forward to integrating and mobilizing the entire oragnization toward a holistic CRM programme.
The proprietary framework features six key factors identified as being essential for consistent delivery of service: customer focus, processes, employee involvement, training, measurement, and continuous improvement.
John Murphy outlines how each of the factors should be owned by an appropriate member of the top management team. When this framework is systematically and effectively implemented and managed it will considerably enhance the customer retention capacity of the company.
The logic of the framework applies to virtually all industries internationally. Managers and marketers across the board will find this book one of the most practical gudies to retaining customers published to date.

Consumer Services have been viewed as parasitic activities, dependent on other sectors of the economy for their viability and vitality. Yet local economic policy is now looking towards consumer services to solve severe economic problems. The rapid expansion of the service sector is now a principal feature of contemporary global economic restructuring. Consumer Services and Economic Development evaluates the contributions that consumer services can make to local economic development and revitalisation. A broad range of consumer service industries are examined in turn: tourism, sports, universities, retailing and cultural industries. Detailed local case studies illustrate the role, impact and effectiveness of consumer services in economic regeneration in a number of different contexts: the global city, contrsting urban areas and rural localities. With many localities in the advanced economies suffering from severe deindustrialisation and weak producer service growth, this book highlights the need for a fundamental rethink of both the function of services and of economic development theory and practice in general.

In the context of rapid ICT development, this book focuses on how gamification affects consumer engagement and can be used to create a shared value for customers and companies. Based on the constructs of shared value, consumer engagement and gamification, it creates a conceptual model and a research methodology to enable empirical testing and provide complex empirical research findings. The book demonstrates the use of game elements and the motivation to play games as a means of achieving a psychological effect, i.e., consumer engagement manifested through gamified activities and brand engagement. This joint empirical study, by an expert team, concludes that the analysis of consumer perceived value in the context of engagement in gamified activities should distinguish between not just the theoretically identified company/brand-related economic, emotional, functional and social values, but also between engagement-related social and functional values.

This book illustrates the vital link between satisfying external customers and improving processes within the organization to ensure that internal customers are satisfied, too.

In an attempt to achieve high levels of growth, profit, and competitive advantage, American businesses have been implementing a variety of management initiatives, such as TQM, reengineering, service management, self-directed work teams, and empowerment. Too often, these initiatives, when implemented individually, fail or provide only short-term results. American industry is now realizing that no single initiative can provide an overall, long-term solution. A more comprehensive, integrated approach is necessary to sustain future success. Sustaining High Performance shows you how to develop and implement an integrative "systems-thinking" strategy that will ensure a successful long-term management plan. Sustaining High Performance will help you reinvent your strategic management system (planning and change) for the 21st century and give you the tools and information to pull ahead of the competition and become a powerhouse organization.

Who should read this book? This is a must read if you're a newcomer to predictive dialers and responsible for analyzing, recommending and deploying inbound and outbound call center solutions; or, if you're in the midst of implementing a predictive dialer,
For anyone analyzing, recommending and deploying predictive dialers in outbound call centers, this book explains how they work, how to get the maximum benefit from them in automating telemarketing, customer service and collection calls.

Get the most out of ACDs (automatic call distributors) and other complex systems in order to boost customer satisfaction and increase sales Includes three ready to use RFPs (request for proposals) for buying an ACD, computer telephony system, or recording

This title was first published in 2003. An exhaustive and synthetic framework for the use of Internet tools in customer-supplier relationships is one aspect of e-business that is still missing from existing literature. This book analyses the main management implications related to the adoption of the Internet in the supply chain and unifies different research studies and contributions in order to build such a framework. It is based on wide empirical evidence including four in-depth case studies in both Europe and the US, a cross-industry survey of more than 160 US companies and website research describing emerging Internet initiatives in B2B relationships. By creating a concrete link between theory and practice it should appeal to academics and practitioners alike.

A guide to improving sales and profits in consumer financial services that stresses the development of a sales and service culture. The key principles discussed are interaction with customers, cultural support and values, service from the customer's point of view, service selling, characteristics of successful sales organizations, star sales people, perfecting the sales process, dealing with prospective clients, and ongoing interaction with the client.

Exceptional customer service is crucial to a successful phone-based business. Quality service can secure customer loyalty, while poor service can lose it. This concise guide examines every important scenario that a customer service representative is likely to encounter and shows how to best handle each situation. It also explains how to make effective use of voice mail, email, fax, and letters. ;

Your company needs a call center to be competitive in the 21st century. This book is your guide to the technology, techniques, and trends in today's call centers. The Call Center Dictionary contains all the information you need to: Understand: Your boss,

The Spirit of Hospitality takes readers on a journey of passion for purpose that empowers the missing ingredients of hospitality into a proven leadership style that works. Time has sped up to the point where technology has surpassed the last few thousand years by only a generation. What happened to kindness, humility and the human touch vs. having our face buried into a laptop or IPhone? A life dedicated to excellence does not come by chance, or with age, but by choice and commitment. Larry Stuart strives to give The Spirit of Hospitality to others who are called to a life of prosperity and significance. He provides the tools, attributes and real-life examples of what works when it comes to serving up a memorable guest service delivery and describes the necessary ingredients of hospitality. There is hope only if individuals bring back the missing ingredients of kindness, humility, integrity, encouragement, generosity, team and accountability. Only then is the spirit of hospitality empowered to provide the right leadership approach in building relationships to a new level of expectation, and allows those who embrace that spirit to accomplish whatever they strive to achieve.

Use this bestselling and practical guide to steer you through how to create exceptional customer experience for the modern B2B consumer. This new edition explores key topics such as AI, the role of IT in customer experience and customer relationship management. B2B Customer Experience shows readers how to deliver the very best customer experience within the business-to-business industry. Intensely practical in its approach, it is divided into five parts to walk readers through the journey of planning, mapping, structuring, implementing and controlling an effective customer experience, all bespoke for the B2B environment. Now newly revised, this new edition will provide new case studies demonstrating what makes for good or bad customer experience as well as providing new tactics and strategies that will help build an effective customer experience plan. This new edition also aims to guide the reader on how to successfully incorporate AI into their strategy whilst still delivering great customer experience. Discussing some of the best-known examples of consumer-focused customer experiences from companies such as Zappos, Nordstrom and John Lewis, B2B Customer Experience is the must-have text for any marketing professional working within a B2B environment.

Bridget Brennan, CEO of Female Factor, shows readers how to beat competitors and grow overall market share by applying the fundamentals of creating a customer experience that appeals to the most powerful consumer decision makers: women. When people think about the world's growth markets, they often envision countries like China and India. Yet they miss the largest one right here at home: women. With women driving 70 to 80 percent of consumer purchasing, it would seem an obvious strategy to learn how best to appeal to this continually expanding market. Common sense? Yes. Common practice? No. In Winning Her Business, Bridget Brennan, advisor to some of the world's biggest brands and businesses, provides a roadmap for selling in a world dominated by the rise of women's economic power. She points out how classic sales practices that focused on simply offering product knowledge are no longer enough in today's Google-informed world. Instead, savvy business people must adapt by learning how to deliver transformational customer experiences that speak to women, and by developing stronger interpersonal skills, value-added knowledge, and emotional-engagement techniques that inspire sales, referrals, and repeat business. Bolstered by a dozen years of research, Brennan offers invaluable insight into women as consumers and shows readers how, at the end of the day, mastering an inclusive customer experience is something everyone appreciates.

Praise for The Best Service Is No Service

"A very sharp and practical treatise on why so many call centers and service operations are playing with the wrong deck of cards altogether. We strongly recommend it to anyone involved in customer service issues."
--Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., authors, Rules to Break and Laws to Follow

"The Best Service Is No Service presents great new ideas about how to make service work for the company and the customer. Customers are clamoring for self-service that answers all of their questions, and this important book shows companies how to achieve this level of customer satisfaction."
--Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of online sales and operations, Google

"I recommend The Best Service Is No Service to companies and their outsourcing partners alike--when customers don't need to contact companies for help or information because everything is clear and works right, then everyone benefits. The 'best service' principles also work across all countries and cultures, a new universal goal!"
--Sanjeev Aggarwal, managing director, Helion Ventures Pvt Ltd Gurgaon, India, and founder and former CEO of IBM Daksh

"Building 'the best service is no service' also applies outside of corporations--universities and business schools can learn a lot from this book and its principles. I recommend this book to academic leaders for their schools and for their students to obtain firsthand lessons that really work!"
--James Jiambalvo, dean, Michael G. Foster School of Business; and Kirby L. Cramer Chair of Business Administration

"This book is compulsory reading for executives, customer service managers, and decision makers whose actionsdefine a company's customer experience. The Best Service Is No Service points out areas where management mistakes or confusion can lead to unnecessary contacts and disoriented customers. The concept of 'no service' is elegant in its simplicity. You will find clear solutions and tips on how to achieve 'no service' but also how to provide 'awesome customer experiences' while pursuing 'no service.'"
--Bert Quintana, former vice president, Dell International Services

Leading the Customer Experience explores the relationship between leadership behaviour and exceptional service. Most organisation's strategic aims and goals centre on the delivery of excellent service. Loyal customers not only keep buying from a company but also recommend the business to others. It is clear that managers and leaders throughout an organisation have a key influence on the experience that customers receive. How leaders behave has a direct impact on their team member's motivation to go the extra mile to deliver excellent service for the customer. Sarah Cook's vision for Leading the Customer Experience is to provide practical advice, tools and techniques for managers in how to effectively lead and motivate their team to deliver the best possible customer service. This book encapsulates her research on the behaviours of leaders who successfully create an environment where employees deliver exceptional service and she brings a pragmatic and business focused approach to the topic. Each chapter contains a variety of case study examples from businesses in UK and Europe, Asia Pacific, US and BRIC countries. These include service organisations in the financial sector, manufacturing, hospitality, transport, healthcare, public and third sectors.

How many of today's leading corporations are successfully winning back old customers and attracting new ones
The new purchasing patterns of disenchanted customers and the demise of brand loyalty have compelled many endangered corporate giants to radically alter their thinking about product design and marketing. This book describes how leading companies such as IBM, Nestle, Dupont, AT&T, and Panasonic have stopped creating products for "buyers" and have started considering the long-term needs of users.
* Packed with real-world cases which demonstrate crucial ideas, tools, and techniques in action at leading firms
SANDRA VANDERMERWE (London, England) holds a chair in Management at the Management School Imperial College, London. Her latest book is Tin Soldiers to Russian Dolls.