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.

Berry-AMA Book Prize FINALIST 2011! "The Right Sensory Mix" is one of the four best marketing books in 2011 according to the American Marketing Association Foundation. The Berry-AMA Book Prize is awarded annually be the Foundation (AMAF) and recognizes books whose innovative ideas have had significant impact on marketing and related fields. For additional information about the Berry-AMA Book Prize, visit Berry-AMA Book Prize. Why do some people drink black coffee and others stick to tea? Why do some people prefer competitors' products? Why do we sell less in this country? Many companies fail to acknowledge and analyze disparities observed among customers and simply put them down to culture or emotion. New neuroendocrinological research proves that consumers are rational: They just have a different biological perception of the same stimulus! Their preferences, behavior, and decisions are strongly influenced by the hundreds of millions of sensors monitoring their body and brain. People with more taste buds are for example sensitive to bitterness and are more likely to drink their coffee with sugar or milk, or to drink tea. After reading the book, managers will be able to: * Understand and predict consumers' behavior and preferences * Design the right sensory mix (color, shape, taste, smell, texture, and sound) for each product * Fine-tune their positioning and product range for every local market * Systematically increase their innovation hit rate

Customers are treated badly. Not all customers. Not always. But many are and often. Some customers are bad. They treat firms badly. Firms have to react. Employees and customers endure the consequences. Such bad behaviours, by firms and customers, have consequences for perceptions of trust and fairness, for endorsements and referrals, for repeat purchasing and loyalty, and ultimately for a firm's profitability and RoI. The management of customer relationships is core to the success and even survival of the firm. As The Dark Side of CRM explores, this is an area fraught with difficulties, duplicitous practice and undesirable behaviours. These need acknowledging, mitigating and controlling. This book is the first of its kind to define these dark sides, exploring also how firms and policy-makers might address such behaviours and manage them successfully. With contributions from many of the leading exponents globally of CRM and understanding customers, The Dark Side of CRM is essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners interested in managing customers, relationship marketing and CRM, as well as social media and marketing strategy.

This practice- and research-based book caters to the needs of executive managers who see customer satisfaction as their primary goal. The authors identify the need for an effective complaint management strategy that prevents the loss of dissatisfied customers. Dissatisfied customers are at risk of migrating; accordingly, neglecting professional complaint management poses a considerable threat to customer relationships, sales and profits. The book offers a comprehensive management concept, which emphasizes direct contact with the complainant by employing complaint stimulation, acceptance, processing and reaction. Further, it discusses the relevant 'backstage' tasks involved in using complaint information to achieve quality improvements and cost reductions through complaint analysis, controlling and reporting.

Service Systems Implementation provides the latest applications and practices aimed at improving the key performance indicators of service systems, especially those related to service quality, service productivity, regulatory compliance, and sustainable service innovation. The book presents action-oriented, application-oriented, design science-oriented (artifacts building: constructs, models, methods and instantiations) and case study-oriented research with actionable results by illustrating techniques that can be employed in large scale, real world examples. The case studies will help visualize service systems along the four key dimensions of people, information, technology and value propositions which can help enable better integration between them towards higher value propositions. The chapters, written by leading experts in the field, examine a wide range of substantive issues and implementations related to service science in various industries. These contributions also showcase the application of an array of research methods, including surveys, experiments, design science, case studies and frameworks, providing the reader with insights and guidelines to assist in building their own service systems, and thus, moving toward a more favorable service customer and provider experience. Service Systems Implementation, along with its companion text, The Science of Service Systems, is designed to present multidisciplinary and multisectoral perspectives on the nature of service systems, on research and practice in service, and on the future directions to advance service science. These two volumes compose a collection of articles from those involved in the emerging area known as service science.

Understand the impact of a global ageing population on how products are bought, and the effect this has on how to market and advertise these products and services to the older generation of consumers. Contains models for companies to evaluate the success of their own strategies, with tools for improving their age-friendly marketing campaigns.

CRM Systems in Industrial Companies contributes new knowledge on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the field of industrial marketing. Based on an in-depth case study, this book highlights the complexity and challenges in the development, implementation and use of CRM, revealing how truly challenging it is to extract value from CRM systems.

Explains how all institutions have to turn their relationship with stakeholders into a 'social' one, which involves designing new Trust and Engagement strategies. A specific indication on how to build and measure value out of these strategies is offered by the innovative 'Value for Engagement Model'.

Marketing has become the dominant connecting mode of expression between business and non-business organisations and customers and consumers. However, there are some misgivings about marketing in the 21st century. This volume addresses the positive and negative elements of marketing and questions 'Is marketing a leviathan in today's societies?'

The internet has changed the way consumers interact with companies. Businesses must maintain good levels of customer service in a digital world where old strategies may no longer suffice. This book explores what the successful compliance-centred businesses are doing to manage and improve customer experience.

Customer Experience is now the key differentiator as consumers and businesses alike decide among competing brands. The authors explore growing trends in Experience Psychology, Social Media and Neuroscience and their impact on Customer Experience that businesses need to understand to gain preference, loyalty and market share.

Dennis Herhausen examines how managers can successfully probe latent needs and uncover future needs of customers, labeled as proactive customer orientation. Overall, a systematic change process is developed to guide managers that aim to increase their company's proactive customer orientation.

The fourth in Springer 's series on Stakeholder Management books, this volume looks back at the beginnings of Stakeholder Management and how it has developed into a fully-fledged system over the last 20 years. It also highlights the importance of a benchmarking database generated from several thousand case studies for comparing businesses. What 's more, international case studies look at the application of Stakeholder Management in a wide array of industries such as the automotive, public and hospitality sector as well as the consumer market. The reader benefits from a well-rounded account of articles that explain the entire process from data collection to the implementation of actions derived from result analysis.

Marketing Through Turbulent Times offers a range of tools, principles and approaches for decision makers who want to lead their organization toward a robust future by ensuring that their marketing strategies are not only relevant for today's difficult environment but will also lay the foundation for innovative growth opportunities.

How do you develop products that people will actually use and buy? This practical guide shows you how to validate product and company ideas through customer development research-before you waste months and millions on a product or service that no one needs or wants. With a combination of open-ended interviewing and fast and flexible research techniques, you'll learn how your prospective customers behave, the problems they need to solve, and what frustrates and delights them. These insights may shake your assumptions, but they'll help you reach the "ah-ha!" moments that inspire truly great products. Validate or invalidate your hypothesis by talking to the right people Learn how to conduct successful customer interviews play-by-play Detect a customer's behaviors, pain points, and constraints Turn interview insights into Minimum Viable Products to validate what customers will use and buy Adapt customer development strategies for large companies, conservative industries, and existing products

There's one voice that matters more than any other: the voice of the customer. Learn how to fully understand the number one source of your organization's prosperity, profits, and productivity. These actionable insights will help you to better connect with your customers and gain an undeniable lead over your competition. Listen Up!: How to Tune In to Customers and Turn Down the Noise teaches readers how to create a customer experience that's built on listening and designed for engagement. Author and Salesforce executive Karen Mangia has created a practical and comprehensive examination of how best-of-breed companies listen and respond to customer demands--creating a foundation of customer success, loyalty, and brand evolution. Listen Up! features discussions about: How to go beyond the survey: best practices associated with customer understanding, customer experience, and customer service How to move from deep listening to data-based insights into customer behavior The statistics and stories behind companies, organizations, and even city governments that have created a customer-centric culture How powerful new questions can offer a fresh perspective into any customer, anywhere: empowering your customer-facing teams, including sales teams, in the current market Winning greater mindshare, and market share, with a fresh look at the future of customer service, customer success, and customer satisfaction Perfect for anyone in a leadership or management role in a customer-facing organization, including sales teams, business development leaders and marketing professionals, Listen Up! belongs on the bookshelves of executives, customer service and success employees, and leaders who want to better engage with the one voice that matters most: the voice of the customer.

In a world where knowledge is king, the Web never sleeps, and competitive challenge increases exponentially, Robert Rodin shows you how to prepare for the three insatiable demands of today's customers: they want their product or service FREE, they want it PERFECT, and they want it NOW. No matter what business you're in, you have to find a way to respond -- or risk losing your customers to competitors who are discovering new ways to sell your product or service cheaper, better, and faster than you've ever imagined.

As the dynamic CEO of electronics distributor Marshall Industries, Rob Rodin engineered the astounding reinvention of his company, turning a conventionally successful $500 million business into a Web-enabled $2 billion competitive powerhouse. Free, Perfect, and Now tells the dramatic story of that transformation from the inside. Detailing the hard lessons learned in competitive battle, it offers a compelling new perspective on the most pressing issue facing businesspeople today: how to prepare a customer-focused corporation for a future you can't predict.

A practical guide for providing exceptional client service Most advertising and marketing people would claim great client service is an elusive, ephemeral pursuit, not easily characterized by a precise skill set or inventory of responsibilities; this book and its author argue otherwise, claiming there are definable, actionable methods to the role, and provide guidance designed to achieve more effective work. Written by one of the industry's most knowledgeable client services executives, the book begins with a definition, then follows a path from an initial new business win to beginning, building, losing, then regaining trust with clients. It is a powerful source of counsel for those new to the business, for industry veterans who want to refresh or validate what they know, and for anyone in the middle of the journey to get better at what they do.

Much of the learning, skills and perspective people of all ages need to succeed long-term in their careers is not found in data on the Internet, but rather in conversations and personal relationships with the people they work with. Tech tools have trained us to search the Internet for answers to everything, but we can't find most of the non-technical or non-data-based answers we seek there. Learning about perspectives, relationships and experiences comes best from conversations. In most organizations there are three, four, or even five generations working together with differing expectations about how things are done and by whom. People of different generations are increasingly isolated physically, functionally, or emotionally from each other both by communication styles and media and lack of the perspective that would help them understand why people think and act as they do. You Can't Google It! facilitates action to promote and foster cross-generational conversation in organizations on both the parts of management and the multi-generational teams that are increasingly the key to productivity, profitability and sustainability. You Can't Google It! is a tool to help organizations and individuals remove the stress, frustration, and negative energy that often arises from working with people of different generations so they understand and are able to accomplish their common goals-faster and profitably. It is about the implications of different generations, and how to move towards closing that gap.

Superior Customer Value is a state-of-the-art guide to designing, implementing and evaluating a customer value strategy in service, technology and information-based organizations. A customer-centric culture provides focus and direction for an organization, driving and enhancing market performance. By benchmarking the best companies in the world, Weinstein shows students and marketers what it really means to create exceptional value for customers in the Now Economy. Learn how to transform companies by competing via the 5-S framework - speed, service, selection, solutions and sociability. Other valuable tools such as the Customer Value Funnel, Service-Quality-Image-Price (SQIP) framework, SERVQUAL, and the Customer Value/Retention Model frame the reader's thinking on how to improve marketing operations to create customer-centered organizations. This edition features a stronger emphasis on marketing thinking, planning and strategy, as well as new material on the Now Economy, millennials, customer obsession, business models, segmentation and personalized marketing, customer experience management and customer journey mapping, value pricing, customer engagement, relationship marketing and technology, marketing metrics and customer loyalty and retention. Built on a solid research basis, this practical and action-oriented book will give students and managers an edge in improving their marketing operations to create superior customer experiences.

Companies are being forced to react to the growing individualization of demand. At the same time, cost management remains of paramount importance due to the competitive pressure in global markets. Thus, making enterprises more customer centric efficiently is a top management priority in most industries. Mass customization and personalization are key strategies to meet this challenge. Companies like Procter&Gamble, Lego, Nike, Adidas, Land's End, BMW, or Levi Strauss, among others, have started large-scale mass customization programs. This book provides insight into the different aspects of building a customer centric enterprise. Following an interdisciplinary approach, leading scientists and practitioners share their findings, concepts, and strategies from the perspective of design, production engineering, logistics, technology and innovation management, customer behavior, as well as marketing.

Develop standard-setting customer service!
Based on the best-selling book Fabled Service by Betsy Sanders!
This program will help you develop exceptional customer service that puts your organization above your competition. Inspiring Fabled Service helps you assess your needs and select activities to improve weak areas in your current customer service.
Teach others vital customer service skills, such as how to:
* Positively represent the organization
* Satisfy customers so they will buy the product or service
* Encourage customers to return
* Understand what motivates people and initiates action
* Solve problems immediately and effectively... and more!
Simply written, this program includes all necessary materials to create results-oriented, customized customer service training. A Trainer's Guide includes specific direction for administering the Customer Service Survey, which assesses individual strengths and weaknesses in three learning areas: understanding him or herself and others; planning for results; and product/service knowledge. The Guide also includes 12 prepared activities that correspond with the three learning areas. Using results from the survey, you choose activities that will help your group improve in its weaker areas. Each activity specifies goals, materials needed, time required, physical setting, and process (including questions to help you review what was learned and help people understand what can be applied to every day situations).
You will need to order a Participant Workbook for each person involved in the training. The Workbook includes a copy of the survey and participant materials for each activity.
Creategreat service that gets customers talking!

With one in five Facebook videos posted being live videos, it's essential that businesses and brands understand how to use this technology and create content for live broadcasts. Just as social media is a relatively new phenomenon which many business owners are still learning how to use, live video is rapidly becoming a great way to increase customer engagement and sales. The Live Video Revolution covers a brief history of live video technology, how that technology can be used for personal branding and business, features of live videos, and includes a variety of case studies to provoke thought and encourage businesses and brands to utilize this technology.

Bob Tasca is, quite simply, the world's most effective practitioner of customer satisfaction. His accomplishments are astounding. His small Ford dealership is consistently among the world's best in sales volume, and industry executives from all over often visit in order to learn from his operation. Though he sells a generic product, Tasca has at times achieved the unheard-of feat of capturing 24 percent of his metro market, and he regularly sees 65 percent of his customers return -- triple the loyalty rate of his competitors.

In You Will Be Satisfied, he reveals how anyone, whether shoe salesman, software company middle manager or bookstore owner, can drive customer loyalty to dizzying heights. In the book's short, punchy chapters, real-life anecdotes and bulleted lessons, readers will find the knowledge and tools they need to send their sales soaring.

Mass Customization leads the strategy of today`s well succeeded companies. It indulges the customer with the so long yearned for product and/or service that exactly fits his desires and specifications. This book compiles a hand-selected variety of testimonies from Mass Customization experts worldwide with different experiences both on an academic research basis as well as on practical case studies. This diversity makes it a compulsory guide to use in any enterprise throughout the world that wants to take its business into new and more ambitious dimensions. Furthermore, its contents are structured in a way that will help everyone that wants to learn, teach or put into practice the concepts of Mass Customization.