If you don't offer great customer experience, your main competitors will take away 50% of your business. Period. Gone are the days in which businesses could simply offer an "OK" experience and get away with it. In today's hypercompetitive environment, companies can no longer be just B2C or B2B. They must become B2Me - more personal, more relevant. With customers having higher expectations and access to more information than ever before, companies must create stellar, frictionless, personalized, and memorable customer experiences, if they plan to stay in the game. In this book, you will learn: * What customer experience truly is. * How emotions can increase customer loyalty...or make customers ditch a brand. * Which behaviors and attitudes lose customers. * Ten easy, practical, and proven ways to immediately improve your customer experience. * What renowned companies do to offer the best customer experience. This book is for anyone who works serving customers in a B2C company or other businesses in a B2B environment. Everyone has an important role to play in creating a good customer experience, whether it be managers, associates, sales reps, marketing professionals, web strategists, accountants, customer service reps, delivery people, or installers. No matter what role you play, this book offers easy tips, recommendations, and examples to help improve customer experience, realistically, sustainably, and affordably.

This book analyzes the impact of the digital economy on customer satisfaction, shopping experience, resistance to change, script theory, and loyalty. The model introduced assumes that online markets have led to a redefinition of the concepts of loyalty and shopping scripts as a way to reduce customers' cognitive effort, by optimizing purchase time and increasing the speed and satisfaction of the shopping experience. It describes the utility function of the script by retaining customer loyalty and making the customer more reluctant to abandon his regular supplier. It also explores the difficulty faced by the higher churn rate on the Internet and the minimization of search costs, by integrating more functionality to achieve the ultimate goal of behavioral and cognitive loyalty. The authors provide an analysis in a "digital" view of the economic theory of switching costs and the resulting lock-in mechanisms which, in a classical economy, are often a barrier to disloyalty. It is a useful and effective tool for online businesses, their main managerial and strategic implications, and the adaptability to existing contexts.

Walden shows why most customer experience management fails to improve the customer's real experience and how to concentrate on the subjective emotional perceptions that drive the customer's actual "experience" rather than the quantitative service efficiency metrics gathered by most CX tools. Customer experience management is not about managing every objective "experience" your customers have with you. It's about understanding, measuring and creating "experiences" that customers "value". So while service and efficiency are wonderful things, they represent "business as usual"; the ticket to the game, the platform from which "experiences" are created not the experience itself! The message of this book is that businesses are at risk! Their uber focus on efficiency is leading them to miss the chance to connect more closely with their customer base and deliver on the creative potential of their brand. They ignore the fact that technology is an enabler of the "experience" it is not "the experience". Customers are not data - they are people: living, breathing, contradictory, infuriating bundles of cognitive and emotionally-driven responses to stimuli. "Experience" deals with how customers think, feel and behave - the things that motivate them to act which go beyond frequently forgettable efficiency. This means differentiating by providing new and better experiences based on a deeper understanding of what motivates customers to buy. To do that we must leave the objective, quantitative, world of quality management and enter the subjective, qualitative, world of customer's psychology. Walden reboots our understanding of customer experience, showing us what it means, how to measure it, what we need to do to manage it and how we can gain financially from it. Understand, measure, create and do - but first of all, understand.

Demonstrating the potential of building strong brands in the energy sector, this book explores the challenges of shifting the perception of energy from a commodity business into a consumer brand. Energy suppliers are increasingly being met with skepticism, indicating the need for a greater focus on marketing and branding in the energy industry. The author examines both perspectives of energy as a commodity business and a consumer brand, as well as the perception of energy consumers across Europe. Topics discussed include green energy, the liberalisation of the electricity industry, and the relationship between consumers and executives in the energy market. One of the first of its kind, this book offers a unique and innovative study of the development of branding in the energy industry, and sheds light on future marketing strategies.

This book provides a review of the latest research on emotion in engineering, with a particular focus on design and manufacturing. Topics include experience, happiness, cognitive science, neuroscience, additive manufacturing, universal design, branding, teamwork. Throughout the book, the emotions of the end users of engineering products are discussed, as well as the perspective of the expert. The book provides researchers, students, and practicing engineers with an opportunity to examine research and practice in engineering from a different perspective, and offers pointers to how to collaborate with people from other fields to help achieve a more connected society.

The future of work is already here. Customers are adopting disruptive technologies faster than your company can adapt. When your customers are delighted, they can amplify your message in ways that were never before possible. But when your company's performance runs short of what you've promised, customers can seize control of your brand message, spreading their disappointment and frustration faster than you can keep up. To keep pace with today's connected customers, your company must become a connected company. That means deeply engaging with workers, partners, and customers, changing how work is done, how you measure success, and how performance is rewarded. It requires a new way of thinking about your company: less like a machine to be controlled, and more like a complex, dynamic system that can learn and adapt over time. Connected companies have the advantage, because they learn and move faster than their competitors. While others work in isolation, they link into rich networks of possibility and expand their influence. Connected companies around the world are aggressively acquiring customers and disrupting the competition. In The Connected Company, we examine what they're doing, how they're doing it, and why it works. And we show you how your company can use the same principles to adapt - and thrive - in today's ever-changing global marketplace.

This book includes a fascinating range of up-to-date articles on China from the Journal of Brand Management that marshal research and scholarship undertaken by Chinese, British, European and American scholars. The development and management of brands in China has emerged as an area of considerable and growing interest among branding scholars and practitioners owing to the rise and significance of brands within China. Providing an overview of the development and management of brands in China, Advances in Chinese Brand Management also contains case studies of centuries old and greatly loved Chinese Corporate heritage brands, luxury brands, prominent cultural brands and foreign brands in China.

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

Bringing together theoretical and empirical studies from the Journal of Information Technology, this book provides a definitive guide to research discovered on the growing global sourcing phenomenon. Paying particular attention to Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), theoretical chapters explore insightful ways of thinking about the different facets of outsourcing, and provide useful information to practitioners and researchers. Empirical chapters report the findings of 405 major research studies into the risks and successes of relationships between customer and vendor, the development of trust in these relationships, the factors affecting locations for offshoring, and specialized offshoring organizations such as captive centres. In this comprehensive study, the editors present an expert review of the historical development of this field, and offer analysis of emerging findings and practices for the future.

Combining the latest branding research with a diverse range of powerful case examples, this book reveals the cutting edge techniques of value co-creation, personalisation and customer engagement employed by sport's leading brands. Based on the transferable lessons that emanate from these practices, Brand Fans explores and illuminates how firms can cultivate connected fans and lifelong advocates, while building brand equity exponentially in the process. This is a book that will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike, as well as anyone fascinated by modern marketing, consumer relationships and branding.

This prestigious edited collection of articles from the Journal of Brand Management discusses the impact of research on our understanding of corporate brand characteristics and corporate brand management to date. A wide range of topics are covered, including franchise brand management, co-creation of corporate brands, alliance brands, the role of internal branding in the delivery of employee brand promise, and the expansion into new approaches. Advances in Corporate Branding is essential reading for those undertaking a PhD programme or by upper level students looking for rigorous academic material on the subject and for scholars and discerning practitioners, acting as 'advanced introductions'.

This book contains the full proceedings of the 2015 Academy of Marketing Science World Marketing Congress held in Bari, Italy. The current worldwide business environment is leading marketing scholars and practitioners to reconsider a number of historical and current views of the marketplace and how it functions. Further, determining new marketing theories and practical methods whose effectiveness can be truly measured must be added to the list of current challenges for today and tomorrow. In such a period in marketing history, achieving and managing efficient and effective marketing actions is a necessity. Determining such actions is based on practical experience, solid theory and appropriate research methodology. The enclosed papers focus on new research ideas on vibrant topics that can help academics and practitioners gain new perspectives and insights into today's turbulent marketplace. 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, complimenting the Academy's flagship journals, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.

Srun shows how the psychology of luxury brands truly plays into high value customer motivations and unlocks the potential to understand their decision processes which are unlike that of any other customer. Selling to very wealthy, demanding customers - whether you're selling luxury products or high value bespoke professional services - is a very different process to selling anything else to anyone else. Francis Srun has twenty years experience in the luxury industry, based in France, Switzerland, China and Hong Kong, most recently with Maison Boucheron. The first step is learning how to physically embody "Luxury". You need to look, speak, and move "Luxury". The true luxury attitude is not submissive nor is it hauteur - it is gentle, generous and simply, truly human. Success comes from not just being professional but from building a genuinely luxury relationship with clients. To do that you need to truly understand your client. High value customers today are younger, international in outlook and residence, and increasingly from Asia. Their buying motivation is always about self-affirmation and pleasure and never about money. The luxury customer's decision process is unlike that of other customers. While emotion is important when selling anything to anyone - with luxury selling it is paramount. Srun shows how the psychology of Brand, Product, Place, Price and Time all play a role in customer's motivations. Finally this book guides you step by step with concrete examples and useful techniques through the seven steps of luxury selling: be prepared to sell, welcome appropriately, listen genuinely, propose and present with style, meet objections with persuasion rather than refutation, conclude sharply and finally gain loyalty for a long term relationship.

* The ideal introductory guide to Microsoft's much anticipated entry into the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software marketplace
* Discusses the key features of Microsoft's CRM software, including tools to help businesses sell more effectively, manage all customer communications in one place, track and convert leads, make informed decisions faster, and provide consistent service
* Provides expert tips and tricks to make the software work more effectively
* Explains how to achieve increased customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and more profitable customer relationships
* Author is considered one of a handful of global experts on CRM for small- and medium-sized businesses

The Internet is the world's largest marketplace and provides businesses with the ability to interact with their market in a much more direct and tailored way than ever before. Customer.Community takes a new look at online communities as a source of value for both customers and businesses; it shows how to build an online "customer community" that gives customers a reason to stay loyal. Drew Banks and Kim Daus explain exactly what the customer community is and then reveal the tenets that will make it strong: sustainability, size and scalability, social connectivity, and soul. The authors show how to "communitize" commerce, build a solid base of repeat customers, and create value for the customer, and they explain how to manage a site in a cost-effective way. Customer.Community will help cultivate a mind-set to leverage the collective, untapped power of your customer base.

Teaches you to use Zoho CRM effectively to benefit your business. This book takes you through a number of real-life scenarios and teaches you how to use Zoho CRM to create solutions for your business, with no technical background needed and with little to no coding required. Sound too good to be true? Technology makes our lives easier and there are a large number of resources on offer to help with various tasks, including managing business information. With all the tools, apps, and services to choose from, it is still a daunting and often expensive undertaking for businesses to create solutions that fit their specific requirements. That's where Zoho CRM comes in. Using this book you can create a fully-functional cloud-based app that manages your company information, is elegant to use, and cost-effective to maintain. Basic computer and internet skills is all you need to successfully launch your very own CRM with the help of this book. Get started today with Mastering Zoho CRM. What You'll Learn Set up Zoho CRM properly from the ground up Model your business processes and implement them on Zoho CRM Centralize and manage your entire marketing, sales, and customer service processes Integrate CRM with other Zoho tools to streamline day to day business operations Create powerful dashboards and reports to provide relevant, actionable information to concerned people Use advanced CRM features such as workflow automation, role-based security, territories, etc. Connect Zoho CRM to external tools and services to extend features, and let CRM scale up with your business needs. Who This Book Is For Small business owners and solopreneurs who want to take control of the beating heart of their business -their marketing, sales, and customer-service efforts- without spending tens of thousands of dollars on customized solutions. Solution providers and consultants who want to learn the ins and outs of one of the hottest CRM tools in the market and provide winning related services to their clients by adding Zoho to their list of offerings.

Most firms consider the lost customer a lost cause. But in this ground breaking book, Jill Griffin and Michael Lowenstein provide you with step-by-step solutions for winning back lost customers, saving customers on the brink of defection, and making your firm defection proof. Whether your business is small or large, product- or service-based, retail or wholesale, this book offers proven strategies for recognizing which lost customers have the highest win-back value and implementing a sure-fire plan to recover them. It includes the techniques of hundreds of innovative companies who are already working to recapture lost customers and keep them loyal. In today's hyper-competitive marketplace, no customer retention program can be entirely foolproof, but with this guide gives you today's best methods for winning back those customers you simply can't afford to let go.

Scientific investigation in the service industry has produced a major effect on productivity and quality in order to lead to new services. With ever-evolving internet technologies and information environments, system science and knowledge science seem to be an effective tool for service innovation in the 21st century. Progressive Trends in Knowledge and System-Based Science for Service Innovation illustrates new approaches to service innovation and new methodologies from the knowledge science and system science perspectives. Practitioners and researchers interested in knowing more about practical theories and successful examples in service science will find this book to be a vital asset to their studies.

Excellent customer service does not come about by accident. It is a learnable set of behaviors that can be monitored, measured, and managed. Drawing from his highly successful seminars and training programs, Gary S. Goodman presents a surefire system for building a first-class customer service department. Goodman identifies the behaviors that constitute top-level service, examines the results that kind of service produces, and shows how to measure it in terms of daily customer satisfaction. He provides managers with specific guidelines for developing, sustaining, and rewarding high levels of service from their customer service reps--with emphasis on telephone contact, the primary link to customers for most companies.

Keep them coming back for more Brilliant Customer Service is your guide to help you deliver exceptional customer service and keep your customers coming back time and time and again. It's for anyone involved in any organisation - whether you run your own business, manage people or you are a customer facing employee. It doesn't matter what your budget is, you'll find lots of simple changes you can implement right now to build a highly successful customer service strategy. BRILLIANT OUTCOMES * Identify your customers real needs and how best to meet them * Build trust and long term loyalty with your customers to stay ahead of the competition * Make sure you are remembered and recommended

This paper provides a guideline for how the entire process chain of automotive after-sales services could be researched in China. In addition, Schwartz's individual level value theory is introduced as a beneficial operationalisation approach to cultural marketing. So, values are modelled as exogenous variables in order to show which ones are really causal. A total of 301 Chinese workshop customers were surveyed to assess the critical success factors of after-sales services via partial least squares structural equation modelling. After-sales services have become very important in the automobile industry. However, this area has not been sufficiently researched, particularly with regard to China, the most important car market globally.

Today's customers are demanding service that is faster, better, and more personalized than ever before. How can organizations ensure that they are prepared to meet that challenge? The latest addition to the best-selling "Knock Your Socks Off Service(R)" series, "101 Activities for Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service" provides readers with the practical tools and cost-effective training required to help meet their customers' needs. Taking the unique position of seeing things from the customer's perspective, this collection of fun and enlightening exercises teaches customer service managers and employees valuable ways to help their organizations provide world-class service, and helps them create an action plan for improvement. Written in the same accessible and humorous style that made "Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service" so popular, this companion guide covers such topics as: - how to say no - empathy vs. sympathy - service recovery - listening - email - telephone skills - customers from hell - winning words and soothing phrases - anticipating customer needs - building reliability - customer feedback - keeping a stress log - and more These simple but effective activities take only minutes, but deliver truly powerful, lasting results.

Discover the hidden ways to raise your organizations' customer service experiences from ordinary to extraordinary. If you want to know how strong your company's customer service is, ask your employees to describe what their work entails. Then pay attention to whether they simply list their duties and tasks or if they speak to the true essence of their job--to create delighted customers who will be less price sensitive, have higher repurchase rates, and enthusiastically recommend the company or brand to others. The latter should be every employee's highest priority, because when it's not, your customers are merely the recipients of a transaction, not an experience, and transactions do not make for a lasting impression or inspire loyalty. In Delight Your Customers, customer service expert Steve Curtin makes a compelling case that customer service managers need to shift from monitoring service activities to modeling, recognizing, and reinforcing the behaviors that create happy and returning customers. Things such as: Expressing genuine interest Offering sincere compliments Sharing unique knowledge Conveying authentic enthusiasm Providing pleasant surprises Delivering service heroics when needed Simply based on their own personal experiences, everyone knows that great customer service is rare. So why wouldn't you want to provide a unique, caring, and beneficial experience for all your customers to rave about with others? With the real-world stories, examples, and strategies shared in Delight Your Customers, you can take the customer service experience you offer from ordinary to extraordinary.

A timely look at effective use of social network analysis within the telecommunications industry to boost customer relationships

The key to any successful company is the relationship that it builds with its customers. This book shows how social network analysis, analytics, and marketing knowledge can be combined to create a positive customer experience within the telecommunications industry.Reveals how telecommunications companies can effectively enhance their relationships with customersProvides the groundwork for defining social network analysisDefines the tools that can be used to address social network problems

A must-read for any professionals eager to distinguish their products in the marketplace, this book shows you how to get it done right, with social network analysis.