"A tactical primer for any business embarking on the critical work of actively building community."--Seth Godin, Author, This is Marketing "This book perfectly marries the psychology of communities, with the hard-earned secrets of someone who's done the real work over many years. David Spinks is the master of this craft."--Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable The rise of the internet has brought with it an inexorable, almost shockingly persistent drive toward community. From the first social networks to the GameStop trading revolution, engaged communities have shown the ability to transform industries. Businesses need to harness that power. As business community expert David Spinks shows in The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage, the successful brands of tomorrow will be those that create authentic connection, giving customers a sense of real belonging and unlocking unprecedented scale as a result. In his career of over 10 years in the business of building community, Spinks has learned what a winning community strategy looks like. From the fundamental concepts--including how community drives measurable business value and what the appropriate metrics are--to high-level community design and practical engagement techniques, The Business of Belonging is an epic journey into the world of community building. This book is for decision makers who want to better understand the value and opportunity of community, and for community professionals who want to level up their strategy. Featuring a foreword by Startup Grind and Bevy cofounder Derek Andersen, it will give you a step-by-step model for strategically planning, creating, facilitating, and measuring communities that drive business growth. Attracting and retaining community members who are also loyal customers, brand evangelists, and leaders--that's the goal for today's connected businesses, and this book is the map to getting there.

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

Business Models for Transforming Customer Relationships What if there were a way to turn occasional, sporadic transactions with customers into long-term, continuous relationships--while simultaneously driving dramatic improvements in operational efficiency? What if you could break your existing trade-offs between superior customer experience and low cost? This is the promise of a connected strategy. New forms of connectivity--involving frequent, low-friction, customized interactions--mean that companies can now anticipate customer needs as they arise, or even before. Simultaneously, enabled by these technologies, companies can create new business models that deliver more value to customers. Connected strategies are win-win: Customers get a dramatically improved experience, while companies boost operational efficiency. In this book, strategy and operations experts Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch reveal the emergence of connected strategies as a new source of competitive advantage. With in-depth examples from companies operating in industries such as healthcare, financial services, mobility, retail, entertainment, nonprofit, and education, Connected Strategy identifies the four pathways--respond-to-desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution--for turning episodic interactions into continuous relationships. The authors show how each pathway creates a competitive advantage, then guide you through the critical decisions for creating and implementing your own connected strategies. Whether you're trying to revitalize strategy in an established company or disrupt an industry as a startup, this book will help you: Reshape your connections with your customers Find new ways to connect with existing suppliers while also activating new sources of capacity Create the right revenue model Make the best technology choices to support your strategy Integrating rich examples, how-to advice, and practical tools in the form of "workshop chapters" throughout, this book is the ultimate resource for creating competitive advantage through connected relationships with your customers and redefined connections in your industry.

Master the exceptional customer service skills that are most important in all types of organizations today with the powerful, practical presentation in THE WORLD OF CUSTOMER SERVICE, 3rd Edition. This book demonstrates how effective customer services techniques can help readers and their organizations achieve critical goals, deal with problems and complaints, consistently exceed customer expectations, and create loyal customers. Readers focus on the strategies most important in customer service today with insights and memorable examples from practicing professionals. Several new chapters highlight how to maximize revenue and customer satisfaction, effectively solve problems and resolve complaints, and better understand the impact and potential of today's social media. Future and practical professionals also gain new insights on establishing their own personal customer service habits for success in all areas of business.

Use this guide book in its fully updated second edition to study for the ITIL 4 Foundation certification exam. Know the latest ITIL framework and DevOps concepts. The book will take you through the new ITIL framework and nuances of the DevOps methodology. The book follows the topics included in the foundation certification exam syllabus and includes new sections on ITIL's guiding principles, service value chain, and the four dimensions of service management. Also included are the concepts, processes, and philosophies used in DevOps programs and projects. ITIL and DevOps concepts are explained with relevant examples. By the time you finish this book, you will have a complete understanding of ITIL 4 and will be ready to take the ITIL 4 Foundation certification exam. You will know the DevOps methodology and how ITIL reinforces the philosophy of shared responsibility and collaboration. Over the course of a week, even while working your day job, you will be prepared to take the exam. What You Will Learn Know the basics of ITIL as you prepare for the ITIL Foundation certification exam Understand ITIL through examples Be aware of ITIL's relevance to DevOps and DevOps concepts Who This Book Is For Professionals from the IT services industry

Customers today demand a highly personalised and unique purchasing experience: they require expert guidance in a purchasing process that is relevant and efficient from start to finish. Less Contact, More Impact explores the dynamics of corporate sales today and in the future as a function of trust and cooperation. The RIO model developed by Belgium-based Blinc Sales Institute marks the evolution of a new era in which genuine contact between client and salesperson is crucial to meeting the challenges of customer expectations. The goal of this book is to guide sales in the digital age in order to achieve maximum personal impact, better results, and consistent customer satisfaction in a minimum amount of time.

* Uniquely focuses on achieving customer satisfaction with the hotel and event industries, giving step-by-step practical guidance. * Integration of case studies, author voice boxes, and example forms and documents for the standardization of procedures key to achieving customer satisfaction, informed by extensive professional experience of both authors put into the context of existing theoretical frameworks. * Inclusion of underexplored areas such as employee empowerment, customer delight, over-promising, cultural implications and contractual issues in customer satisfaction.

This cutting-edge reference represents a new phase in the talkRA project-an initiative dedicated to improving the discipline of revenue assurance (RA) for communication providers. From blog to podcasts and now a book, the project offers a platform for a select group of RA experts to share ideas and best practices in revenue assurance, revenue management, business intelligence, and fraud prevention in telecommunications and other industries. Drawing on the expertise and insights of some of the leading minds in RA, Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers supplies high-powered ideas and techniques for the effective management, planning, strategy formulation, and measurement of RA performance. Presented as a series of articles on current and emerging topics of interest, it provides extensive and multi-faceted guidance to help readers move up the scale from basic checks to optimizing performance. Covers the fundamentals of revenue assurance Explains the relationship between revenue assurance and fraud management and how revenue assurance sits within the wider context of enterprise risk management and the control environment Provokes readers to think of creative ways to adapt RA to the needs of their business, whether they are initiating the RA process or seeking to take an established RA function to the next level Shows how to measure the financial benefits delivered by the RA team and how to appraise the RA maturity of the whole business Illustrates how to perform root cause analysis through Q&A discussion of how top experts deal with a variety of leakages Identifies trends in how RA techniques are changing, and links these to developments in tools and technology Entertains through sympathetic and sometimes irreverently humorous observations about the working life of an RA practitioner The book provides an analysis of the drivers for RA products and services, enabling RA suppliers and consultants to compare their competitive offerings with what customers really want and need. Complete with real-world tips and case examples, it supplies the well-rounded understanding that will enable you to best fit the needs of your business and best support its objectives. This book will give you the confidence to determine the most effective and efficient methods to achieve and maintain healthy revenue streams in the ever-changing landscape of electronic communications. Praise for: ... draws upon the actual experience of a number of RA professionals-those who have actually lived through the journey, learned from setbacks, and adapted their approaches to determine best practices in the field. -Julian Hebden, Director of Enterprise Information Management, Telstra

The customer service book that will help you blitz the competition and win life-long customers! The options customers have today to get what they want are so plentiful that not a single company, or representative of that company, can afford to be powerless in the competitive world of service. Through the story of a $6,000 Egg, Deb and Todd Duncan reveal that even the smallest interactions have the power to create lifelong patrons, or on the flipside, alienate once-devoted customers. The 10 Golden Rules of Customer Service represents the costly mistake of removing customer satisfaction from the bottom line. The teachable moments divulged throughout the book transcend industry, position, and career level and encourage everyone to contribute, coaching readers to go above and beyond in order to get ahead and create a one-of-a-kind customer experience. Perfect for readers of Be Our Guest, The Service Culture, and Raving Fans! "The $6,000 Egg blows up the traditional customer service model and presents a new, exciting, and revolutionary way to win customers for life. Todd and Deb's 10 NEW Golden Rules will transform the bottom line of both he provider and the customer forever!"-Dave Ramsey, New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio show host

Almost every advertising, promotion, or marketing communications textbook is based on an inside-out approach, focusing on what the marketer wants to communicate to customers and prospects. This text takes a different view - that the marketer and the customer build the ongoing brand value together. Rather than the marketer trying to 'sell', the role of the marketer is to help customer buy. To do that, a customer view is vital and customer insight is essential. Customer insights allow the marketer to understand which audiences are important for a product, what delivery forms are appropriate, and what type of content is beneficial. "Building Customer-Brand Relationships" is themed around the four key elements marketing communicators use in developing programs - audiences, brands, delivery, and content - but provides an innovative approach to marketing communications in the 'push-pull' marketplace that combines traditional outbound communications (advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and PR) with the inbound or 'pull' media of Internet, mobile communications, social networks, and more. Its 'customer-centric' media planning approach covers media decision before dealing with creative development, and emphasizes measurement and accountability. The text's concepts have been used successfully around the world, and can be adapted and adjusted to any type of product or service.

What simple innovation brought billions in new investments to Fidelity? What basic misunderstanding was preventing Office Depot from achieving its growth potential? What surprising insights helped the Mayo Clinic better serve both doctors and patients?

The solution in each case was a focus on customer experience, the most powerful—and misunderstood—element of corporate strategy today.

Customer experience is, quite simply, how your customers perceive their every interaction with your company. It’s a fundamental business driver. Here’s proof: over a recent five-year period during which the S&P 500 was flat, a stock portfolio of customer experience leaders grew twenty-two percent.

In an age when customers have access to vast amounts of data about your company and its competitors, customer experience is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. But how to excel at it?

Based on fourteen years of research by the customer experience leaders at Forrester Research, Outside In offers a complete roadmap to attaining the experience advantage. It starts with the concept of the Customer Experience Ecosystem—proof that the roots of customer experience problems lie not just with customer-facing employees like your sales staff, but with behind-the-scenes employees like accountants, lawyers, and programmers, as well as the policies, processes, and technologies that all your employees use every day. Identifying and solving these problems has the potential to dramatically increase sales and decrease costs.

Electronic Customer Care (ECC) ist seit Erscheinen der zweiten Auflage ein Bestseller fur Softwareanbieter geworden. Unter dem Begriff Customer Relationship Management (CRM) bieten boomende Firmen Losungen zur Optimierung der Kundenprozesse an. Sie werben mit hoher Kundenzufriedenheit und reduzierten Kosten. Auch traditionelle Softwaregiganten beginnen, Losungen im Bereich Marketing, Sales und Service zu vermarkten. Fur viele Unternehmen allerdings ist die Reorganisation der sogenannten Front-Office-Prozesse Neuland. Auf was mussen Unternehmen achten, wenn sie CRM-Projekte starten? Wichtig ist es, vom Kundenbedurfnis auszugehen und die Kundenbeziehung ganzheitlich zu betrachten. Das Buch abstrahiert die Kundenbeziehung anhand des Customer Buying Cycles und schafft so einen neutralen Orientierungsrahmen fur CRM-Projekte. Die dritte Auflage nimmt neue Themen wie e-Marktplatze in die Betrachtungen auf und bietet einen aktuellen Uberblick uber fuhrende CRM-Anbieter."

Eine Kundenbeschwerde als zunachst einmal unangenehmes Ereignis kann Ausgangspunkt fur beachtliche Qualitatsschube innerhalb eines Unternehmens sein. Damit sowohl die Kunden als auch die Dienstleister als Adressaten fuhlbar und schnell von den Verbesserungen profitieren konnen, mussen die Verantwortlichen sinnvolle und effektive Arbeitsablaufe im Beschwerdemanagement etablieren. In diesem Buch beschreiben anerkannte Praktiker nutzliche, leicht umsetzbare Konzepte. Die Autoren verraten ausserdem, wie man den Teil der Unzufriedenheit entdeckt, den die Kunden gar nicht erst ausdrucklich formulieren. Auch hier liegen grosse Potenziale fur zukunftige Ertrage. Dieses Buch haben vornehmlich Experten aus dem Bereich Finanzdienstleistungen geschrieben. Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse sind aber problemlos auf andere Branchen ubertragbar."

This book provides clarity and guidance on effective strategy, implementation and management of CRM. It explores both the conceptual and cultural context of CRM initiatives along with the particulars of CRM system implementation and management. In order to provide this clarity, it surveyed the existing academic publications surrounding CRM, sales force automation, and related topics within information systems literature. The book supplements this research with insights from CRM experts to provide a robust picture of the CRM landscape and how to improve it no matter what role you play within your organization. This book is for everyone who wants to achieve CRM success.

You've read about Customer Loyalty in the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Entrepreneur, Industry Week, Marketing News, Boardroom Reports, Marketing Management, Library Journal, The Selling Advantage, Ideas Magazine, Executive Briefings, Training, Hospitality Upgrade, Direct, Quality Digest, Marketing Tools, Houseware Executive, Journal of Pharmaceutical Management, Discount Merchandiser, TeleProfessional, NationsBank Business, Modern Jeweler, Furniture Today— now read the new and revised edition of the ground-breaking book that created all the buzz.

This book contains the latest and most up-to-date research results from the fields of brands, labels and product, presented at the international colloquium COBLI 2021, held in Orleans, France. It covers a wide range of topics from the fields of economics, psychology, information technology and social sciences. In particular, the book deals with various areas of application such as consumer behavior in the omnichannel, the influence of the coronavirus pandemic on attitudes and customer behavior, franchising, origin labelling, transparency in the agri-food industry, tourism and the triptych of brand/label/product. The contributions are gathered under the following main topics: Consumer behavior and decisions, labeling strategy, brand market trends, branding of local brands, territorial impact on brand/label/product, theoretical and managerial research methods.

RockStar Service, Rockstar Profits reveals a new, fast, easy way to increase revenues, grow a business, and create loyal customers for life. Imagine for a moment that your favorite artist, musician, group or rock star came into your office or called you today requesting your product or service. What would you say to them? What would you do to serve them? Now ask yourself: When was the last time I treated a customer or a client like a rock star? What would it do for your business if you treat every customer and client like a rock star? Rockstar Service, Rockstar Profits shows business owners, executives, customer service reps, and others a more effective way for their team to deliver world-class, rockstar customer service to their customers. Inside, business coach David Brownlee teaches how to build rapport in 60 seconds or less, create customized customer service strategies to implement immediately, and how to look at customers in a new light. Rockstar Service, Rockstar Profits reveals how to increase revenues, grow a business, and create raving fans-clients that will never leave.

Across the global economy, customers' expectations are continually rising - but many companies fail to deliver against those expectations. With the rise in social media, customers are becoming more vocal in expressing any dissatisfaction, which can both lose existing customers and alienate potential new ones. Complaint Management Excellence provides practical advice, tools and techniques for managers to adopt when managing any complaints that come into their organisation. In order to arrive at a culture where complaints are welcomed, the underlying values, processes, structure, strategy and people within an organization all need to be aligned with, and respect, customer needs. Not only does this improve the long-terms prospects for the company itself, but can have a tremendous knock-on effect in terms of boosting employee morale and engagement. With case studies from companies as diverse as John Lewis, Waitrose, DHL, Hilton Hotels, the Starwood group (including Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton hotels) and BT, Complaint Management Excellence explains what customers are really looking for when they make a complaint, how to avoid conflict and how managers can lead culture change to ensure the best experience for all customers and clients.

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

Based on four empirical studies, Moritz Merkle examines the introduction of humanoid robots to the frontline service encounter in a customer-centric approach focusing on customer expectations and customer responses. The author identifies desirable robotic behavioral cues and shows that service robots meet great acceptance among customers. After service failures, customers are even more likely to forgive service robots than human employees. Further, he shows how crucial it is to manage customer expectations that depend on cultural dimensions and internal reference categories.

What you experience is what you remember. The more emotional the experience, the deeper it is branded into your memory. Experience has a massive impact on buying decisions. Every touch point, every time you or someone in your company engages a customer, it creates an experience - something they remember. When they have a negative experience, they tend to vote with their feet (and their wallets) and head straight to your competitors. When customers have positive emotional experiences, it anchors them to your brand, your product or service, and ultimately to you. In the twenty-first century, competitive advantages derived from unique products are services are short-lived because competitors are able to quickly and easily duplicate or match your offering. Likewise a focus on customer satisfaction and loyalty will no longer give you the competitive edge. Delivering a legendary customer experience has emerged as the single most important competitive advantage for companies across all industries. In People Love You you ll learn the real secrets of customer experience including: *7 Essential Principles of Customer Engagement *5 Levers for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience * The Secret to Bridging the Experience Gap * How to Leverage the Pull Strategy to become a Trusted Advisor *2 Most Important Rules for Dealing with Pissed-off Customers In a hypercompetitive, global marketplace protecting your company s customer base, the lifeblood of your business, must become your number one priority. The rubber hits the road with account managers, project managers, sales professionals, and customer service professionals the people most connected to customers who are on the frontlines of customer experience. They build unique and enduring emotional connections with customers that creating long-term revenue and profit streams. In People Love You, human relationship guru, Jeb Blount, gives you a powerful playbook for interacting with customers in a way that creates deep, enduring, visceral connections that withstand relentless economic and competitive assaults.

Knowing your users stimulates your imagination and helps you create more exciting and effective design solutions. But there is a problem: the normal conception of 'the user' is incomplete and based on outdated notions. These notions of simple, direct relationships between people and products are no longer valid in today's complex, technologically interconnected world. This fun and practical book with a set of cards will change the way readers think about users. Rethinking Users introduces a radical new approach that questions some of our most fundamental ideas about the nature of user experience. It points to new opportunities to create products and services that help users in new ways. The book includes a deck of user archetype cards and step-by-step team activities for unlocking new user-centered thinking and design inspiration. For designers, design researchers, strategists, innovators, product managers, and entrepreneurs in almost any field.

In today's competitive business environment, most companies realize that the better they can manage their customer relationships, the more successful they will become. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software systems are key tools for companies to manage the customer-facing processes of their businesses. However, many companies have resisted implementing this most critical customer-oriented application due in large part to the lack of a single-point resource on implementing a CRM system. This book attempts to fill that gap. Implementing SAP (R) CRM will help technologists and managers come to grips with the vision, concept, and technology of CRM. It begins by laying out the groundwork for understanding CRM. It explains the concept and context of CRM and the tangible business benefits of CRM adoption. Demonstrating a professional approach to the evaluation and selection of SAP, it details the critical success factors (CSFs), patterns, and anti-patterns of a successful SAP CRM implementation. CRM implementations can add significant benefit to the company's bottom line only if the company first transforms itself into a customer-centric and customer-responsive enterprise. This book explains what it means to be a customer-centric and responsive enterprise, and provides a framework for business operations based on customer relationships, rather than the traditional four Ps (product, positioning, price, promotion). It further spells out business process reengineering (BPR) strategies to configure internal business processes and operations with SAP CRM to improve customer-facing strategies, services, and relationships.

The development of Relationship Marketing (RM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has forced a change in thinking among marketers about the meaning of marketing and its role and function within an organisation. One such change is the way in which organisations relate to their customers. Organisations today need to adopt a more focused approach to interacting with customers while also developing clear strategies for building relationships not only with these customers but with all stakeholders.

The moment of truth-that instant when consumers experience and judge service quality-is often a deciding factor in business success. Designing Service Excellence: People and Technology provides practical information on the design, management, and organization of many different types of service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, banks and financial institutions, retail, and the public sector. The authors investigate the consumers' experience and judgment on service quality, which ultimately determines the success or failure of the service. They then consider people, usability, and technology in the automation of high-quality service. This research-driven book identifies service-in a variety of forms-as an area of business and management where rapid change is taking place. The authors examine how service has become a balance between people and technology and explore this relationship as one of the key drivers of change. They discuss how social, cultural, and technological developments influence the ways in which customers contact, negotiate, and purchase services from their chosen service providers. These same developments are also driving communications between customers relating to the services they buy and are willing to recommend to others (or otherwise). Intermingled, these features of our current-day lives have changed the nature of service provision and service use. When your organization has its moment of truth, how will it measure up? Organizations whose business has service at its core and whose activities focus mainly on service design, management, and delivery are likely to find increasingly that, for survival, service is a matter of life or death. This book provides a deep understanding of the relationship between people and technology along with an ergonomic approach to the design and management of service delivery that helps you deliver the value and benefits that customers not only want, but increasingly come to expect.