Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization
Learn the Loyalty-Building Secrets of Distinguished—and Exceptionally Successful—Service Companies\ “Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit is a book after my own heart. Leonardo and Micah’s philosophies, rules, and winning examples of service excellence will make you want to implement their suggestions immediately in your own organization. This is the way to run a customer-focused company!” — Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and Leading at a Higher Level\ “What you read...
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Learn the Loyalty-Building Secrets of Distinguished—and Exceptionally Successful—Service Companies“Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit is a book after my own heart. Leonardo and Micah’s philosophies, rules, and winning examples of service excellence will make you want to implement their suggestions immediately in your own organization. This is the way to run a customer-focused company!” — Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and Leading at a Higher Level“What you read here will allow you to recalibrate your business—on any scale—to truly know your customers and keep them coming back for more.” — Horst Schulze, Chairman & CEO, The West Paces Hotel Group; President and COO, ret., The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, from the Foreword “A must-read guide on how to apply five-star service techniques to every industry and every price point.” — O. Temple Sloan, III, President, Chief Executive Officer, General Parts, Inc./CARQUEST“This smart primer on customer service strategy is a must-read for managers and anyone interested in transforming their interactions with clients. Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon cover considerable ground—from the finer details of greeting customers or giving directions to larger strategies for training employees or maintaining customers’ trust online. Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit is a manual for winning customer loyalty that actually inspires.” — Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, Free Agent Nation, and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us “An excellent roadmap for building a customer-centered enterprise. Leonardo and Micah wittily present easy-to-implement strategies that will create a strong value proposition for your business and a great experience for your customers.” — Massimo Ferragamo, Chairman, Salvatore Ferragamo USA“In economically difficult times, customer loyalty is a critical factor in determining who survives to sell another day and who ends up in bankruptcy court. Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon have written a wonderful, practical book that explores the interactions that build customer loyalty. It should be required reading for anyone setting out to build a new company and, equally, for seasoned business leaders wondering how to weather hard times.” — Professor Frank A. Philpot, George Mason University School of Management
INTRODUCTION\ The Only Shop in the Marketplace\ The best thing you can do for your business right now has nothing to\ do with new technology, economies of scale, or first-mover advantage.\ It’s something simpler.\ It’s something more dependable.\ The single best thing you can do for your business is to build true\ customer loyalty, one customer at a time.\ Everything changes when a customer becomes a loyalist. To the\ truly loyal customer, you are the only shop in the marketplace. All the\ other brands and all the other vendors don’t even come into focus. Like\ someone in love, the loyal customer only has eyes for you.\ Few businesses realize how valuable customer loyalty is, and even\ fewer know how to achieve it consistently. But a company of any size\ can build great wealth and stability through customer loyalty. Businesses\ with loyal customers grow faster than others when times are good, and\ they have the most breathing room when times are bad.\ At its root, creating loyal customers is about taking the time to learn\ about your customers individually and then using simple systems to turn\ that knowledge into enduring business relationships. In doing so, you\ turn your offering into much more than a commodity—you turn it into\ a personal relationship.\ The primary threat to a business today is the perception by customers\ that all you offer is a replaceable, interchangeable commodity. This\ hazard stalks your every move: No matter how unbreachable your business’s\ advantages may appear right now, whether they are advantages of\ technology, geography, or branding, eventually your business model is\ going to be knocked off. And, in this era of accelerating change, it will\ likely happen sooner than you think.\ Escape this threat of commoditization by creating enduring, loyal,\ human relationships with customers. It’s the surest way to escape market\ obsolescence.\ The payoff is huge.\ Learning to create loyal customers has made all the difference for\ the companies where Leonardo has been involved, including The Ritz-\ Carlton, BVLGARI, The Walt Disney Company, and the new hotel\ brands—Capella and Solis—that Leonardo heads up with his partners.\ The principles that lead to loyal customers will work for you, too.\ They’re simple, they’re solid, and they’re replicable. You needn’t work\ in a luxury industry to apply them. Far from it.\ As you’ll learn, Micah used the principles of loyalty to transform a\ tiny manufacturing and entertainment services company he started in a\ single room in his basement, with financing that consisted of only a\ credit card, into a renowned and high-growth enterprise. His approach\ built his company, Oasis, into one of the top players in its field, as well\ as attracting attention in the business literature, including case studies in\ such places as Success magazine and Seth Godin’s bestseller Purple Cow.\ Oasis catapulted to success because customers respond with loyalty\ when you treat them according to the principles and methods we will\ describe.\ Since then, Leonardo and Micah have been able to lend their\ loyalty-based methodology to a great diversity of industries: from white\ shoe law firms to restaurants to banks to organic flower farms; from\ tour operators to independent music labels to convention centers to\ hospitals. Loyalty pays off—measurably—for all of them.\ The reward for using these principles isn’t only financial. As you\ begin building customer loyalty, your pride in your profession, your\ integrity, and your ability to build positive relationships (at work, and\ even in your own home) will also bloom. This happens naturally, because\ the process of earning loyalty involves caring about your customers,\ respecting them, and thinking constantly about their needs.\ Spending this time being deeply attentive will tone your personality.\ Building customer loyalty will require your hard work and\ thoughtfulness, but it is a refreshingly straightforward process. While\ so many aspects of business are out of your control—exchange rates,\ international tension, technological changes—the single most important\ process, creating loyal customers, obeys predictable, stable rules that can\ be mastered and then applied successfully for a lifetime.\ We’re pleased to help show the way.
Contents Special Features....................xiAcknowledgments....................xiiiForeword by Horst Schulze....................xvIntroduction: The Only Shop in the Marketplace....................1Chapter One: The Engineer on the Ladder: Reaching for the Highest Level of Service....................4Chapter Two: The Four Elements of Customer Satisfaction: Perfect Product, Caring Delivery, Timeliness, and an Effective Problem Resolution Process....................7Chapter Three: Language Engineering: Every. Word. Counts....................14Chapter Four: Recovery! Turning Service Failures Around....................26Chapter Five: Keeping Track to Bring Them Back: Tracking Customer Roles, Goals, and Preferences....................45Chapter Six: Building Anticipation Into Your Products and Services: Putting Processes to Work for You....................59Chapter Seven: Your People: Selection, Orientation, Training, and Reinforcement....................84Chapter Eight: Leadership: Guiding the Customer-Centered Organization....................101Chapter Nine: What's Worth it, and What's Not? Pointers on Value, Costs, and Pricing....................108Chapter Ten: Building Customer Loyalty Online: Using the Internet's Power to Serve Your Customers and Your Goals....................115Chapter Eleven: Hello/Good-Bye: Two Crucial Moments with a Customer....................131Appendixes....................145Appendix A: Oasis Disc Manufacturing: Customer and Phone Interaction Guidelines and Lexicon Excerpts....................147Appendix B: CARQUEST Standards of Service Excellence....................153Appendix C: Capella Hotels and Resorts "Canon Card": Service Standards and Operating Philosophy....................155Notes....................159Index....................162
\ From the Publisher"...gem of a book...If you want to deliver a superior client experience, then have every employee read this book…volume is simply that profound, that good.”—PrimePerformance.com\ “…offers lessons that are immediately applicable to any business, and can help you both attract and retain clients.—Accounting Today\ 800-CEO-Read Top 25: What Corporate America is Reading, December 2011\ "A wealth of actionable information packed into a short book." --The Advance Me Business Blog\ \ \
