The Thank You Economy

Here renowned entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk reveals how companies big and small can scale that kind of personal, one-on-one attention to their entire customer base, no matter how large, using the same social media platforms that carry consumer word of mouth. The Thank You Economy offers compelling, data-driven evidence that we have entered into an entirely new business era, one in which the companies that see … [ Read more ]

Strategic Customer Service: Managing the Customer Experience to Increase Positive Word of Mouth, Build Loyalty, and Maximize Profits

The success of any organization depends on high-quality customer service. But for companies that strategically align customer service with their overall corporate strategy, it can transcend typical good business to become a profitable word-of-mouth machine that will transform the bottom line. The author draws on over thirty years of research for companies such as 3M, American Express, Chik-Fil-A, USAA, Coca-Cola, FedEx, GE, Cisco Systems, Neiman … [ Read more ]

Community: The Structure of Belonging

Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities–businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government–do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work … [ Read more ]

The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value

Reichheld, a director of Bain & Co., a strategy consulting firm in Boston, takes an old-fashioned concept?loyalty?and shows its relevance to customer retention and long-term profit growth. His position seems obvious, but its import has been lost amid the rapid turnover in the current business climate. He notes that major companies replace half their customers in five years, half their employees in four and a … [ Read more ]

Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success

Leonard L. Berry examines some of America’s great service companies and finds “nine drivers of excellence” that are behind them all. Discovering the Soul of Service looks at 14 diverse businesses, including the St. Paul Saints minor-league baseball team, Dial-A-Mattress, Midwest Express Airlines, and two of the world’s fastest-growing service companies–Charles Schwab and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. “The lessons they teach are clear indeed,” writes Berry, a … [ Read more ]

Experiential Marketing : How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company

Experiential marketing, a decidedly turn-of-the-millennium form of corporate persuasion that strives to elicit a powerful sensory or cognitive consumer response, is rapidly superseding the stodgy features-and-benefits approach generally in vogue since the gray-flannel ’50s. In fact, says Bernd H. Schmitt, a professor of marketing and director of the Center on Global Brand Management at Columbia Business School, leading enterprises ranging from Gillette and Martha Stewart … [ Read more ]

Scoring Points: How Tesco Is Winning Customer Loyalty

Scoring Points is one of the seminal marketing books of the last decade. It tells the story of how British supermarket chain Tesco conceived, launched, and developed its hugely successful Clubcard program. Clive Humbly and Terry Hunt, two major influences behind Tesco’s spectacular transformation, and Tim Phillips, a leading business writer and broadcaster, bring us a compelling behind-the-scenes account of Clubcard — the successes, the … [ Read more ]

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

With the same grace and generosity displayed in his dining rooms, Meyer’s instructive how-we-did-it account shares lessons learned on his way to becoming CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group. Meyer opened Union Square Cafe in 1985 when he was 27 years old. It hit its stride three years later when he hired chef Michael Romano, and Meyer charts its evolution from a neighborhood to international … [ Read more ]

Customer-centric Product Definition: The Key to Great Product Development

Mello draws on years of experience in product development, hardware engineering, software development, and marketing, in creating this text for executives and new-product professionals. She presents a market-driven product definition (MDPD) strategy for identifying, understanding, and meeting customer- value-based demand. The text features a wealth of techniques and approaches used at a number of top companies, and includes charts, figures and a complete case study … [ Read more ]

e-Loyalty: How to Keep Customers Coming Back to Your Website

From the Publisher
Customer loyalty has always been grounded in human interaction. Years ago, you’d walk into your favorite store and the staff would know your name, they’d remember your favorite brands and they’d smile, nod and take pains to make sure you came back. Because you were treated well by a personable, friendly staff-and because you were physically constrained by time and … [ Read more ]

Why CRM Doesn’t Work: How to Win by Letting Customers Manage the Relationship

Customers don’t want to be managed, says marketing consultant Newell in this contrarian take on the current state of CRM. Instead, he says customers must define their relationships with you and shows how to refocus CRM efforts and programs, such as e-mail, permission marketing, and loyalty cards, to allow customers to specify and communicate their wants and needs.

Seven Secrets of Service Strategy

Business has drastically shifted its vision to a service-oriented perspective, moving from sales to customer satisfaction. And now service-an element not even mentioned in the marketing “4 Ps” (product, price, place, and promotion)-is today the most sustainable source of differentiation and advantage.
This book is a reference guide for senior managers and executives who believe that a sound service strategy is the best way to … [ Read more ]

Moments of Truth: New Strategies for Today’s Customer-Driven Economy

Moments of Truth is Carlzon’s story of how, under his leadership as president and CEO, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) emerged from deficits to profitability, improved services, and enhanced its market position by becoming a customer-oriented company organized for change. His strategiesa focus on the customer, encouraging risk-taking, delegating more authority to front-line employees, and eliminating vertical levels of hierarchy for a more horizontal organizationbear the … [ Read more ]

The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty, Satisfaction, and Value

Why are a select few service firms better at what they do — year in and year out — than their competitors? For most senior managers, the profusion of anecdotal “service excellence” books fails to address this key question. In this pathbreaking book, world-renowned Harvard Business School service firm experts James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger reveal that leading companies … [ Read more ]

Running an Effective Help Desk

Loyalty Rules! How Today’s Leaders Build Lasting Relationships

It’s trendy these days to decry a lack of loyalty among employers, employees, customers, and even investors, and blame it for everything from drops in business profitability to the decline of civilized society. But Frederick F. Reichheld, a Bain & Company director emeritus, insists that loyalty lives–and, in fact, remains a major reason for the success enjoyed by some of the leading names in both … [ Read more ]