Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization
Authors: Leonardo Inghilleri,Micah Solomon,Horst Schulze
Tags: #Business
Exceptional Service,
Exceptional Profit
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Exceptional Service,
Exceptional Profit
The Secrets of Building a Five-Star
Customer Service Organization
Leonardo Inghilleri
and Micah Solomon
Foreword by Horst Schulze
American Management Association
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In a few instances the authors have concealed identifying characteristics of individuals and businesses,
especially in less-than-laudatory examples. Also, the fictitious brand names DinoFuels, TapasTree,
L&M Stagers, Kiddie Carousel, Stutterfly, and Swirly Goo and the Goners are used only for humor
and should not be confused with similarly named or configured companies.
Copyrights for Appendices are as follows:
Appendix A:
᭧
Four Aces Inc., courtesy of Micah Solomon, All Rights Reserved
Appendix B:
᭧
General Parts, Inc., All Rights Reserved
Appendix C:
᭧
West Paces Hotel Group, All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Inghilleri, Leonardo.
Exceptional service, exceptional profit : the secrets of building a five-star customer service
organization / Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon.
p.
cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1538-2
ISBN-10: 0-8144-1538-5
1. Customer service.
2. Consumer satisfaction.
3. Customer loyalty.
I. Solomon,
Micah.
II. Title.
HF5415.5.I543
2010
658.8
Ј
12—dc22
2009031674
᭧
2010 Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601
Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Printing number
10
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1
Contents
The Only Shop in the Marketplace 1
The Engineer on the Ladder: Reaching for the Highest
The Four Elements of Customer Satisfaction:
Perfect Product, Caring Delivery, Timeliness, and an
Effective Problem Resolution Process 7
With the Support of an Effective Problem Resolution
Language Engineering: Every. Word. Counts. 14
Establish a Consistent Style of Speech 15
Create a Lexicon of Preferred Language and Phrasing 15
v
vi
Contents
Choose Language to Put Customers at Ease, Not to Dominate
Concentrate Your Language Efforts on the Key Customer
Moments: Hellos, Good-Byes, and the Times When Things Fall
Shut Up Sometimes: The Artie Bucco Principle 20
Show, Don’t Tell (And Don’t Ever Just Point) 21
Phone and Internet Language and Communication Pointers 21
Recovery! Turning Service Failures Around 26
The Four Steps to Great Service Recoveries 27
Use Your Own Experience to Prepare You 36
Who Should Handle Customer Complaints? 39
Subtle is Beautiful: Service Recovery Below the Radar 41
Write-Offs Lead to Write-Offs 43
Keeping Track to Bring Them Back: Tracking Customer
Roles, Goals, and Preferences 45
Principles of Noting and Sharing 46
Principle 1: Keep Your Systems Simple 46
Principle 2: If It’s Important to Your Customer, It Belongs in
Principle 3: The Information You Gather Needs to be Available
Principle 4: Preferences Change; Assumptions are Tricky 52
Principle 5: Moods Change: Track Them 53
Principle 6: Don’t Blow It with a Wooden Delivery 53
Contents
vii
Principle 7: Using Technology to Ask for Information? It’s a Fine
Line between Clever and Creepy 54
Surprises Are Hazardous—Online and Off 56
Fear Not: Don’t Be Deterred from Collecting
Building Anticipation
Into
Your Products and Services:
Putting Processes to Work for You 59
Get Your Company to Think Like a Customer 60
Mr. BIV and the Art of Eliminating Defects 62
Don’t Kill Mr. BIV’s Messengers 64
Systematically Reducing Waste to Add Value—For You
and
Why Efficient Processes Can Transform Service 68
Stamping Out Waste? Don’t Crush Value by Accident 70
Process-Based Anticipation on the Internet 73
Using Tools to Gather Information About Your Customers’
Process-Based Solutions Become People Solutions 79
Your People: Selection, Orientation, Training, and
We Are Already Our True Selves: Select for Traits 84
Develop Selection Discipline 89
Create a Powerful Orientation Process 90
Use Orientation to Instill New Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs 90
Defining an Employee’s Underlying Purpose 91
The Orientation Process Begins Sooner Than You Think 92
On Day One, Nothing Is Tangential 92
viii
Contents
Training Employees to Anticipate—
Carefully
94
Reinforcement: The Daily Check-In 98
Leadership: Guiding the Customer-Centered
Service Leaders Matter Because People Power Service 101
Five Characteristics of Great Service Leaders 103
What’s Worth it, and What’s Not? Pointers on Value,
What Does Loyalty-Enhancing Service Really Cost? 108
‘‘Compared to What?’’: Value Is Relative 111
Pricing Is Part of Your Value Proposition 112
Don’t Charge a Customer for Performing the Heimlich 113
Money Isn’t Everything, But Money Issues Matter—Especially
Building Customer Loyalty Online: Using the Internet’s
Power to Serve Your Customers and Your Goals 115
The Internet’s Double Edge 115
Opinions: Everybody Has One. Evangelists: Every Company
The Internet Can Promote Commoditization. Avoid This
Through Individualization. 119
Online, the Window in Which to Show You’re Extraordinary
Contents
ix
Amazon.com: A Brilliant Company, but Not the Most Realistic
First Time Online: A Nuts-and-Bolts Case Study 127
Hello/Good-Bye: Two Crucial Moments with a
Don’t Rush Your Hellos and Good-Byes on the Telephone 135
Serving Disabled Customers Is a Responsibility
and
an
Opportunity, from the Moment You Welcome Them at Your
Turn Your Receptionist into a Predator (Who Kills with
It’s Google—Not You—Who Decides Where Visitors Enter
Your Site. Be Sure They’re Greeted Properly Anyway 139
Taking Control of Good-Byes 141
The Hazards of Subcontracting Hellos and Good-Byes 142
Good-Bye for Now from the Authors—With Resources and
Assistance for Your Journey 144
Oasis Disc Manufacturing: Customer and Phone
Interaction Guidelines and Lexicon Excerpts 147
CARQUEST Standards of Service Excellence 153
Capella Hotels and Resorts ‘‘Canon Card’’: Service
Standards and Operating Philosophy 155
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Designing the Defects In 9
Reset Customer Expectations You Can’t Meet 12
It’s Not You. It’s Them,
Plus
Their Background,
Plus
You 19
Adding a Real Human Touch to a Mass Email Takes Less Time Than You’d Think 25
Preemptively Unwad Your Staff ’s Shorts 28
The Language of Service Recovery 30
How Should You Compensate a Customer for a Service or Product Failure? 34
Setting Up the Ritz 46
How to Track Customer Preferences on the Internet—Without Intruding 57
Eliminating Defects by Reducing Handoffs: Learning from Lexus 64
Why Benchmark
Manufacturing
Companies? 67
Borrowing from Xerox 69
Service Alfresco 73
Six Survey Blunders: How to Alienate Customers Fast 77