Synopses & Reviews
Much of the discussion on customer loyalty has centered on the hospitality or retail industries, analyzing customer experience management at Disney, Starbucks, Nordstrom, and the like. But how can other organizations including manufacturing, financial services, or nonprofits better design, implement, and leverage the most effective customer experience? What steps can organizations take to move from reactive to active and ultimately to a proactive customer focus?
Anticipate provides proven guidance on how to turn satisfied customers into enthusiastic customers who help generate the highest return. Using proprietary toolssuch as the Customer Focus Maturity Model® and Value Chain Labs®it explains, in detail, how to develop a customer/supplier relationship that helps both sides anticipate where they need to go. You'll learn:
- How to apply the Ten-Point Customer Focus Framework, which outlines the key steps successful companies use to create a clear and compelling linkage between their customer focus, growth strategy, and results
- The three levels of implementation as defined by the Customer Focus Maturity Model® and specific techniques to move your organization further along within a given stage, and from one stage to the next
- How to differentiate among customer behavior, satisfaction, and loyalty, and why a repeat customer isn't always a loyal customer or one worth keeping
- How to define and deliver unique value at each customer/supplier touch point
- How to build, drive, and leverage a value-creating culture throughout the organization, with customers and with your broader value chain
Anticipate shows you the way to partner with and walk alongside a customer to build an ideal experience togetherand eventually, to enjoy the profits of that partnership. For more information, visit www.AnticipateTheExperience.com.
Synopsis
Design and implement the ideal customer experience Anticipate provides business readers—across industries—a practical how-to model for taking their customer experience to the next level. Much of the discussion on customer experience has centered on the hospitality or retail industries, analyzing customer experience at Disney, Starbucks, and Nordstrom. Anticipate focuses on how to deliver excellent service for manufacturing businesses, financial services organizations, non-profits, and more. Executives and entrepreneurs get proven guidance on how to move beyond satisfied customers to create customer enthusiasts, based on experience, to generate the highest return.
- Explains proprietary methods—such as the Customer Focus Maturity Model and the Value Chain Labs—teach readers how to develop a customer/supplier relationship that helps both sides anticipate where they need to go
- Authors Jeff Tobe and Bill Thomas have guided such companies as Kraft Foods, General Motors Corporation, AT&T, Marriott, and many more esteemed organizations in delivering the ideal customer experience
Anticipate will guide you to partner with and walk alongside a customer to build an ideal experience together and enjoy the profits of partnership.
Synopsis
Design and implement the ideal customer focus Anticipate provides business readers with a practical how-to approach for taking their customer-supplier relationship to one that is more sustainable and more mutually profitable. Much of the discussion on customer experience has centered on the hospitality or retail industries and has showcased the discrete techniques organizations use to deliver better service and create more satisfied customers. Anticipate extends and integrates those techniques to deliver an end-to-end customer experience that can be applied in any industry, by any type of organization. Get proven guidance on how to design and implement a customer-focused journey that moves beyond the transaction and satisfied customers, to a relationship and culture that creates and leverages loyalty – and the profitability that comes with it.
- Explains proprietary methods—such as the Customer Focus Maturity Model ® and Value Chain Labs ® —that teach readers the steps and tools organizations use to create, drive and optimize their customer focus.
- Authors Bill Thomas and Jeff Tobe have used their 10-point framework to guide Fortune 500’s, start-ups as well as non-profits in charting a customer-focused journey that matures, anticipates and delivers increasing levels of loyalty and profitability with their customers, and across their broader value chain.
Anticipate will provide you with field-proven steps, tools and examples that you’ll use to take your customer-focused strategy, execution and culture to the ideal level.
Synopsis
PRAISE FOR
ANTICIPATE"Anticipate is insightful, interesting, and relevant to all companies who focus on delivering an exemplary customer experience. This book debunks common myths and outlines a customer focus framework to deliver customer value at every touch point. If you strive for a customer-centric focus within your company, you'll garner great insight from Anticipate."
KAY PHELPS, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, Avaya, Inc.
"Anticipate is a blueprint for success for any business! We wouldn't exist without our customers and this book delivers a three-step process to becoming even more customer-centric."
DAWN WELLHAUSEN, Director, Global Marketing Programs, Aspect Software, Inc.
"We are a family-run business and our focus has always been on customer service. Reading this book made us re-evaluate our policies and procedures. Anticipate's Ten-Point Customer Focus Framework is our new benchmark to ensure that our emphasis is on the customer experience, not just on service."
STACEY ISON, President, Toronto Honda
About the Author
BILL THOMAS is founder of Centric Performance, LLC, providing a strategic framework and practical tools to organizations committed to enhancing their customer focus and value chain partnerships. Thomas is the creator of the Customer Focus Maturity Model®, the first model to identify both the external and internal stages a company goes through, and techniques they use, to optimize the profitability of their customer/supplier relationships. Thomas has worked with dozens of organizations in their customer focus efforts and has designed and implemented long-term customer focus strategies and processes for many of them.
JEFF TOBE is a Certified Speaking Professional who was chosen as "one of the top 15 speakers in North America" by readers of Meetings and Conventions magazine. As the founder of Coloring Outside the Lines, Tobe teaches organizations how to think more creatively when it comes to designing and implementing the ideal customer experience. He is a frequent guest on business radio shows and podcasts and has been seen on NBC, Fox News, and local stations across the country.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 Strategy—Creating and Destroying Customer Value 1
CHAPTER 2 Doing the Right Things for the Wrong Reasons 17
CHAPTER 3 Not All Customers Are Good Customers 33
CHAPTER 4 When Customers Speak—Who Hears Them? 45
CHAPTER 5 Input Is Vital—But Involvement Multiplies the Value 59
CHAPTER 6 It Takes Two to Be Engaged 77
CHAPTER 7 Customer Focus Is a Process—Not an Event 101
CHAPTER 8 Culture—The Soft Stuff Is the Hard Stuff 123
CHAPTER 9 Managing Change, Performance, and Talent 151
CHAPTER 10 Leveraging Your Culture and Value Chain 187
Index 209