Synopses & Reviews
Why, despite spending billions of dollars in customer relationship programs and other customer initiatives, do some companies still exhibit poor results in gaining and holding on to customers? Intentions and initiatives are common, but the harder task is living and executing them. Passionate and Profitable takes a critical stand on customer relationships and offers a new approach to help you build strong relationships that have customers returning again and againfor years to come!
There is not one company out there that doesn't claim to put their customers first, yet very few of them can demonstrate long-term success in forming strong, sustainable, and profitable relationships with customers. Passionate and Profitable details the critical decisions and trade-offs companies must make in order to focus their efforts on the customer. These choices are often tough but necessary to establish a relationship that goes beyond the occasional and accidental.
Brimming with exercises that you can apply to your own business as well as case studies on companies who have built strong customer relationships, including American Express, Virgin Atlantic Airways, GE, Aveda, Paychex, and Disney, Passionate and Profitable covers such topics as:
- Who Are We: Customer Pleasers or Efficiency Crunchers?
- What Is the Role of the Customer in Our Existence?
- What Defines Our Total Experience?
- What Customers Do We Neglect?
- What Kind of Relationships Do We Seek?
- How Do We Change Ourselves to Avoid the Silo-Based Customer Trap?
- Do We Employ Functional Robots or Passionate Evangelists?
- Post-Sales Dialogue and Feedback, Do We Really Care?
- What Do Our Measurements Say About Us?
- How Long Do We Milk Our Products?
- The Ultimate Choice-Customer StrategiesA Mutual Lifetime Commitment
Embrace the challenges set forth in Lior Arussy's Passionate and Profitable and reap the rewards of forging long-term relationships with your most valuable asset: your customers!
Review
"This is a provocative, thoughtful guidebook for executives who are struggling with the complicated questions that surround today's sophisticated buyers." (
Monitor, 3/8/06)
“…clearly laid-out…frequent excellent diagrams to illustrate a point…” (Media Week, 16th August 2005)
Synopsis
Why is it that companies fail in what should be their number one task? How it is possible that billions of dollars later, companies still show such poor results in gaining and retaining customers?
This book will argue that the answers to these questions are simple, but go to the core of customer relationships. Companies did not make the choice to build relationships or give full commitment to their customers. Customer-related activities were undertaken as initiatives, ” programs, ” or campaigns, ” running for a short period of time and never embraced as a full operational strategy. Companies wanted to believe that they could pepper their self-centered organizations with a bit of a customer sauce and get away with it. The tentative contents is: (1) Who are We: customer Pleasers or Efficiency Crunchers; (2) What Is the Role of the Customer in Our Existence?; (3) What Defines Our Total Experience; (4) What Customers Do We Neglect?; (5) What Kind of Relationships Do We Seek?; (6) How Do We Change Ourselves to Avoid the Silo-Based Customer Trap?; (7) Do We Employ Functional Robots or Passionate Evangelists?; (8) Post Sales Dialogue and Feedback, Do We Really Care?; (9) What Do Our Measurements Say About Us?; (10) How Long Do WE Milk Our Products?; (11) The Ultimate Choice--Customer Strategies--A Mutual Lifetime Commitment.
Synopsis
"I’ve always said that education without execution is just entertainment – and Lior illustrates this beautifully in his book. It is important to learn HOW to implement a successful Customer focus strategy and you need knowledge and process to do it well. Read this book and learn."--
Tim Sanders, Author of "Love is The Killer App""Lior brings original thought to the world of business, ideas drawn from reality, based on solid observations with the clear objective of helping people make money. Read this and profit."--Jerry Vass, Author of "Soft Selling in A Hard World" and President Vass Consulting
"You might not like this book. It's not filled with easy shortcuts and feel-good platitudes. BUT, when you're ready to walk the walk and not just talk the talk) about treating your customers right and growing your business, Lior's book is a fine place to start down that rarely-followed, very profitable path."--Seth Godin Author, Purple Cow & Free Prize Inside
"Lior Arussy is a true customer advocate. This book is a must-read for anyone who knows that the only sustainable competitive advantage is to create a unique and meaningful customer experience."--Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief, CRM magazine
According to Strativity's 2003 CEM global study, 45% of executives surveyed do not believe they deserve the customer’s loyalty. Following a decade of customer-centric books, the market is in a state of crises with over 50% customer focused projects fail. Passionate and Profitable is a new book that takes a critical look at the state of the companies’ commitment to customers and exposes the fatal mistakes companies make and the lip service they pay to their customers.
Full of examples and statistics, Passionate and Profitable argues that customer strategies success depends on making serious tough choices and not cosmetic works. It is those tough trade offs that will help companies unleash their passion for customers and in return, increase their profitability and sales.
Synopsis
"Lior Arussy's new book is another great addition to his work on the theme of improving the customer experience to build lasting and profitable customer relationships. Recommended to both those working on corporate customer strategy and line managers. Strong practical advice from an industry visionary."
Michael Maoz Vice President and Research Fellow, Gartner Research
"This book isn't filled with easy shortcuts and feel-good platitudes. When you're ready to walk the walk, Lior's book is a fine place to start down that rarely followed, very profitable path."
Seth Godin author, Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside!
"Lior Arussy is a true customer advocate. This book is a must-read for anyone who knows that the only sustainable competitive advantage is to create a unique and meaningful customer experience."
Ginger Conlon Editor in Chief, CRM magazine
"This book provides a clear blueprint for successful customer relationships. It is a must-read for executives who are serious about pleasing their customers."
Guy Kawasaki author, The Art of the Start
"I've always said that education without execution is just entertainmentand Lior illustrates this beautifully in his book. It is important to learn how to implement a successful customer focus strategy and you need knowledge and process to do it well. Read this book and learn."
Tim Sanders author, Love Is the Killer App
"Lior brings original thought to the world of business, ideas drawn from reality, based on solid observations with the clear objective of helping people make money. Read this and profit."
Jerry Vass President, Vass Consulting Author, Soft Selling in a Hard World
About the Author
Lior Arussy is the founder and President of Strativity Group, Inc. (StativityGroup.com), which works with both Global 2000 companies as well as emerging businesses around the world. Prior to establishing Strativity Group, Arussy held executive positions at NICE Systems and Hewlett-Packard as well as various start-up companies. He is the author of several publications, including The Experience!: How to Wow Your Customers and Create a Passionate Workplace, as well as more than fifty articles in such international publications as Harvard Business Review. Arussy's syndicated column "Focus: Customer" reaches more than 350,000 readers worldwide every month. He also has a bimonthly column for CRM magazine, is the winner of the CRM Influential Leader 2003 award, and is the author of the course "Developing and Executing Customer-centric Strategy" (American Management Association).
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Top Ten Crucial Mistakes in Customer Strategies xiiiThe Graveyard of Good Intentions xiv
Failure Factors xvii
Chapter 1 Understanding the Fatal Mistakes 1
Fatal Mistake 1: Culture of the New 2
Fatal Mistake 2: Lipstick on the Pig 2
Fatal Mistake 3: Passion Loss 3
Fatal Mistake 4: Real Cost of Cost Reduction 3
Fatal Mistake 5: Failure to Operationalize 4
Fatal Mistake 6: You Get What You Pay For 4
Fatal Mistake 7: Management of Change 5
Fatal Mistake 8: Lack of Leadership 6
Fatal Mistake 9: Unstructured Relationship 6
Fatal Mistake 10: Technology Shortcut 7
Critical Choices 8
Chapter 2 Critical Choice 1: Who Are We, Customer Pleasers or Efficiency Crunchers? 11
Lack of Definition and Criteria 13
Intention to Execution Gap 14
Price of Efficiency 16
Corporation–Customer Experience Aptitude Survey 19
Chapter 3 Critical Choice 2: What Is the Role of the Customer in Our Existence? 25
Inherent Conflict 25
The Efficient Relationship Paradox 28
Corporations at a Juncture 31
What Customers? The Second Tough Choice 33
Congratulations, You Are at Par: The New Four Ps 35
Chapter 4 Critical Choice 3: What Defines Our Total Experience? 39
Customer Strategies and the Art of
Customer Experience Management 42
Demystifying the Experience 46
The Emotional Customer 49
Developing the Experience 50
Customer Experience Analysis 52
Customer Experience Mapping 55
Reengineering the Experience Guidelines 58
Power to the People: The Difficult Shift 61
What Is Your Core Experience? 62
Chapter 5 Critical Choice 4: What Customers Do We Neglect? 67
Customer Selection Guidelines 70
Characteristics of Desirable and
Undesirable Customers 72
Customer Role 74
Customer Job Description 75
Company's Job Description 77
Chapter 6 Critical Choice 5: What Kind of Relationships Do We Seek? 81
Symbiosis versus Competitive Relationships 82
What Is the Essence of a Customer-Desired Relationship? 83
Different Relationships with Different People 91
Segmentation Criteria 93
Tailoring the Customer's Experience 97
Chapter 7 Critical Choice 6: How Do We Change Our Organization to Avoid the Silo-Based Customer Trap? How Do We Assume Complete Customer Responsibility? 103
Managing Across All Touch Points 103
Touch Points Analysis Mapping 104
Obsession with Tools 107
Organization-Focused Customer 109
Customer-Focused Organization 110
Assembler Keeps the Money 114
Chapter 8 Critical Choice 7: Do We Employ Functional Robots or Passionate Evangelists? 117
Attitude, Not Skill 118
Employee Experiences 119
Employee Loyalty Leads to Customer Loyalty 122
Employment Hierarchy 122
Guidelines for Employee Experience Reengineering 127
Training Is for Dogs—Education Is for People 132
Delight Them: They Are Human Too 135
Compensation: Follow the Money Trail 136
Chapter 9 Critical Choice 8: Post-Sales Dialogue and Service—Do We Really Care? 139
Culture of the New 140
Taking Customers for Granted 140
Four Checkpoints for Delivering
True Experiences and Relationships 141
Required Tools 151
Complete Relationship Account 153
Visualizing Value 157
Culture of Excellence 159
Chapter 10 Critical Choice 9: What Do Our Measurements Say About Us? 163
Actions, Not Perception 164
Measuring Success: The Customer Style 165
Measurement Guidelines 167
Identifying Business Drivers 167
True Assets 169
Nurturing Rather Than Managing 170
Chapter 11 Critical Choice 10: How Long Do We Milk Our Products? 173
Consistency Is Boring 174
Success Breeds Complacency 175
Innovation Compass: "Wow Me Now" 178
Chapter 12 The Ultimate Choice: Customer Strategies—A Mutual Lifetime Commitment 183
Stop Staring 183
Complete View of a Successful Customer Strategy 186
Organizational Commitment 186
Change the Rules through Amazing Experiences 187
Experiences Build Defendable Market Leadership 188
Employees Experiences: The Customer Experience Enablers 189
The Never-Ending Date 190
Appendix An Open Letter to the Smart Customer 193
Index 197