Synopses & Reviews
"If your organization is not fully committed to service excellence, don't read this book. If you are fully committed, then you must read this book. It provides all the nuts and bolts of how to create and sustain a service culture."
—Pamela Paulk, Vice President, Human Resources, Johns Hopkins Health System
"Business in the early 21st century has turned into a survival game—those who figure out how to keep their customers survive. If you need a customer service improvement plan and don't know where to start, start here!"
—Tom Willett, Director, Management Development Programs, ILR School, Cornell University
"There is no shortage of books extolling the importance of excellent customer service. What distinguishes Unleashing Excellence from the others is its focus on how to do it. If you are convinced of the value of service excellence and want to know how to provide it, this book is for you."
—Allan R. Nagle, former president, Tupperware Worldwide; former interim dean, Crummer GraduateSchool of Business, Rollins College
"Dennis Snow and Teri Yanovitch have once again authored an easy-to-read guide, rich with real-life examples of companies striving to achieve customer service excellence. In this incredibly competitive world, following these concepts will improve your business and your personal life!"
—Gary Webb, Executive Vice President, Operations, First Financial Bankshares, Inc.
"I recommend Unleashing Excellence to any company needing a 'how to' and 'can do' manual to implement service excellence in their organization."
—Richard A. Nunis, retired chairman, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts
"Dennis and Teri seamlessly marry the intangible tenets of customer service philosophy with practical, easy-to-consume strategies that can help any organization transcend 'business as usual.' The authors illustrate their recommendations of 'what to do' with stories that make it easy to understand."
—Chuck Kegler, Director, Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter
"Unleashing Excellence is a must-read that would benefit any industry. It gives step-by-step guidelines that can be implemented with ease and invaluable insights that will help encourage your customers to keep coming back for more."
—Fred DeLuca, President and cofounder, Subway Restaurants
"Once again, the authors have pinpointed the dynamics of the changing nature of delivering customer value through a focus on excellence. Wise words for any organization to heed."
—Dr. Robert K. Prescott, SPHR, Graduate Faculty of Management, Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College
"If your organization wants to make customer service a part of your culture, Unleashing Excellence is a powerful tool. If this model can help a government agency reach a 93 percent overall customer satisfaction rating, it can help any organization. The book also helps anyone who reads it understand that excellent customer service isn't a 'program' but a 'process' that never ends."
—Kimberlee Poulton, Director of Communications and Marketing, Florida's Turnpike Enterprise
Synopsis
A step-by-step guide to designing and implementing an amazing customer service cultureIn today's competitive business environment, keeping customers happy is the key to long-term success. But some businesses provide much better customer service than others. It's not always clear what works and what doesn't, and implementing new customer service practices midstream can be a difficult, chaotic task. Business leaders who want to transform their business culture into one of customer service excellence need reliable, proven guidance.
Unleashing Excellence gives you practical tools and step-by-step guidance tailored to your company's individual customer service needs. It shows you how to navigate your teams through every step of the implementation process to achieve true customer service excellence. The book covers the training and education of your group, how to measure the quality of your service, how to build a culture of personal accountability, and how to recognize excellence and reward it. Fully revised to include updated information on the latest tools and best practices, as well as the stories and lessons learned from those organizations that have used the process described in the book.
- Offers proven best practices for designing and implementing an excellent customer service culture
- Simple format divides content into nine "leadership actions" that guide you through a step-by-step process
- Shows you how to build a common customer service vision for your entire organization
Customer service is vital to the survival of your business. If you want to move your organization's customer service practices from good to great, Unleashing Excellence is the key.
Synopsis
Happy customers make for healthy bottom lines. For most businesses, that means customer service is the key to long-term profitability and success. But some companies do it better than others, and it's often difficult to tell what works and what doesn't. If you want to build a customer service culture that gets real business results, you need the reliable, proven guidance in
Unleashing Excellence.
Unleashing Excellence guides you through the process of improving the customer experience and gives you practical, effective tools that you can tailor to your company's specific needs and culture. Divided into nine "Leadership Action" sections, it shows you the exact steps to take to create an organizational culture in which service excellence becomes a habit rather than an afterthought.
You'll learn how to train and educate your people in the most advanced and effective customer service techniques, how to measure the quality of the service you deliver to your customers, how to build a culture of personal accountability in your organization, and how to recognize and reward excellence in your people.
You can't build a great customer service organization without having a clear vision shared by everyone involved. Unleashing Excellence also helps you craft that vision, spread it among your people, and imbue those people with the sense of dedication and excellence that spectacular customer service demands. Rather than focusing just on customer service theory or philosophy, this book is a guide to the practical actions you need to take in order to turn service excellence into business as usual.
Changing your customer service practices is tough even in the best of times, but the reward is huge. Unleashing Excellence provides the ideas and tactics you need to keep your customers ecstatic.
About the Author
Dennis Snow spent twenty years developing his customer service principles at The Walt Disney Company in a variety of leadership roles. He now works as a full-time speaker, trainer, and consultant, helping organizations achieve their goals in the areas of customer service, employee development, and leadership.
Teri Yanovitch has traveled the world implementing the proven Quality Improvement Process developed by management guru Philip Crosby. She was a top-rated facilitator and speaker for Disney Institute, teaching Disney's renowned customer service practices. Today, she combines her quality management and customer service experience to help organizations implement their own culture of excellence.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second Edition.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
Chapter 1 The DNA of Service Excellence.
Chapter 2 The Leadership Actions.
Chapter 3 The Service Improvement Team.
Chapter 4 Developing the Service Improvement Core Tools.
Chapter 5 Communication.
Chapter 6 Training and Education.
Chapter 7 Interviewing and Selection.
Chapter 8 Measurement.
Chapter 9 Recognition.
Chapter 10 Service Obstacle System.
Chapter 11 Accountability.
Conclusion.
Index.