Customer service is the single most pressing problem for business managers and people in any service or sales operation, especially at the retail level. In fact, many experts believe that you build a business from the customer up. In Customer Mania!, Ken Blanchard, one of America's biggest bestselling authors and inspiring business leaders, writes of the key to customer service—creating a people-oriented, performance-driven, customer-first organization. Along with coauthors Jim Ballard and Fred Finch, Blanchard explains why the customer is the right starting place from which to build a successful business. By drawing on examples from the world's largest restaurant company, Yum!—owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants—the authors explain how any company, large or small, can develop a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture. Packed with practical insights, Customer Mania! emphasizes four critical steps:
• Set Your Sights on the Right Target. The bottom line grows from taking care of customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.
• Treat Customers the Right Way. Determine the kind of experience you want your customers to have as they interact with every part of the company.
• Treat Employees the Right Way. Use strategies ranging from smart hiring to training and development to managing performance and creating a recognition culture.
• Build the Right Kind of Leadership. You can't do it all yourself, so let your people put their own brains to work and then support them all the way.
By relying on these concepts, businesses everywhere can cultivate passionate and engaged team members who contribute to the company's overall success. From CEO to middle manager to the person facing the consumer, Customer Mania! is a vital tool for enhancing their experience—and their customer's.
"A road map that all organizations can follow as they strive to inspire their people and ultimately win the hearts of their customers."
~ Marcus Buckingham, coauthor of First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths
Details:
Category: Managing organizations
ISBN-13: 978-0-743-27028-1
Publisher: Free Press/Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 2004
Edition description:
Pages: 194
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.53(d)
Also available in audio, paperback, and e-reader formats
Ken Blanchard, one of the most influential leadership experts in the world, is the coauthor of the iconic bestseller, The One Minute Manager, and more than 60 other books whose combined sales total more than 21 million copies. His groundbreaking works have been translated into more than 42 languages and in 2005 he was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time. He is also the cofounder with his wife, Margie, of The Ken Blanchard Companies ® , an international management training and consulting firm in San Diego, California, and Lead Like Jesus, a worldwide organization committed to helping people become servant leaders.
Jim Ballard has enjoyed careers as an educator, corporate trainer, consultant, seminar designer, and author. He and Ken Blanchard have worked together on four books—Whale Done!, Mission Possible, Everyone's a Coach, and Managing by Values. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Fred Finch is the author of Managing for Organizational Effectiveness: An Experiential Approach. A founding associate of The Ken Blanchard Companies, he has trained senior managers at Harvard University, Merrill Lynch, IBM, Shell International, and many other high-profile organizations. He was also a professor of management and organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Management at the University of Massachusetts.
