I believe every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to make a stark raving fan. Stark raving fans are really good for business and marketing. Referrals and good word of mouth are the most powerful form of marketing. Therefore taking care of customers should be a top priority in any business. This is especially true when something has gone wrong or a customer has an odd request. Is the customer always right? No. But we should help them be right as often as possible.
After I published my review of “Customers For Life” a friend(Randy Moffett) mentioned that he had a great customer service book that I should check out. “Customer Love” is a series of short vignettes of customer service success stories. These stories are between 1-3 pages long and come from a large variety of businesses.
One of the more powerful thoughts about this book is: “Customer service is not a department, it’s an attitude.” To help your team see that everyone is in the customer satisfaction business is huge. Having an entire team empowered and ready to serve the customer is a great way to set yourself apart from the competition.
If you are in a leadership position this might be a great book to use almost as a ‘devotional’ from the team. It might be wise at staff meetings to take time and share one of the short stories from this book. Â Another strength of the book is the variety of industries that it covers. It might give you a few good ideas to try and implement with your team.
This is a great coffee table book, bookshelf, or a waiting area book. It is hardcover and brightly covered. Short enough to get engaged quickly but with short bits of info so it is easy to put down.
But my favorite customer service book is still Customers for Life. The big difference between these two is that Customers For Life is about one man’s business and how he ran it, the view is from the inside. Customer Love is written from the outside and some of the stories are even sourced from others work, like Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless.
For what you can buy this book for on Amazon it is worth it. Use it as short stories with your team or anecdotes with your peer group. But I would also take the time to read Customers For Life and read in more detail about how a man led his company to be a customer service powerhouse.
