Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization [Hardcover]

 

 

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Like one of the reviewers above, I was struck by the *variety* of big name endorsements this book got:
--"new work" pundit Daniel Pink ("Drive," etc.)
-- old-school customer service and management writer Ken Blanchard ("Raving Fans," "One Minute Manager," etc.)
-- cyber-guru Seth Godin (who also writes about "Exceptional Service" co-author Micah Solomon in his blog sometimes)
-- Ritz-Carlton creator Horst Schulze (who also was apparently generally involved with and gave his blessing to this project)

Now that I've spent a week reading and trying out the concepts in this book, I understand why these people from different but overlapping backgrounds all appreciated this book. Most other books on this subject (and I must have read a dozen) either tread dangerously close to a silly "smile, smile smile" philosophy lacking any hard dose of facts (try finding specific actionable data on how to survey your customers in some of the self-promotion-minded schlock out there), or -- just as bad -- lack any philosophical backbone at all when it comes to talking about how to hire, encourage, and lead your all-important employees.

This book, on the other hand, stays entirely away from stuff that only SHOULD work, and sticks to stuff that DOES work--over and over, in the experience of the authors and in businesses they are close to. Plus, it is impassioned when it comes to philosophy: the philosophy that has been behind a string of successful businesses for both of the writers.

Furthermore, a dirty little secret of most of the customer service books out there is that they really don't address the realities of the Internet--unless those books are *exclusively* about the Internet (in which case the writing tends to exceedingly blow). This book, on the other hand, truly does tackle Internet customer service in a useful manner--both as an entity unto itself (with superpowers which must be respected) and as an entity which needs to respect the humanity of its users, just as is needed in the world of terrestrial-based commerce. This book handles these issues masterfully, presumably due to Solomon's involvement (making excellent use of quotations from Seth Godin and some neat and surprising examples from businesses ranging from Netflix to a humble and hypothetical carpet-cleaning startup).

Another quick note: these guys can actually write. And in my experience, the better a business book is written, with carefully crafted sentences and paragraphs and well-organized pages, the better the concepts can be retained--and referred back to.

Of all the books I've bought on improving relations with customers, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit is the most useful I've come across so far. Frankly, it's one of the most useful, period, on how to improve my business in general: profit-wise and sustainability-wise. I think you'll have the same impression.

I pre-ordered this book a little bit ago due to endorsements in an American Management Association catalog from some of my favorite writers:

* Daniel Pink
* Ken Blanchard
* Seth Godin

It gets my interest up when I hear Daniel Pink and Seth Godin endorsing the same book, but especially combined with Blanchard (who tends to be of a somewhat different school) I thought this might be worth checking out.

When the book arrived day before yesterday I was pleased to find it to be a non-academic and non-plodding read (it's actually written much more like a real book than a business book), and in fact I polished off much of it that night.

More importantly, I've already started to think through using this information here at my company: this morning I started figuring out how to adapt Micah Solomon's appendix on telephone conversational phrasing to my own telephone scripting here at my company. A likely next step that I'll tackle based on the book's recommendations is to develop my own "language lexicon" as described in the chapter "Language Engineering: Every. Word. Counts." The clear description by the authors as to how to fix off-brand language in a company (and we certainly have that issue here at mine) was eye-opening.

I believe, like the authors, that the right people treated correctly are at the heart of any customer-centered organization, and this book is both philosophical and practical-minded on this point. The authors provide several chapters of clear-cut guidelines for how to improve hiring, onboarding and employee-reinforcement procedures, as well as discussing leadership and its importance in a great organization.

This book is a well-executed balance of up-to-the-minute Online/Internet-related information
("Building Customer Loyalty Online: Using the Internet's Power to Serve Your Customers and Your Goals") and more generalized customer-related information
("The Four Elements of Customer Satisfaction: Perfect Product, Caring Delivery, Timeliness, and an Effective Problem Resolution Process").

Some chapters are purely practical (the great, detailed chapter "Keeping Track to Bring Them Back: Tracking Customer Roles, Goals, and Preferences" for example) and some provide more philosophical underpinning (including the opening chapter: "The Engineer on the Ladder: Reaching for the Highest Level of Service" where the authors introduce their anticipatory service method of building customer loyalty.)

The anecdotes from Solomon's entrepreneurial ventures and related observations (he punctuates one chapter with a lesson from--of all places--"The Sopranos" HBO series: "Shut Up Sometimes: The Artie Bucco Principle" and explains point by point how he keeps humanity and warmth in his own company operations) and Inghilleri's luxury enterprises and background (the "Italian Mama Method" of handling upset customers and the many behind-the-scenes glimpses of the creation and growth of The Ritz-Carlton) are both illuminating and sometimes downright hilarious.

Of course, not all books fit all situations or all readers, but I give Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization my highest recommendation if you read business books for the reasons I do: to build a better, more profitable, more economically sustainable business--and maybe enjoy the read along the way.

Obviously, some books on customer service and the customer experience can veer toward the redundant, or can be full of consultant-speak, or can just be kind of "meh." Which is why it's refreshing when you find the ones that are hands-on, endearingly opinionated, and full of surprising insider tidbits you can't find elsewhere.

And that is where this book shines for me. The original creators of The Ritz-Carlton themselves outline, in the first person, their methods, including: customer experience, hiring, training, survey methods, leadership philosophy, easy-to-maintain continuous improvement and more.

The info comes straight from the mouths of Leonardo Inghilleri (who created the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Institute) and the legendary Horst Schulze (who more than anyone else is considered to BE the Ritz-Carlton in modern history).

But that's not the book's only appeal. What put the book over the top for me is the way they wrote it as a back-and-forth collaboration with bootstrapping entrepreneur Micah Solomon (Oasis Disc Manufacturing) -- who I'd read about in Seth Godin's "Purple Cow." The result is a funny, up to date, Internet-savvy tome that is as helpful to an online startup as to a traditional hospitality venture. I especially enjoyed reading the chapters on "language engineering" and the difference it makes (and some of the hilarious background they give on how it came to be at the Ritz and elsewhere), and the effective and easy to implement techniques they offer for pacifying an upset customer. (Hint: comfort an upset customer like they were a toddler with a skinned knee. No, that's not all there is to it, not hardly, but that's where it starts.)

The examples used here are well picked and really spoke to me, and, again, often show insider information. This book is kind of the antithesis of the "survey method" books out there where someone with a theory goes and picks companies (with whom they have no relationship) to prove their theory--and then, 5 years later, you can look back and find out that really those companies didn't actually thrive in the way the author thought they would. I especially enjoyed the tidbits from Charlie Trotter's (re. the REST ROOMS!) , Thomas Keller (again some gentle bathroom humor), scrappy little CD retailer CD Baby, and more.

One more thing: for soft-hearted customer guys, the authors of Exceptional Service are pretty hard headed about encouraging you to learn from manufacturing processes as well, something I appreciated. The level of generosity in resources provided here is unusual as well. Very detailed (but not stuffy or technical) information on how to write surveys that work, how to script your own "lexicon" (language do's and don'ts guide), and much more. They even include guides from their own businesses --Inghilleri & Schulze's uber-luxurious Capella hotels and Solomon's entertainment industry Oasis Disc Manufacturing, as well as Carquest and others -- in the appendix for your reference.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Like a "4-Hour Workweek"--for those of us who work with people.
This is the book for those of us who haven't - or haven't yet -- come anywhere close to achieving Tim Ferriss's "4 hour work week" dream of outsourcing everything; who instead are... Lisez davantage

Published on April 7 2010 by F. Brodhead

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