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| Foreword | |
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| Introduction: Why Strategic Customer Service? | |
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| Beyond the Complaint Department | |
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| Why Bother with Strategic Customer Service? | |
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| Everyone Has a Stake in Service | |
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| The Origins of This Book | |
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| The Structure of This Book | |
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| Starting Strategically | |
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| The Importance of Customer Service | |
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| Seeing Customer Service Strategically | |
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| Understanding the True Role of Customer Service in Your Business | |
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| How Customer Service Affects a Business | |
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| The Bad News | |
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| The Good News | |
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| Making the Business Case for Improvements in Service | |
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| Clarifying Key Concepts | |
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| A Model for Maximizing Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty | |
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| Do It Right the First Time (DIRFT) | |
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| Respond Effectively to Questions and Problems That Arise | |
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| Feed Data About Issues to the Right Parties | |
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| Capitalize on Opportunities to Sell Ancillary or Upgraded | |
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| Products or Higher Levels of Service and Create Connection and Delight | |
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| First Steps to Strategic Customer Service: Economic Imperative and VOC | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| What do Customers Want (And what should we deliver)? | |
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| Understanding Customer Expectations and Setting Goals Strategically | |
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| Unexpected Reasons for Unmet Customer Expectations | |
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| Trends in Customer Expectations About Service | |
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| Broad Trends in Customer Expectations | |
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| Operational Expectations for Tactical Customer Service | |
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| Setting Service Goals Strategically | |
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| Operationalizing the Process Goals | |
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| Financial Goals | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Identifying Immediate Revenue and Profit Opportunit IES | |
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| Tactical Responses and Strategic Solutions | |
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| Dealing with Customers' Problems and Addressing Their Causes | |
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| Tactical Versus Strategic Problem Solving | |
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| Five Steps to Tactical Problem Solving | |
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| Step 1: Solicit and Welcome Complaints | |
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| Step 2: Identify Key Issues | |
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| Step 3: Assess the Customer's Problem and the Potential Causes | |
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| Step 4: Negotiate an Agreement | |
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| Step 5: Take Action to Follow Through and Follow Up | |
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| Six Tasks Connecting the Tactical Response to the Strategic Feedback | |
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| Loop | |
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| Task 1: Respond to Individual Customers (and Capture Data) | |
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| Task 2: Identify Sources of Dissatisfaction | |
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| Task 3: Conduct Root Cause Analysis | |
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| Task 4: Triage to Solve/Resolve Systemic Problems | |
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| Task 5: Provide Feedback on Prevention | |
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| Task 6: Confirm Improvement of Product and Service Quality | |
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| Unconventional Management Wisdom | |
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| Redefine Quality | |
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| Aggressively Solicit Complaints | |
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| Get Sales Out of Problem Solving | |
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| Assume that Customers Are Honest | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Fixes and Finances | |
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| Making the Financial Case for Customer Service Investments | |
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| The Case for Great Customer Service | |
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| How CFOs Think | |
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| Questions to Guide Modeling the Customer Experience | |
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| The Market Damage Model: What's the Damage? | |
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| Data and Output | |
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| Financial Impact | |
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| What Is the Payoff if We Improve? | |
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| Objections to the Market Damage Model | |
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| The Word on Word of Mouth | |
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| Quality and Service Allow You to Get a Premium Price | |
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| The Market-at-Risk Calculation: Identifying Customers' Points of Pain | |
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| Across the Whole Experience | |
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| What About Customers With Limited or No Choice? | |
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| Impacted Wisdom | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Information, Please | |
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| Developing an Efficient, Actionable Voice of the Customer Process | |
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| The Objective of VOC and Its Key Building Blocks | |
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| Three Sources of VOC Information and What They Tell You | |
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| Internal Metrics | |
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| Customer Contact Data | |
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| Survey Data | |
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| The Attributes of an Effective VOC Process | |
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| Unified Management of the Program | |
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| A Unified Data Collection Strategy | |
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| Integrated Data Analysis | |
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| Proactive Distribution of the Analysis | |
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| Assessment of Financial Implications and Priorities | |
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| Defining the Targets for Improvement | |
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| Tracking the Impact of Actions | |
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| Linking Incentives to the VOC Program | |
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| The Two Major Challenges in Using Customer Contact Data in VOC | |
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| Programs | |
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| Developing a Unified, Actionable Data Classification Scheme | |
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| Extrapolating Data to the Customer Base | |
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| Getting Started in Improving Your VOC Program | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Responding to Customers' Questions and Problems | |
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| Defining Processes THAT WORK for Customers | |
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| Using the Eight-Point TARP Framework for Delivering Service | |
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| Framing the Work | |
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| Tactical Functions | |
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| Intake | |
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| Response | |
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| Output | |
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| Control | |
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| Strategic Service Functions | |
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| Analysis | |
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| Evaluation and Incentives | |
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| Staff Management | |
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| Awareness | |
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| Why Use the Service Delivery Framework? | |
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| The Flowchart of the Framework | |
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| Best Practices for Improving Specific Functions and Activities | |
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| Activities Within the Tactical Functions | |
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| Activities Within the Strategic Functions | |
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| Implementing the Framework | |
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| Map the Tactical Service Process with Visual Tools | |
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| Use Employee and Customer Input to Redesign the Process | |
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| Tweak the Technology to Enhance Tactical Service | |
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| Create or Strengthen the Analytical Functions | |
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| Enhance Strategic Service Across the Organization | |
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| Practice Continuous Improvement | |
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| Get Your System Framed | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Technology and the Customer Interface | |
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| Creating Systems That Customers Will Use and Enjoy | |
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| Why Customers Love-Hate Technology | |
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| When Customers Hate Technology | |
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| When Customers Love Technology | |
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| Getting the Customer-Technology Interface Right | |
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| Make the System Intuitive for Both Novices and Veterans | |
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| Create a System That Will Save the Customer Time and You | |
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| Money | |
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| Educate and Encourage Customers to Adopt the Technology | |
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| Cheerfully | |
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| Start With a Few Functions to Guarantee Success | |
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| Which Technology Should You Apply? | |
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| Nine Technological Applications to Consider | |
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| Interactive Voice Response | |
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| E-Mail and Chat | |
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| Web sites | |
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| Web Video | |
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| Automated Web-Based Self-Service | |
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| Recording Interactions | |
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| Mobile Communications | |
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| CRM and Data Mining | |
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| Machine-to-Machine Communication | |
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| A Few Words on ''Push'' Communications | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| People are Still Paramount | |
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| Four Factors for Creating Sustained Front-Line Success | |
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| The High-Turnover Mentality and Its Subtle Cost | |
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| The Alternative to High Turnover | |
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| Factor 1: Hiring the Right People | |
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| Positive Attitudes Make a Difference | |
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| Proper Staffing Is Essential | |
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| Factor 2: Providing the Right Tools | |
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| Give Employees the Information They Need | |
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| Empower Them to Act | |
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| Use Feedback Channels | |
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| Factor 3: Offering the Right Training | |
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| Four Types of Training | |
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| Factor 4: Supplying the Right Motivation | |
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| Competitive Compensation | |
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| Superior Supervision | |
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| Excellent Evaluations | |
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| Avoiding Problems with Satisfaction-Based Incentives | |
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| Recognition and Advancement | |
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| People Are the Solution | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Moving to the Next level | |
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| The Ultimate Customer Experience | |
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| Boosting Revenue by Creating Delight | |
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| What Is Delight? | |
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| The Economics of Creating Delight | |
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| The Cost of Creating Delight | |
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| The Cost/Benefit Analysis | |
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| Five Ways of Creating Delight | |
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| Enhanced Product Value | |
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| Enhanced Transaction Value | |
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| Financial Delighters | |
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| Proactive Communication | |
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| Creating Emotional Connections | |
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| Discover Your Specific Delighters | |
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| Listening Programs | |
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| Asking Customer Service Reps | |
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| Customer Compliments | |
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| Surveying Customers | |
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| Watching the Competition | |
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| Cross-Selling and Up-Selling | |
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| The Right Way to Cross-Sell | |
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| Establishing a Cross-Selling System | |
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| Foster Creative Delight | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Brand-Aligned Customer Service: Building the Service | |
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| Strategy Into Every Function | |
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| Customer Service as the Guardian of Brand Equity | |
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| Customer Expectations and Experiences | |
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| The Nine Building Blocks of Brand-Aligned Service | |
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| Clear Brand Promise Tied to the Company Heritage | |
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| Clear Accountability for the Brand | |
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| Focused Values That Reinforce and Facilitate the Brand Promise | |
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| Measurement and Feedback | |
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| Formal Process for Every Touch | |
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| Ongoing Communication to Everyone | |
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| Planned Emotional Connection with the Customer | |
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| Employees Who Deliver the Brand | |
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| Customized Brands for Market Segments | |
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| Tiered Customer Relationships and How to Handle Them | |
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| Brand-Aligning Strategic Customer Service | |
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| Step 1: Identify the Brand Characteristics Your Company Wants to Reinforce | |
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| Step 2: Assess Your Current Level of Brand Alignment | |
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| Step 3: Identify Opportunities for Improvement | |
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| Step 4: Measure the Impact | |
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| Stand by Your Brand | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Into the Future | |
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| Ride Waves Without Wipeouts | |
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| Dealing with Trends in Labor, Technology, and Politics | |
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| Labor Trends: Challenges in Attracting Human Resources | |
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| Addressing the Labor Shortage in Customer Service | |
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| Outsourcing for Better or Worse | |
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| Technology Trends: The Challenge of Using Technology Intelligently | |
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| Addressing Product Complexity | |
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| Using New Communication Technologies | |
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| Political Trends: Challenges in Regulatory and Safety Concerns and | |
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| Environmental Issues | |
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| Coping with Regulatory and Safety Issues | |
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| Addressing Environmental Concerns | |
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| Respond, Don't React | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| A Thousand Things Done Right: Translating the Strategy of Delivering | |
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| Superb Service Into Organizational Behavior | |
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| Appointing a Chief Customer Officer | |
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| The Rationale and Prerequisites for Hiring a CCO | |
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| Key Functions of the CCO | |
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| How to Make the Position of CCO Work | |
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| Focusing All Functions on the Customer Experience | |
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| Map the Process to Define the Roles in the Customer Experience | |
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| Rationalize the Process: Clarifying the Roles of Sales and | |
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| Customer Service | |
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| Linking Incentives to the Right Metrics | |
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| Twelve Guidelines for Linking Incentives to the Right Metrics | |
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| Use Incentives in Specific Environments | |
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| Delivering a Great Experience Through Channel Partners | |
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| Never Declare Victory; Forever Stay the Course | |
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| Key Takeaways | |
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| Index | |