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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 | |