[.ca] Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is ... (ISBN 188516730X)

From Amazon.com:
To longtime sales and customer-service pro Jeffrey Gitomer, boasting about a near-perfect customer-satisfaction rating of 97.5 percent is a major mistake. "That means 2.5 percent of your customers are mad and they're telling everyone. And 97.5 percent of your customers will shop anyplace the next time they go to market for your product or service." Based on a philosophy that's been developed through his syndicated business columns and the more than 150 seminars that he gives each year to companies such as Radisson, Sony, NationsBank, and Time Warner Cable, the book outlines his formula for making customers so faithful they "will fight before they switch--and they will proactively refer people to buy from you." Regularly employing oversized type in screaming bold fonts to grab the reader's attention, Gitomer breathlessly recounts his start-to-finish approach to becoming "memorable" to consumers along with illustrative tales of his own encounters with particularly egregious examples of poor service. All of this is bolstered by an ongoing sampling of his inspirational quips and a variety of self-evaluating quizzes designed to pinpoint individual strengths and weaknesses. Take a deep breath, read it straight through, and prepare to delight thy customer! --Howard Rothman

Wow! What a difference!:
After listening to a colleague promote this book time after time, I finally gave in and bought it, and am I sure glad I did! This book is so straight forward in its approach yet provides the information necessary to really improve and notice what companies are doing to keep your loyalty or those who are doing their best to just keep you satisfied. He goes through the process of helping you discover what you're doing right and what needs improvement. This book also points out the importance of the individual in business for promoting or hurting future sales. Being on the road frequently with business, his travel stories related to similar experiences I've had with airlines, restaurants, and hotels at numerous locations across the country. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to improve their customer loyalty skills and increase their referral business.

Not close enough to the customer:
People who are managing customer service at the money end - the customers - will get some value by interpreting Jeffrey Gitomer's work through their own experience. Unfortunately the author fights shy of some big realities, namely: * Your organisation, and not your competitors, can be responsible for placing the biggest obstacles between your service team and the customers. Oftentimes your job as a customer-centred manager is to work out ways around these - without getting fired. * The fact is that for each 200 customers you help you will come across at least one active psychotic (honestly I'm not overstating this), never mind the congenitally rude or the customer that had a blazing row with their spouse 20 seconds before walking in. Gitomer's book won't help you sell to these customers. (Of course its your job to make sure you don't HIRE the psychotics if you can help it). * More importantly for the manager, Gitomer won't tell you how to ensure that your staff don't \opick\c up a bad attitude from their one mad/angry etc customer and spit it out on the next one. You've got to keep everyone focused on each customer and their needs as they are. That's not as easy as it sounds. I used to allow staff a 'time-out'if they'd been verbally abused to give them a chance to calm down. At this point you can remind them that the previous 199 people they helped were actually pretty decent. * Most people working customer service are on such low pay that they often come to work with money worries on their minds. If you can do anything at all to make work conditions a bit better -clean staff rooms and toilets, coffee machines that work etc - do it. Be as attentive to your staff as you are to your customers... * Gitomer is right about one thing especially. You can't too often reinforce the message 'treat others as you would like to be treated.' Again its in the hiring - hire for empathy...

It's too bad more businesses haven't read this.:
If my book was kidnapped and held in Afganistan for 10,000 bucks ransom, if it was the only copy left in the world, I'd rescue it. By chapter 5, I had saved a huge sale from going sour. This book has done some amazing things for my company's sales. Not just the book, but some effort on my part. Very little effort. The principles in this book are so easy to put into immediate action, you'll wonder why you haven't thought about this stuff already. Even if you've stayed in Ritz Carltons and shopped in upscale stores, you'll never completely learn what makes it all come together. This book sheds some light on service. This book was extremely enjoyable to read, but the real enjoyment comes after youre done reading and you put this stuff into action. Seeing the smiles on customers faces, hearing their amazement on the phone when you just try a little harder. Spend just a few minutes extra. The things in this book cost little or no money, and even if they do cost money, you'll want to do them anyway. Performing the principles in this book has become a hobby. It's fun, it changes the way you look at work. At times I want to screw up orders, just to fix them! I can't beleive the attitude overhaul I've gained from this book. I've bought this book for all the business owners in my family and now we all get together and try to blow each other away by how we are creating memorable service. You'll want to knock their socks off, even if you have no desire to do it before you read this book, you will after, or even half way though.

Great Ideas:
Gitomer's book is full of great ideas. As the Director of Orientation at a state university, I supervise a terrific group of 75 student volunteers who help new students and their parents. If I can effectively communicate to them the super ideas and concepts found here, I know they'll do an even better job as orientation leaders. Plus the skills they use and learn will easily carry over into whatever they do in life. I'm also Director of our Student Center and this book gave me lots of ideas I can use in training the students I work with in the building too.

A must read for all those who say the customer is King:
I found this book particularly challangeing and filled with common sense questions and solutions. It has a good number of examples to support the comments and was particularly easy to read and digest.