Promotional Information

In this book, an entrepreneur and CEO of a major technology company shares original service concepts that will enable any company to keep customers coming back.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
I. Leadership from the Top
Leadership in the Service and Information Age
Buggy-Whip Accounting Is Obsolete
Industrial-Age Myopia Is Not Dead by a Long Shot
What to Look for in a Customer-Focused Leader
Where to Find a Customer-Focused Leader?
What Customer-Focused Leaders Must Do
A Customer Focus versus a Blurred Vision
The Principal Leadership Challenge: Overcoming Inertia
Streamlining the Organization for a Customer Focus
Leaders Must Live Their Own Mandate
The Greatest Service Story Ever Told
Coming Full Circle
II. A Customer Focus Trumps All Other Strategies
The Winds of Change Favor the Customer
Strategic Planning Cannot Yield Strategy
Strategic Planning Is All about Control
Finding the Customer's Voice
Customer Survey Design and Administration
Bring in the Planners
No Customer, No Strategy
Ignoring the Customer Is Fraught with Peril
III. The Service Ethic
What Is Ethical Behavior?
Ethics in Business
Regulation Is Not a Proxy for Ethical Behavior
The Service Ethic in Action
Service Is a Non-Zero-Sum Game
Customers Are First
Quality as an Ethical Standard
Service: Quality versus Quantity
Customers as Partners
A Partnership Can Be Sabotaged by Legalisms
Communication: A Key Weapon of the Ethical Provider
Customers from Hell!
Service Is Not Surrender
Is This the End of Personal Service?
IV. Power to the Front Line
Frontline Skills That Make a Difference
Vetting the Frontline Worker's Background
Aligning Frontline Performance to the Service Ethic
Supporting the Front Line with Education and Training
Deploying Computer Systems That Inform the Front Line
Business to Business: Enter Service Management
The Customer Account Manager
Account Manager in Name Only
Service Leverage Comes from the Front Line
Everyone Works for the Customer
V. Musings on the Economics of Service
Service as a Differentiating Strategy
Customer Satisfaction and Profitability
Service Quality, Value, and Price
Quo Vadis Customer Satisfaction?
Survey, Survey, Survey
Customer Satisfaction versus Customer Loyalty
J. D. Power, Where Have You Been?
Considerations in Customer Acquisition and Retention
Don't Fire That Customer—Yet!
Poor Service Places a Heavy Tax on Business
Purchasing as a Competitive Sport
Auctions in Reverse
Outsourcing: Improved Service or Economy?
What's Service Got to Do with It?
Epilogue
Notes
Index

About the Author

Raul Pupo is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and consultant in the information technology industry.

Reviews

America's Service Meltdown identifies the problem areas, and then provides great detail on fixing the issues, from leadership, to hiring, providing more power to frontline employees, to accounting, to communication; a broad spectrum of business is considered. . . . There's a lot here to contemplate, and I hope you'll do that with this book as a guide.
*800 CEO Read*

Pupo offers a thoughtful perspective and first-hand knowledge of how to organize the modern enterprise for delivery of excellent service. Valuable road map for executives and business students.
*Booklist*

Professors who teach customer service, marketing, and strategic planning courses will find the concepts and
strategies presented here helpful in organizing their courses. Pupo's credibility from experience as an entrepreneur
and consultant adds to the well-researched, timely information he presents. … Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, and practitioners.
*Choice*