Service Design for Business. A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience

A step-by-step guide to designing and implementing an amazing customer service culture In today's competitive business environment, keeping customers happy is the key to long-term success. But some businesses provide much better customer service than others. It's not always clear what works and what doesn't, and implementing new customer service practices midstream can be a difficult, chaotic task. Business leaders who want to transform their business culture into one of customer service excellence need reliable, proven guidance. Unleashing Excellence gives you practical tools and step-by-step guidance tailored to your company's individual customer service needs. It shows you how to navigate your teams through every step of the implementation process to achieve true customer service excellence. The book covers the training and education of your group, how to measure the quality of your service, how to build a culture of personal accountability, and how to recognize excellence and reward it. Fully revised to include updated information on the latest tools and best practices, as well as the stories and lessons learned from those organizations that have used the process described in the book. Offers proven best practices for designing and implementing an excellent customer service culture Simple format divides content into nine «leadership actions» that guide you through a step-by-step process Shows you how to build a common customer service vision for your entire organization Customer service is vital to the survival of your business. If you want to move your organization's customer service practices from good to great, Unleashing Excellence is the key.

The fully revised and updated edition of the classic book about Nordstrom's extraordinary customer service In this new edition of the management classic, the authors explore in-depth the core values of the culture that have made Nordstrom synonymous with legendary customer service. These essential values have enabled Nordstrom to survive and adapt to dramatic market shifts regularly since 1901, and the new edition explains how the Nordstrom approach can be emulated by any organization—in any industry—in every corner of the world. This is not a book about selling shoes or clothes or cosmetics or jewelry. It is a book about how underlying values such as respect, trust, compensation and, even fun, are the building blocks of a culture where employees are empowered to consistently deliver a world-class experience to customers. Nordstrom believes that the employee experience determines the customer experience, and that when you attract and reward people who are comfortable in a service-oriented culture, then everyone succeeds—both individually and collectively. No wonder Nordstrom is one of only five companies to make Fortune's «Best Companies to Work For» and «Most Admired» lists every year since those surveys have been taken. With new interviews from senior Nordstrom executives and family members, the book explains how to successfully respond to today's tech-savvy, time-crunched customers who demand a convenient, seamless, painless, personal experience across all channels. Nordstrom gives its frontline people all the digital tools necessary to satisfy the customer—and your organization must do the same, if it wants to adapt. The authors show what it takes to earn brand loyalty, lead through change and uncertainty, and combine extraordinary brick-and-mortar with online experiences. 'The single most important reason we try to provide great service is this: It enables us to sell more,' says co-president Blake Nordstrom, great-grandson of the founder. 'The best way for our company to achieve results is to do what's best for the customer.' In this book, readers will find: Suggestions for becoming the Nordstrom of your industry The ten values that define a customer-driven culture Lessons for providing superior service and experience across all channels

Gain, engage, and retain customers with positive experiences A positive customer experience is absolutely essential to keeping your business relevant. Today's business owners need to know how to connect and engage with their customers through a variety of different channels, including online reviews and word of mouth. Customer Experience For Dummies helps you listen to your customers and offers friendly, practical, and easy-to-implement solutions for incorporating customer engagement into your business plans and keep the crowds singing your praises. The book will show you simple and attainable ways to increase customer experience and generate sales growth, competitive advantage, and profitability. You'll get the know-how to successfully optimize social media to create more loyal customers, provide feedback that keeps them coming back for more, become a trustworthy and transparent entity that receives positive reviews, and so much more. Gives you the tools you need to target customers more precisely Helps you implement new social and mobile strategies Shows you how to generate and maintain customer loyalty in order to achieve success through multiple channels Explains how a fully-engaged customer can help you outperform the competition Learn how to respond effectively to customer feedback Your brand's reputation and success is your lifeblood, and Customer Experience For Dummies shows you how to stay relevant, add value, and win and retain customers.

Make your online customers happy—and create new ones—with this winning guide Social media gives you an unparalleled vehicle for connecting and engaging with an unlimited number of customers. Yet this vehicle is different than other, more impersonal forms. With social media, reps become part of their customers' lives. They follow back. They handle complaints immediately. They wish customers «happy birthday.» They grow their brands by involving themselves in communities. The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide gives you the keys to authentic and engaged service to customers through social media. Using a blend of case studies, a primer on classic online customer service, and instructions on how to execute quality customer service, this book enables you to access the opportunities that social media presents as a means of serving customers. Authentically use social media to connect with customers to boost your bottom line Attract new customers through your online presence Achieve higher GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales) with quality customer service Social media gives you a new and growing realm to distinguish your business. Create a productive presence in this interactive space with The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide.

What's the Secret? gives you an inside look at the world-class customer service strategies of some of today's best companies. You'll learn how companies like Disney, Nordstrom, and The Ritz-Carlton get 50,000 employees to deliver world-class customer service on a consistent basis- and how your company can too. Packed with insider knowledge and a wealth of proven best practices, author John DiJulius will show you how your company can emulate the world's best customer service providers.

Nowadays, letters, reports and emails are vital components of business practice. Communication is increasingly global, but it’s not any easier to understand or contribute to for non-fluent English speakers. There is increasing pressure to be able to produce effective documents for a business environment but little help out there to do so efficiently, resulting in wasted time and uncomfortable business communication. This book provides a wealth of practical information for any person who aims to produce short, effective documents within the work environment. It offers sensible, valuable and helpful rules for producing effective short reports, memos, letters and e-mails that are clear, concise and easy to read for the busy manager or supervisor working in the demanding setting of modern industry or commerce. But it goes further: not only are rules provided for the inexperienced business writer, but models are proposed which provide solutions for a whole host of business situations – providing help, support and encouragement for the many thousands of business writers who need to feel confident in their writing.

Learn to produce a web site that stands out from the crowd One of the web designer's greatest challenges is to create a site distinctive enough to get noticed among the millions of sites already on the web. This book examines the bond between code, content and visuals to guide you through the factors that increase your design's visibility, usability and beauty. Using this practical advice, even web designers who lack strong artistic skills can develop super sites that strengthen the message and stand out from the crowd. Most books focus primarily on graphic design principles; this one shows you how to maximize and prioritize every design decision to help your site achieve its primary purpose: showcasing your content and services Explores the bond between code, content and visuals to guide you through the factors that increase your design's visibility, usability and beauty Enables even artistically challenged web designers to create elegant, functional layouts that attract visitors and are user-friendly Every web designer can benefit from this practical advice on creating an informative, attractive, easy-to-use site that gets noticed.

Social Customer Service is new. Social Media is the biggest thing happening to the customer service industry since the mid 1960s when modern day call centres were born. It is taking customers and organisations into untested ways of relating: transparently, collaboratively, instantly. The consequences of great and poor service are forever changed. Customer appetite has promoted this form of interaction to the very front of a race to understand. How do digital brands and empowered customers actually behave? Social Customer Service has become Marketing’s R&D lab and a listening hub for the rest of the organisation. It is now where corporate reputations are most likely to be won and lost. ‘Delivering Effective Social Customer Service’ is a complete reference for achieving excellence in this new discipline. It caters to both novice and expert. It is perfect source material for service leaders and digital marketers to read together. Every CXO will recognise in the book a blueprint from which to build their next generation organisation. Even ambitious team leaders should snag a copy for instant subject matter expertise kudos! The centre of the book offers an in depth self-assessment of the competencies that matter. The book is jammed full of strategic insight, action lists, best practice tips and interviews. All the resources anyone needs to build a solid strategy and roadmap. Early adopter workshops based on the book have already taken place and will continue to be offered as another way of engaging with the book’s key lessons. An online resource of the reference material is also provided. Options for an online community are under consideration. This book is the first of its kind. A distillation of what has so far been collectively discovered. Then filtered and expanded through the collective experience of two leading authorities on customer service: Carolyn Blunt and Martin Hill-Wilson.

The definitive guide to starting and running a small business The Smarta Way to Do Business is the first definitive handbook for starting a business to bring you advice from real-world entrepreneurs who've been there, and done that. Packed with everything you need to know to start and run a successful business, straight from the UK's leading experts, this is the insider's guide YOU need to build a successful business right NOW. Featuring exclusive interviews with anyone who's anyone in the world of entrepreneurship, including Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden, Duncan Bannatyne, Sarah Beeny, Doug Richard, Martha Lane Fox, Caprice, Sahar Hashemi, and more, the book also brings you unique insights from Peter Jones, Mike Clare, Julie Meyer, Rachel Elnaugh and many others! Whether you're just starting out, looking to take your business to the next level or exploring how social media and emerging technologies could boost your customer sales, The Smarta Way to Do Business has the answers you're looking for.

The path to business success is an open road and you'd better be ready for anything! What do businesspeople and entrepreneurs have in common with bikers? More than you'd suspect. The freedom of hitting the open road is a concrete extension of the need for freedom that encourages entrepreneurs to start businesses. The desire to succeed in business by doing it your own way is no different than the desire to hit the road and plot your own course on two wheels. The Biker's Guide to Business explores these parallels and offers hard-won business wisdom specially suited for Business Bikers who do it their way-whether out on the highways or in the corporate boardroom. Introduces DeVille's Navigation Process that helps you develop your own action plan for achieving your own unique vision of success Shows you how to tailor a road map to guide your personal journey from where you are now to where you want to be tomorrow Uses biker terminology, analogies, and parallels to communicate real business wisdom Though written to appeal to bikers, the book is a handy business guide for anyone willing to take the ride Whether or not you're a biker, the passion to ride is the same passion that pushes people to succeed professionally by taking their own path. Hop on, rev up, and succeed.