Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization - Hardcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

LEONARDO INGHILLERI (Roswell, GA) is Executive Vice President and Managing Partner of West Paces Consulting. A recognized expert on service, Inghilleri created The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center and Learning Institute and has played an instrumental role at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, BVLGARI, and The Walt Disney Company.

Micah Solomon is one of the world’s leading authorities on customer service, company culture, and the customer experience. He’s a bestselling author, customer service consultant, and popular keynote speaker. Additionally, he’s a frequent contributor to Forbes and has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, as well as on ABC and CBS.

Solomon is a business leader and entrepreneur, and he was an early investor in the technology behind Apple’s Siri. His broad expertise includes the hospitality industry, healthcare (patient experience), AI (artificial intelligence), retail, automotive, manufacturing, technology, banking, finance, nonprofit, and government.

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What if you could protect your business against competitive inroads—once and for all? And what if you could build unprecedented strategic and financial value for your business—through good times and bad? You’ll be able to do precisely this, explain acclaimed entrepreneurs Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, once you learn the closely held secrets of customer loyalty.

In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit, this team of insiders shares its exclusive knowledge of the loyalty-building techniques pioneered by the world’s most successful service leaders, including brick-and-mortar stars such as The Ritz-Carlton and Lexus and online success stories such as Netflix and CD Baby. They then lay out, step by step, the details of how to apply these secrets to your company, whatever its size or specialty—or price point.

“Few businesses realize how valuable customer loyalty is,” the authors explain. “Many aspects of business are out of your control, but the single most important process—creating loyal customers —obeys predictable, stable rules that need to be mastered only once. Then the rules can be applied successfully for a lifetime.”

Unique to this volume, Inghilleri and Solomon focus on battle-tested techniques that are immediately applicable in any business context. Founding President of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Horst Schulze, explains the value of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit as follows: “What you read here will allow you to recalibrate your business—on any scale—in order to truly know your customers and keep them coming back for more.”

Here are five examples drawn from the wide range of practical techniques that the authors will teach you—techniques which you can use to create unri­valed customer loyalty in your own business context:

• How to select, train, and inspire “loyalty virtuosos” at all organizational levels.

• How to handle a service breakdown in a systematic way that actually leaves your customer more loyal than if the mishap hadn’t happened in the first place.

• How to gather and use data on customer preferences in a meaningful, practical, profitable way.

• How to ensure that you meet your customers’ 21st century expectations for timeliness and quality.

• How to truly personalize the experience of your online customers—on every page of your website, and in every step of their e-commerce encounters.

Leonardo Inghilleri is Executive Vice President and Managing Partner of West Paces Consulting, a subsidiary of the West Paces Hotel Group. A recognized expert on exceptional service, Inghilleri created The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center and Learning Institute and has played an instrumental role in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, BVLGARI, The Walt Disney Company, and Capella and Solis, the new resort brands that he runs together with his team.

Micah Solomon is President of Oasis Disc Manufacturing, the company he famously built up from a one-room operation into a leader in the entertainment and technology industries. His techniques and achievements have been featured in Success magazine, Seth Godin’s world­wide bestseller Purple Cow, and other case studies and profiles in the business press. The founder of the “College of the Customer” website, Solomon is a sought-after business adviser and speaker.

Aus dem Klappentext

What if you could protect your business against competitive inroads—once and for all? And what if you could build unprecedented strategic and financial value for your business—through good times and bad? You’ll be able to do precisely this, explain acclaimed entrepreneurs Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, once you learn the closely held secrets of customer loyalty.

In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit, this team of insiders shares its exclusive knowledge of the loyalty-building techniques pioneered by the world’s most successful service leaders, including brick-and-mortar stars such as The Ritz-Carlton and Lexus and online success stories such as Netflix and CD Baby. They then lay out, step by step, the details of how to apply these secrets to your company, whatever its size or specialty—or price point.

“Few businesses realize how valuable customer loyalty is,” the authors explain. “Many aspects of business are out of your control, but the single most important process—creating loyal customers —obeys predictable, stable rules that need to be mastered only once. Then the rules can be applied successfully for a lifetime.”

Unique to this volume, Inghilleri and Solomon focus on battle-tested techniques that are immediately applicable in any business context. Founding President of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Horst Schulze, explains the value of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit as follows: “What you read here will allow you to recalibrate your business—on any scale—in order to truly know your customers and keep them coming back for more.”

Here are five examples drawn from the wide range of practical techniques that the authors will teach you—techniques which you can use to create unri­valed customer loyalty in your own business context:

• How to select, train, and inspire “loyalty virtuosos” at all organizational levels.

• How to handle a service breakdown in a systematic way that actually leaves your customer more loyal than if the mishap hadn’t happened in the first place.

• How to gather and use data on customer preferences in a meaningful, practical, profitable way.

• How to ensure that you meet your customers’ 21st century expectations for timeliness and quality.

• How to truly personalize the experience of your online customers—on every page of your website, and in every step of their e-commerce encounters.

Leonardo Inghilleri is Executive Vice President and Managing Partner of West Paces Consulting, a subsidiary of the West Paces Hotel Group. A recognized expert on exceptional service, Inghilleri created The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center and Learning Institute and has played an instrumental role in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, BVLGARI, The Walt Disney Company, and Capella and Solis, the new resort brands that he runs together with his team.

Micah Solomon is President of Oasis Disc Manufacturing, the company he famously built up from a one-room operation into a leader in the entertainment and technology industries. His techniques and achievements have been featured in Success magazine, Seth Godin’s world­wide bestseller Purple Cow, and other case studies and profiles in the business press. The founder of the “College of the Customer” website, Solomon is a sought-after business adviser and speaker.

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INTRODUCTION

The Only Shop in the Marketplace

The best thing you can do for your business right now has nothing to

do with new technology, economies of scale, or first-mover advantage.

It’s something simpler.

It’s something more dependable.

The single best thing you can do for your business is to build true

customer loyalty, one customer at a time.

Everything changes when a customer becomes a loyalist. To the

truly loyal customer, you are the only shop in the marketplace. All the

other brands and all the other vendors don’t even come into focus. Like

someone in love, the loyal customer only has eyes for you.

Few businesses realize how valuable customer loyalty is, and even

fewer know how to achieve it consistently. But a company of any size

can build great wealth and stability through customer loyalty. Businesses

with loyal customers grow faster than others when times are good, and

they have the most breathing room when times are bad.

At its root, creating loyal customers is about taking the time to learn

about your customers individually and then using simple systems to turn

that knowledge into enduring business relationships. In doing so, you

turn your offering into much more than a commodity—you turn it into

a personal relationship.

The primary threat to a business today is the perception by customers

that all you offer is a replaceable, interchangeable commodity. This

hazard stalks your every move: No matter how unbreachable your business’s

advantages may appear right now, whether they are advantages of

technology, geography, or branding, eventually your business model is

going to be knocked off. And, in this era of accelerating change, it will

likely happen sooner than you think.

Escape this threat of commoditization by creating enduring, loyal,

human relationships with customers. It’s the surest way to escape market

obsolescence.

The payoff is huge.

Learning to create loyal customers has made all the difference for

the companies where Leonardo has been involved, including The Ritz-

Carlton, BVLGARI, The Walt Disney Company, and the new hotel

brands—Capella and Solis—that Leonardo heads up with his partners.

The principles that lead to loyal customers will work for you, too.

They’re simple, they’re solid, and they’re replicable. You needn’t work

in a luxury industry to apply them. Far from it.

As you’ll learn, Micah used the principles of loyalty to transform a

tiny manufacturing and entertainment services company he started in a

single room in his basement, with financing that consisted of only a

credit card, into a renowned and high-growth enterprise. His approach

built his company, Oasis, into one of the top players in its field, as well

as attracting attention in the business literature, including case studies in

such places as Success magazine and Seth Godin’s bestseller Purple Cow.

Oasis catapulted to success because customers respond with loyalty

when you treat them according to the principles and methods we will

describe.

Since then, Leonardo and Micah have been able to lend their

loyalty-based methodology to a great diversity of industries: from white

shoe law firms to restaurants to banks to organic flower farms; from

tour operators to independent music labels to convention centers to

hospitals. Loyalty pays off—measurably—for all of them.

The reward for using these principles isn’t only financial. As you

begin building customer loyalty, your pride in your profession, your

integrity, and your ability to build positive relationships (at work, and

even in your own home) will also bloom. This happens naturally, because

the process of earning loyalty involves caring about your customers,

respecting them, and thinking constantly about their needs.

Spending this time being deeply attentive will tone your personality.

Building customer loyalty will require your hard work and

thoughtfulness, but it is a refreshingly straightforward process. While

so many aspects of business are out of your control—exchange rates,

international tension, technological changes—the single most important

process, creating loyal customers, obeys predictable, stable rules that can

be mastered and then applied successfully for a lifetime.

We’re pleased to help show the way.