Building a Customer Service Culture

The Seven Service Elements of Customer Success

By:
Mario Martinez, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Bob Hobbi, President of ServiceElements

Published 2008

The tenets of excellent customer service are central to any organization that creates or delivers products or services In fact, excellent customer service is a bigger differentiator today than it was twenty years ago. Customers are hungry for good service; they are hungry to establish long-term relationships with those who provide not only a one-time solution but serve as a long-term resource.

There is a problem, however. Organizations and the people who work within them have difficulty implementing the principles of customer service. The vast majority of books and training materials on customer service teach the concepts, but do not provide the tools to implement them. In The Seven ServiceElements of Customer Success, we take you on an enjoyable journey where you will learn about the foundational principles of customer service and acquire the tools to implement those principles. These application tools will help make you more successful in your job and simultaneously contribute to an enhanced service culture in your organization. In the pages that follow, we blend classic knowledge with new information to create valuable insights about how to make customer service a sustainable competitive advantage in your job
and for your organization.

CONTENTS
Preface Acknowledgments 1. Defining Customer Service 2. Profiling the External Customer 3. From the Inside Out: Internal Customers 4. Moving Beyond Samenes 5. Make Time Count, Don’t Count Time 6. Cycle of Services Thinking 7. Beyond Customer Expectations 8. Putting it all Together About the Authors