Customer Service Books: Recommendations
You have cusotmer service books that are heavy on theory and you have books that are not only fun to read but also useful because they contain tips you can apply. We recommend three books: the first focuses on customer service training games, the second on excellence in customer care, and the third focuses on one specific area of customer service - the hospitality industry.
Book 1: The Big Book of Customer Service Training Games: Quick Fun Activities for Training Customer Service Reps, Salespeople and Anything Else Who Deals with Customers by Peggy Carlaw and Vasudha Deming (McGraw Hill, 1999, ISBN 0-07-077974-0).
There has been an increase in the number of customer service books that incorporate the concept of role-playing. This approach is especially useful for customer service training sessions because role-playing covers the trainee, the customer, communications, feedback, and conflict. The first four chapters deal with the customer service person (skills set, personality, manner of communicating, and how an employee connects with the customer). The next three chapters talk about the customer (face-to-face encounters, establishing rapport, customer’s needs and customising service). Difficulties with customers are discussed in Chapter 9 while Chapter 10 introduces games for improving customer service.The games run from 15 to 30 minutes and the book provides handouts and worksheets that trainers can use. Participants also get to listen to audio recordings of themselves.Customer service trainers who are looking to add a refreshing approach to their sessions must add this book to their collection.
Book 2: Customer Care Excellence: How to Create an Effective Customer Focus by Sarah Cook (Kogen Page Limited, January 2008, ISBN: 13: 978-0-7494-50663).
Chapter 1 deals with the famous acronym, CRM (customer relationships management). There are chapters that discuss fundamentals such as mission, vision, empowerment, ownership and communications. It says that the overall service strategy starts at the top, that is, managers must lead by example and learn the steps on how to implement a service excellence strategy. The book serves as a useful reference for dealing with complaints and compliments. Chapters seven and eight constitute the crux of the issue because they deal specifically with training and development and communications. The author provides concrete examples of organisations that have improved their profit margins because they re-tooled their customer service departments: Royal Bank of Scotland, Tesco, First Direct and many others. Not only have they taken advantage of new technologies but re-oriented their organisations from being product-focused to customer-centric.At the end of each chapter, there is a checklist that encourages the reader to take some practical steps.
Book 3: Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough: Re-inventing the Customer Experience by Jonathan Tisch and Karl Weber (John Wiley & Sons, 2007, ISBN: 978-470-04355-4).
The author, Jonathan Tisch shares his experiences and insights about an industry where customer service is the priority. Part I immediately tackles the problem, "what happened to my customers?", and part II deals with re-imagining the customer experience using the hotel as an example - people’s home away from home.The author makes a point of mentioning customer diversity. Some industries usually deal with a target customer base, but in the hotel industry, you don’t have a set profile of customers. Tisch emphasises the need for offering something extra, precisely because of this notion of customer diversity. There’s a section devoted to shrinking brand loyalty where he says customers are a fickle lot and walk away from you and head straight into your competitors’ arms. For businesses to be more responsive, Tisch says that it’s always good to remember that today’s customers are more sophisticated and more demanding.
