raving fans- book review

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Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service Author: Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles Publisher: William Morrow and Company, New York, N.Y Date of Publication: 1993 ISBN: 0-688-12316-3 Number of Pages: 138 pages Group members About the book Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service is a book on providing excellent service in your business. It follows the career of an “Area Manager” and his fairy godmother Charlie. Charlie has a knack for mentoring business owners and managers to providing service so well that their fans become raving fans. It is a fast paced book with a very easy to relate story line. The Genie in the book or the fairy Godmother as is referred in the book, actually helps the protagonist (the Area Manager) to find revolutionary ways to redefine his customer service outlook. So, Raving Fans is about learning lots of basic lessons on how to deliver customer service and win customer’s loyalty. Through strings of incidents, nicely plotted conversations and objectively outlined messages, the book helps rapt your attention and to finish reading it at one go! About the authors Kenneth Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles Kenneth Blanchard Ken is a gregarious, sought-after and prominent author, speaker and business consultant. A multitude of Fortune 500 companies and fast growing entrepreneurial enterprises have benefited from his unique approach to managing and developing people. He has penned nearly a dozen other influential books on management and personal empowerment including: The Power of

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Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service Author: Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles Publisher: William Morrow and Company, New York, N.Y Date of Publication: 1993 ISBN: 0-688-12316-3 Number of Pages: 138 pages Group members About the book Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service is a book on providing excellent service in your business. It follows the career of an Area Manager and his fairy godmother Charlie. Charlie has a knack for mentoring business owners and managers to providing service so well that their fans become raving fans. It is a fast paced book with a very easy to relate story line. The Genie in the book or the fairy Godmother as is referred in the book, actually helps the protagonist (the Area Manager) to find revolutionary ways to redefine his customer service outlook. So, Raving Fans is about learning lots of basic lessons on how to deliver customer service and win customers loyalty. Through strings of incidents, nicely plotted conversations and objectively outlined messages, the book helps rapt your attention and to finish reading it at one go! About the authors Kenneth Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles Kenneth Blanchard Ken is a gregarious, sought-after and prominent author, speaker and business consultant. A multitude of Fortune 500 companies and fast growing entrepreneurial enterprises have benefited from his unique approach to managing and developing people. He has penned nearly a dozen other influential books on management and personal empowerment including: The Power of Ethical Management, Whale Done!: The Power of Positive Relationships, The One Minute Apology and his latest, Full Stream Ahead!. Blanchard remains at the head of the pack as chairman and chief spiritual officer of the nation's largest training firm, The Ken Blanchard Companies, Inc. Sheldon Bowles Sheldon Bowles is a successful entrepreneur, New York Times and Business Week bestselling author, and noted speaker. He began his career as a newspaper reporter, became Vice President of Royal Canadian Securities, and the President and CEO of Domos Gas. With partner Senator Douglas Everett, he built that company into one of Canada's largest retail

gasoline chains. At a time when competitors were going to self-serve, Domo swept to success featuring; Jump to the Pump; service with gung ho employees. The Characters The Area Manager Charlie- Area managers Fairy Godmother .. .. .. .. The Essence Providing good customer service on time every time isnt good enough, claims management guru and best selling business author Ken Blanchard. He insists that you can only be guaranteed to beat the competition if you create Raving Fan Customers. In this exclusive book for Customer Management, he reveals who the Raving Fans are and how you can get them. Customer satisfaction may be the rage, but if your customers say they are satisfied with the service you offer then your service isnt good enough as such customers may not criticize about payment but they will try and get a better deal at a better price somewhere else next time. So the basic idea of this book is to forget about creating satisfying customers but create Raving Fans. Raving Fan Customers are customers who are so devoted to your products and services that they wouldnt dream of taking their business elsewhere and will sing from the rooftops about just how good you are. But this is only possible if you believe genuinely that the customer is King and focus on the customer in everything you do, from planning your company vision to developing business strategies and setting goals. Why create Raving Fans? Basic customer feedback surveys show that 60% of us think customer service is getting worse, despite the fact there is more media and management attention focussed on this subject than ever before. It further tells, if organisational culture and vision isnt intrinsically customer-focussed and if customer service systems work against the customer, no amount of money put into a unique customer service initiative is going to change anything. Creating an efficient organisational culture starts with the realisation that everybody in a company has a customer.

The HR department may not deal with anyone outside an organisation but they still have customers and need to turn them into Raving Fan Customers. The golden rule is: treat people the way they want to be treated, so they will treat you and others well. Rapid technological innovation is also partly to blame. In the old days we would write a letter and not have to think about it until we got a reply. Now we have voice mail and email, people expect us to be on call and open for business twenty-four seven. Thus our workplaces need to support and value colleagues in environments that enable them to do their job well, free from unacceptable pressure or bullying. When companies commit to creating this philosophy in practice, the process of creating Raving Fan Customers by using the three secrets revealed in this book Raving Fans, written by Kenneth Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, can begin. Three Secrets to Raving Fans Charlie (the Fairy Godmother of the Area Manager) introduced the area manager to four companies that he used as examples of service, and gave him the three secrets to guide his decisions. These secrets are: 1. Decide what you want 2. Discover what the customer wants 3. Deliver plus one.

Secret No. 1 Decide What You Want In conveying the concept of Decide what you want, Charlie introduced the area manager to two service companies - A department store and a grocery store. The department store had a greeter at the door that pins a flower to your shirt, the book the area manager wanted to purchase was out and the attendant went to another store to purchase it for him and was back within 15 minutes. The owner (Leo) had his office at the centre of the store so that he can see down all aisles and is approachable by the customers. The grocery store was owned by Sally and it had valet parking. The store had a grocery consultant who would enter your list of groceries into a computer and organize it by the rows, give nutritional value and sales. Learning: All these developments have been done by their managers/owners first by creating a vision of perfection centred on the customer. It is the model that one can strive for, that will show you the changes needed in your organization, but this model is not static and must be adjusted as we combine it with the other concepts.

Thus, imagine the perfect service you want to give, the perfect bank, law firm, airline etc. for your customers. That perfect vision is your goal. Secret No. 2 Discover What The Customer Wants For illustrating the concept of Discover what the customer wants, Charlie introduced the area manager to one more company - a manufacturing company managed by Bill. The key is to discover the customers vision for your company and then alter your vision if need be. It was challenging to get what a customer want, for three reasons: 1 Customers say one thing and mean another. 2. Customers are disappointed in the service but they do not want to go to the effort of telling so they just say fine. They are satisfied because they think nothing will happen anyway if they complain. 3. Customers are silent which portrays bad quality of service. To get this information the area manager learnt to listen all the time. Learning: Know who your customers are. Then, after finding who they are, discover what they want, their vision. Normally, customers focus only on two or three needs. Focus on those needs. Because you know what concerns them, it is easy to match your vision with theirs. Listening is a magnetic thing. The one who listen to us are the ones we move towards. * Listen to what the customers say. * Listen to what the customers don't say. Asking the customer sincere questions wins their confidence. Take time to get a conversation going. Customers can sense that you are serious, only then will they open up to you. In other words, treat customers as human beings. Learn to ignore what customers want if they do not match your vision. If your visions do not meet, ask your customer to take his needs somewhere else to be fulfilled. For example, it would be very difficult for one to design the best sports car if you would also want it to be the best off-road or family mini-van. Secret No. 3 Deliver Plus One Lastly, in conveying the concept of Deliver Plus One, or in simple terms Deliver the vision plus one percent, Charlie introduced the area manager to two more companies - A taxi cab driver with one cab and a gas / service station. The taxi cab driver was found to be one of a kind by not only dropping the Area manager to his desired destination but also by making the ride exciting by his pleasant talks, enjoyable ride and clean interiors. The gas station is a full service station where the attendants pump gas, wash windows, check fluids and their gas price is the same as self serve. Learning:

This third secret of creating Raving Fans means to deliver what you promise and look for ways to improve that delivery. This is where good leadership comes into play. The visionary, directional part of leadership has to come from the top. But good leadership implementation often means turning over power to those closest to the customers often the front-line staff to bring their brains to work or use their common sense in order to implement organisational visions and values. This can be achieved by Consistency, which creates credibility in the eyes of the customer. As we implement changes, we need to do them in small one-percent increments. Focus to meet the customers expectations first and then exceed their expectations. Meet first, Exceed second. Systems are the core to a successful, consistent delivery. Systems are useless if you don't put an effective training system to support it. Finally, raises and bonuses can be tied to those who create Raving Fans. Flexibility at work is also crucial in creating raving fans. Customers needs and wants change all the time, and so should your vision and your delivery. Your visions for your product or service for the customer either grow or die. And when visions die, customer services also get buried with it. One-percent improvement helps you meet customer expectations on a real-time basis. Thus, Flexibility has to do with what you need to deliver to your customers and Consistency has to do with how it was delivered. Delivering one percent is not the same as the marketing idea promise less than you deliver. Deliberately lowering your customers' expectations is cheating them of what you can actually deliver. Promising to deliver constantly and plus one-percent more is promising less than what is impossible for you do. An outline of what lessons one can learn from this book: 1. Customer Service and Customer delight are words of the era gone by. Now, it is about creating Raving Fans in customers! 2. Any business you may be, it is important to first know, what you want and decide what YOU want to do in your business. That will help you create the vision for your business and in turn create Raving Fans in your customers. 3. If you know what you want is when you will know what CUSTOMERS may want.4. When it comes to customer service, those who aim and try to be everything for

everybody, all at the same time, fail. 5. It is imperative to decide WHO are your CUSTOMERS and then DESIGN your service strategy accordingly.

6. LISTENING is a magnetic thing. Listen closely to your customers silence as well as their one-word statements. 7. Asking SINCERE questions to the customers make them FEEL important and VALUED by the organization. 8. Know when to IGNORE what customer demands especially when the customers vision and the companys vision are poles apart. 9. CONSISTENCY at work can be achieved by not committing the mistake of offering too much service. 10. SYSTEMS of people and roles and responsibilities and technology guarantees delivery and not mere smiles and good mornings. 11. Systems are useless if you dont put an EFFECTIVE TRAINING SYSTEM in place which can imbibe in the employees, warmth, courteousness, attentiveness and a friendly image. 12. Improving yourself one percent a week can help you IMPROVE more than 50%. 13. A FLEXIBLE approach can help the company the customers expectations on real-time basis. 14. Customers need and want CHANGES all the time, and so should your vision and your delivery. 15. Your VISIONS either grow or die and when your vision dies, customer services also get buried with it. 16. PROMISING to deliver constantly and plus one-percent more is promising less than what is impossible for you to do. Conclusion: The best way to create Raving Fans is not to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Someone else can always beat your price however hard you try, or they can offer a similar service. What they will find hard is trying to match the exceptional relationships you have built up with your customers. Invest in this area first financially and practically. Put all your customers first, let them be internal or external; turn power over to your front line staff; ensure that your organisation values its people and you will get those Raving Fans Customers you deserve.