University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit
Book

Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit

The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization

Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon
AMACOM, 2010
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

What Apple is to innovation and Rolex is to quality Ritz-Carlton is to service. Consider the luxury hotel chain’s famous $2,000 customer-satisfaction pledge. This remarkable program, now in place for decades, allows any Ritz-Carlton employee, regardless of rank, to decide alone to spend up to $2,000 to resolve any customer problem. To date, no Ritz-Carlton employee has felt it necessary to spend the full amount on behalf of a customer, but many take creative action to address problems promptly. This policy sends a powerful signal to Ritz-Carlton clients and employees about how much the company values quality and service. In their book, service experts Micah Solomon and Leonardo Inghilleri teach you how to plan and implement an exceptional service program. getAbstract cheers this nicely written book. It is a pleasure to read and it explains exceptional service clearly.

Summary

Service that Anticipates Customers’ Needs

Picture this situation: A hotel’s maintenance engineer perches on a ladder in the lobby, changing a lightbulb. He notices a guest coming in from the adjacent pool area. She is wet, wrapped in towels and carrying numerous beach bags. With her hands full, she has trouble opening the door to the lobby. When he sees her “fumbling” with the latch, he climbs down from the ladder to help her. “Welcome back to the hotel, ma’am,” he says. “Let me help you with your bags. How was the pool?” He then carries her bags to the elevator and punches the button to her floor. Admirable service? Yes, but what if the engineer had climbed down to assist the guest immediately, when he first saw her coming and realized her plight? Then, instead of providing “reactive service,” which involves spotting a negative customer experience and fixing it, he would have provided “anticipatory service,” which prevents the negative experience from happening in the first place. You want your employees to anticipate what your customers need.

Providing this level of “customer satisfaction” has four pivotal aspects:

  1. “Perfect product”

About the Authors

Leonardo Inghilleri is managing partner and executive vice president at West Paces Consulting in Atlanta. Micah Solomon runs Oasis Disk Manufacturing in Manhattan and Washington, D.C.

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