The Best Service is No Service

In this groundbreaking book, Bill Price and David Jaffe offer a new, game-changing approach, showing how managers are taking the wrong path and are using the wrong metrics to measure customer service. Customer service, they assert, is only needed when a company does something wrong—eliminating the need for service is the best way to satisfy customers. To be successful, companies need to treat service as a data point of dysfunction and figure what they need to do to eliminate the demand. The Best Service Is No Service outlines these seven principles to deliver the best service that ultimately leads to "no service":

• Eliminate dumb contacts
• Create engaging self-service
• Be proactive
• Make it easy to contact your company
• Own the actions across the company
• Listen and act
• Deliver great service experiences

Introduction: Why We Wrote This Book xi

1 Challenge Customer Demand for Service: Instead of Coping with Demand 1

2 Eliminate Dumb Contacts: Instead of Handling Them Again and Again 29

3 Create Engaging Self-Service: Instead of Preventing Contact 65

4 Be Proactive: Instead of Waiting to Respond 99

5 Make It Really Easy to Contact Your Company: Instead of Dodging the Bullet 125

6 Own the Actions Across the Organization: Instead of Blaming Customer Service 165

7 Listen and Act: Instead of Letting Customer Insights Slip Away 203

8 Deliver Great Service Experiences: How to Delight Customers with

Awesome Support When They Need It 241

Appendix A: Best Service Survey 277

Appendix B: Glossary 287

Appendix C: Bibliography 293

Notes 299

Acknowledgments 301

About the Authors 305

Index 307

"admirably straightforward book… refreshingly no-nonsense". (Financial Times , Thursday 27th March 2008)

Bill Price is president of Driva Solutions, the North American arm of LimeBridge, a customer service consultancy whose clients include Dell, Hyatt, McDonald’s, Microsoft, and TiVo. Prior to founding Driva Solutions, Bill was Amazon.com’s first vice president of Global Customer Service, a vice president at MCI, and a senior consultant with McKinsey & Company. A frequent keynote speaker, Price has written numerous articles and white papers.

David Jaffe is consulting director of Australia’s leading customer experience improvement company and helps major corporations improve the service and sales that they deliver.

Most customer service operations have it wrong. They gauge their effectiveness and productivity based on the number of customer calls or contacts they handle. But do your customers really want a “relationship” with your company’s customer service department, or do they simply want to purchase your products or services so they can put them to use?

In this groundbreaking book, Bill Price and David Jaffe offer a new, game-changing approach, showing how managers are taking the wrong path and are using the wrong metrics to measure customer service. Customer service, they assert, is only needed when a company does something wrong—eliminating the need for service is the best way to satisfy customers. To be successful, companies need to treat service as a data point of dysfunction and figure what they need to do to eliminate the demand. The Best Service Is No Service outlines these seven principles to deliver the best service that ultimately leads to “no service”:

• ELIMINATE DUMB CONTACTS
• CREATE ENGAGING SELF-SERVICE
• BE PROACTIVE
• MAKE IT EASY TO CONTACT YOUR COMPANY
• OWN THE ACTIONS ACROSS THE COMPANY
• LISTEN AND ACT
• DELIVER GREAT SERVICE EXPERIENCES

While self-service and customer relationship management are often tech-heavy and software-driven efforts, Price and Jaffe emphasize that no technology is needed to adopt a “no service” mindset—and any manager who tries to ferret out dysfunctional contacts between customers and companies can create far better, self-correcting systems.

Indispensable to both managers and leaders of organizations, The Best Service Is No Service redefines traditional notions of service and success.