Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1 An introduction to customer care -- Service in a competitive environment -- The changing nature of customer service -- Changing customer behaviour and expectation -- Customer retention -- What is excellent service? -- Personal versus material service -- Embracing change -- Contact centres -- The internet -- Social networking -- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) -- How to create a customer focus -- The service/value chain -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 2 How managers need to drive and support a service strategy -- Start from the top -- Mission and vision -- Values -- Objectives -- Strategy -- Quality standards -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 3 Listening to customers -- Barriers to listening -- The monitoring of complaints and compliments -- The value of listening to customers -- Monitoring customer satisfaction -- Where and when to measure -- Measuring customer loyalty -- Continuous improvement -- Involving employees when you measure -- Recognizing achievement -- Involving head office departments in the measurement process -- Canvassing the view of other stakeholders -- Best practice benchmarking -- Balanced scorecard -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 4 Implementing a service excellence strategy -- Continuous improvement -- Marketing a service strategy -- Managers lead the way -- High or low key? -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 5 Empowerment and ownership -- Valued people value customers -- Myths about empowerment -- What should organizations do to encourage empowerment? -- Service recovery and empowerment -- Employee engagement -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 6 The internal customer -- Everyone has a customer -- Developing understanding of internal customer needs -- Process improvement -- Don't forget suppliers, alliances and partners -- Standards and charters.

Service-level agreements -- Suggestion schemes -- Employee engagement -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 7 Training and development for customer service -- The growing importance of training and development in customer service -- Identifying training and development objectives -- Training and development for managers -- Managers as facilitators -- Customer service training for front-line and support staff -- The learning organization -- Build customer service into all training and development activities -- Review and refresh training and development -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 8 Communications -- Disseminating the message -- Developing a communications strategy -- Sell don't tell -- Reinforcing the message -- Tips on effective internal communication -- A communications case study -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 9 Recognition and reward -- Motivation -- Performance management -- Developing a reward and recognition scheme -- Review and renew -- Summary -- ACTION CHECKLIST -- 10 Sustaining a customer focus -- Problems in sustaining the focus -- Developing a maintenance strategy -- Reviewing progress -- Reinforcement -- Summary -- Additional sources of information -- Training material -- For more information -- References -- Index.