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eCustomerServiceWorld.com recommended reads
(NB Check out our Top Ten and our New Books as well!)Browse through and click on a title for a review. 
 | | Changing Minds (Leadership for the common good)
Author: Howard Gardner
UK Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
ISBN: 1422103293
Drawing on his work on multiple intelligence and case studies of
public leaders (Thatcher, Mandela, Clinton, and Bush), scientists and
intellectuals (Darwin, Einstein, Freud, Whittaker Chambers), and artists
(Picasso, Graham, and Cage), Gardner describes seven powerful factors at
work in all cases of mind change. Finally, he examines changes of mind in
six arenas, such as large-scale changes involving both homogeneous and
heterogeneous groups, changes in formal settings, changes brought about by
"climate changers" such as artists and intellectuals, mind changes in small
groups, and mind change between intimates.
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| | Charging Back Up the Hill - Workplace Recovery After Mergers, Acquisitions and Downsizings
Author: Mitchell L Marks
UK Publisher: Jossey Bass Wiley
ISBN: 0787964425
Quick Review: Just as organizations have survived other recessions, they will come through this one -- but they will need help to recover from it. In this book, acclaimed author and consultant Mitchell Marks offers you the wisdom of his many years of experience in helping organizations weather and manage the storms of mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing. Marks shows you how to get employees, and entire organizations, back on track, carry them through the transition, and motivate them to perform at their best. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Chief Customer Officer : Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action
Author: Jeanne Bliss
UK Publisher: Pfeiffer Wiley
ISBN: 0787980943
From the publisher: A step-by-step plan for delivering an extraordinary customer experience.
Customer relationships expert Jeanne Bliss draws on her experience with Microsoft, Allstate, Land’s End, and other firms to explain why "customer-centric" initiatives fail and why companies continue to ignore their customers. Using numerous case studies and CEO interviews, she tells how to break the cycle of mediocrity and provides a blueprint for changing customer relations at the core of the company. Bliss outlines the job description of the "Chief Customer Officer" (CCO)–providing readers with a CCO toolkit–and shows why every company needs one.
Jeanne Bliss (Redmond, WA) operates Customer Crusaders, Inc., a consultancy that assists companies in improving the customer experience. She was formerly general manager of Worldwide Customer & Partner Loyalty at Microsoft. And she chaired our North American Conference on Customer Management in Orlando in 2005. Links:
Buy the book at Amazon.com NOW! buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience
Author: Jonathan Tisch
UK Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 0470043555
Amazon reviewer James Taylor writes: The book has two main sections - a problem/solution statement and a (much longer) section on "Reimagining the Customer Experience". Each chapter has a "Big Ahas" section at the end to summarize the critical points Jonathan is trying to make and the book is generally well-written and an easy read. It is a little hotel- or hospitality-industry centric but not more than you would expect given his background.
The first section lays out why the authors think that customers are more fickle and harder to please than in the past. Arguing that there is no way to turn back the clock, they talk about "getting back to basics" and creating stronger, longer-lasting ties to customers.
Tisch quotes the CEO of Proctor and Gamble "People remember experiences. They don't remember [product] attributes." The book talks about engineering the total customer experience as the solution, starting by focusing on the totality of the customers experience across every touchpoint. Among his solution ideas are looking for ways to give your customers both simplicity and flexibility, thinking about all the touchpoints your customers have, linking with customers directly even if you are not selling directly and that customers are a moving target.
The second part has a series of chapters, most of which had some great points. These range from discussion of the power of personalization and customization in making customers feel in control and happy to buy, to the challenges of providing security. He is a big proponent of transparency, arguing that what one customers knows all will soon know and that you can get real benefits out of being more transparent. He argues that even big organizations can think small in terms of welcoming customers that you should build your future with existing customers.
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| | Citizen Brands
Author: Michael Willmott
UK Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
ISBN: 0471492124
Quick Review: In today's society brands are an integral part of society--they affect great chunks of what we do and they themselves influence and are effected by the environment in which they exist. Research has shown that what Michael Willmott calls "citizen brands" will be more commercially successful than those that do not take on board societal trends. This book unravels the vast amount of research that has gone on behind this idea, to prove that citizen brands are the future. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Citizen Marketers. When people are the message.
Author: Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba
UK Publisher: Kaplan Business
ISBN: 1419596063
From Amazon: Tens of millions of intrinsically motivated, self-expressive amateur content creators are overturning the old marketing orthodoxies. "Citizen Marketers" is a guide to this new landscape.
“It bursts with so many fresh insights and so much smart advice, you'll need a second highlighter," Daniel H. Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation".
""Citizen Marketers" has really inspired my thinking and the direction I am taking with my marketing team. Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell have convinced me of the way to engage today's consumer and provide a roadmap for how to do it." - Cammie Dunaway, Chief Marketing Officer, Yahoo!
From the publisher: As everyday people increasingly create content on behalf of companies, brands or products, they are collaborating with others just like themselves and forming ever-growing communities of enthusiasts and evangelists. From the rough to the sophisticated, the ""user-generated media"" of blogs, online bulletin boards, podcasts, photos, songs, and animations are influencing companies' customer relationships, product design, and marketing campaigns, whether they participate willingly or not.
Citizen Marketers is the first book to document this phenomenon, examining some of the early winners and losers in this new genre, as well as some of its most noted constituents. With their exceptional knowledge of brands, products, companies and industries, the citizen marketers are democratizing traditional notions of communication and marketing, even entire business models.
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| | Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents
Author: Marilynne Rudick and Leslie O'Flahavan
UK Publisher:
ISBN:
US Publisher: E-WRITE
ISBN: 097259860X
Quick Review: Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail is a writing workbook for customer service agents who answer e-mail queries. The self-paced workbook uses e-mail exchanges between customers and companies to teach customer service professionals the writing skills they need to communicate with customers.
The workbook includes a test to assess writing skills; chapters on spelling and word use, punctuation, tone, clarity and conciseness. Agents will learn how to write for global customers. More than 35 writing exercises let agents practice writing skills. Checklists and other writing tools help agents complete writing exercises and write effective e-mails on the job.
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| | Clicking
Author: Faith Popcorn
UK Publisher: Thorsons
ISBN: 0722534892
US Publisher: Harper Business
ISBN: 0887308570
Quick Review: "Clicking" is Faith Popcorn's term for discovering new paths. In this book, she reveals how family and career can fit into the new trends for the future such as "burrowing", "the pleasure revenge" and "cashing out", to help fashion a stronger more successful life. Of most relevance to eCusomerServiceWorld.com’s site users is Popcorn’s ability to identify and define the new types of empowered customer that are emerging and how you have to relate differently to them now from when you did in the age when suppliers ruled. She coined the word ‘vigilante consumer’ for example. Links:
eResearch Store (Faith Popcorn’s entry in our Who's Who) buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Clued In: How to keep your customers coming back again and again
Author: Lewis Carbone
UK Publisher: Financial Times Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0131015508
Lou Carbone, one of the most leading edge speakers at our conferences on customer management, draws on latest neuroscience research to explain how an impressionistic mosaic of physical and emotional sensations is filtered through the senses, assembled into a powerful perception, and crystallized into attitudes that dictate everything from customer satisfaction to long-term loyalty. Next, he systematically explains how to assess and audit existing customer experiences, design and implement new ones, and steward them over time, to ensure consistent excellence and improvement. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Coaching For Performance: Growing People, Performance and Purpose
Author: John Whitmore
UK Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1857883039
Quick Review: This edition includes chapters on incorporating meaning and purpose into work, into goal-setting, and a spiritual approach to coaching, together with a final section on "Coaching the Organizations' Culture". Adopted by many of the world's major corporations, this work also argues for using questions, rather than instructions and commands, and following the GROW sequence - Goals, Reality, Options, Will - to generate prompt action and peak performance. It explores the dynamics of team development and it positions coaching as the essential team leadership skill. buy UK() buy US($)
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