Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right! [Hardcover]

Lior Arussy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2005

"I’ve always said that education without execution is just entertainment – and Lior illustrates this beautifully in his book. It is important to learn HOW to implement a successful Customer focus strategy and you need knowledge and process to do it well. Read this book and learn."--Tim Sanders, Author of "Love is The Killer App"

"Lior brings original thought to the world of business, ideas drawn from reality, based on solid observations with the clear objective of helping people make money. Read this and profit."--Jerry Vass, Author of "Soft Selling in A Hard World" and President Vass Consulting

"You might not like this book. It's not filled with easy shortcuts and feel-good platitudes. BUT, when you're ready to walk the walk and not just talk the talk) about treating your customers right and growing your business, Lior's book is a fine place to start down that rarely-followed, very profitable path."--Seth Godin Author, Purple Cow & Free Prize Inside

"Lior Arussy is a true customer advocate. This book is a must-read for anyone who knows that the only sustainable competitive advantage is to create a unique and meaningful customer experience."--Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief, CRM magazine

According to Strativity's 2003 CEM global study, 45% of executives surveyed do not believe they deserve the customer’s loyalty. Following a decade of customer-centric books, the market is in a state of crises with over 50% customer focused projects fail. Passionate and Profitable is a new book that takes a critical look at the state of the companies’ commitment to customers and exposes the fatal mistakes companies make and the lip service they pay to their customers.

Full of examples and statistics, Passionate and Profitable argues that customer strategies success depends on making serious tough choices and not cosmetic works. It is those tough trade offs that will help companies unleash their passion for customers and in return, increase their profitability and sales.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a provocative, thoughtful guidebook for executives who are struggling with the complicated questions that surround today's sophisticated buyers." (Monitor, 3/8/06)

“…clearly laid-out…frequent excellent diagrams to illustrate a point…” (Media Week, 16^th August 2005)

From the Inside Flap

Why, despite spending billions of dollars in customer relationship programs and other customer initiatives, do some companies still exhibit poor results in gaining and holding on to customers? Intentions and initiatives are common, but the harder task is living and executing them. Passionate and Profitable takes a critical stand on customer relationships and offers a new approach to help you build strong relationships that have customers returning again and again—for years to come!

There is not one company out there that doesn't claim to put their customers first, yet very few of them can demonstrate long-term success in forming strong, sustainable, and profitable relationships with customers. Passionate and Profitable details the critical decisions and trade-offs companies must make in order to focus their efforts on the customer. These choices are often tough but necessary to establish a relationship that goes beyond the occasional and accidental.

Brimming with exercises that you can apply to your own business as well as case studies on companies who have built strong customer relationships, including American Express, Virgin Atlantic Airways, GE, Aveda, Paychex, and Disney, Passionate and Profitable covers such topics as:

• Who Are We: Customer Pleasers or Efficiency Crunchers?
• What Is the Role of the Customer in Our Existence?
• What Defines Our Total Experience?
• What Customers Do We Neglect?
• What Kind of Relationships Do We Seek?
• How Do We Change Ourselves to Avoid the Silo-Based Customer Trap?
• Do We Employ Functional Robots or Passionate Evangelists?
• Post-Sales Dialogue and Feedback, Do We Really Care?
• What Do Our Measurements Say About Us?
• How Long Do We Milk Our Products?
• The Ultimate Choice-Customer Strategies—A Mutual Lifetime Commitment

Embrace the challenges set forth in Lior Arussy's Passionate and Profitable and reap the rewards of forging long-term relationships with your most valuable asset: your customers!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471713929
• ISBN-13: 978-0471713920
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,169,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lior Arussy is an author, visionary, consultant and creative catalyst in the areas of creating delightful customer experiences and executing profitable customer strategies. For his thought leadership and contribution to the industry, Mr. Arussy received CRM Magazine's "2003 Influential Leaders" award and served as a juror on Fast Company's Customer First Awards 2005.

Prior to establishing Strativity Group, Mr. Arussy held executive positions at Hewlett-Packard and other companies.

Mr. Arussy's syndicated column Focus: Customer reaches over 600,000 readers worldwide every month. He is also the author of four books including Excellence Every Day: Make The Daily Choice (Information Today May, 2008) and Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right! (Wiley 2005) In addition, he has published over 50 articles in publications around the world including at the Harvard Business Review.

His accomplishments have been recognized by leading press and analysts such as ABC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Times of London and Gartner. Mr. Arussy completed his undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University and received his MBA from Weatherhead School of Management.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Go get some passion February 28, 2005

By Scott Feldman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I had the privilege of reading "Passionate & Profitable" over the past couple of weeks. This book is well worth the investment in time. There are quite a number of useful nuggets of information here, as in the customer segmentation analysis and the customer experience mapping models. Customers drive business needs, this is the bottom line. If you want happy customers then get some passion and figure out why they are your customers in the first place. It sounds simple, but it isn't. Arussy does a fine job explaining the pitfalls, and offers mechanisms to steer you in the right direction. Also, if you have ever had the chance to attend a "training" class, you will soon find out why you should have been in an "education" class instead. There is a difference as Arussy points out. Get this book and read it, then give it to a friend and have her read it also. But have her get her own copy; you will want yours back.

-Scott Feldman

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Passion - it's the name of the game March 7, 2005

By Bar Veinsetin

Format:Hardcover

I've had the pleasure of attending Lior's seminar and I was extremely impressed with his passion towards the subject of customer experience and focus. After the seminar I read his book and I was not disappointed - it's a goldmine - full with insights and concepts that are right on money. Share this book with your peers...I did - it helped me drive some great new ideas in my organization.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for those serious about their customer strategy July 6, 2005

By Ben Rothke

Format:Hardcover

Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right has a rather simple premise - spending time and money on customer retention is of no value if it is not done in the context of having a well-defined execution strategy.

The goal of the book is to show the reader how to form strong, sustainable, and profitable relationships with customers. The challenge is that there are many critical decisions and trade-offs that have to be made, but many companies often make the wrong decision. Another issue is that many companies live by the credo of `Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door'. The problem is that even with the best mousetrap, the world won't come if you don't have a well-developed customer strategy. Passionate & Profitable is all about creating that well-developed customer strategy.

The book is worth it alone for the 25-question corporation-customer experience aptitude survey on pages 19-20. The survey examines the health of your relationship with your customers and is likely a good indicator of your profitability.

Another great section is pages 109-115 which goes into the organization-focused vs. customer-focused organizational structure. This section shows how many organizations are created with functional expertise via groups, i.e., engineering, R&D, sales, operations, etc. Arussy shows that a customer-centric organization must have the customer focused in the center, with the various groups supporting those customers. The beauty of a customer-centric organization is that all of the employees and functions are fully aligned around the customer cause.

Chapter 8 reiterates the importance of organizations training their employees and trusting them to make the correct decision. A focal point is that if you do not trust your people, do not hire them. And if you hired them, give them the tools to excel. After all, their success is your organizations success.

For those organizations that are serious about their customer strategy and looking for ways to improve it, Passionate & Profitable is a valuable book that can help achieve that goal.