Service America in the New Economy [Hardcover]

Karl Albrecht (Author), Ron Zemke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2001

Service America was Dow-Jones Irwin's best selling book in history. Published in 1985, it has now sold more than two million copies worldwide in hardcover and paperback (Warner acquired the paperback rights, but their contract can be terminated within six months). As the definitive book on customer service--and the first major title in the field--it helped to define the category, spurring on dozens of imitators and creating an entirely new customer-service publishing category. Their seminal book became the blueprint that companies used to reform their service management strategies. In the original, Karl Albrecht and Ron Zemke predicted that delivering customer service value would become more and more important in the years ahead. Although no one could have predicted the new digital world, Karl Albrecht makes a powerful argument for why customer service is even more important in the new economy. He contends that customer service has suffered a major setback in the new e-commerce marketplace: "Web-based businesses, so far, at least, have probably set back the state of the art in delivering customer value by at least ten years. Even the best of them have simply transformed their businesses into virtual vending machines. The mindless use of digital technology to depopulate the customer interface will turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes many companies will ever make." As examples, Albrecht points to many industries and companies in which it seems virtually impossible to get a human being on the phone (e.g. phone company, airlines etc). Customers are becoming tired of inferior levels of service (e.g. United Airlines customers), and Albrecht predicts that the problem will only get worse as e-commerce becomes more commonplace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Their message is an important one for all companies" -J.W Marriott, Jr., President of the Marriott Corporation

From the Back Cover

The Long-Awaited Follow-Up to the Classic Customer Revolution Call-to-Arms

The first edition of Service America!, published in 1985, forced companies across the globe to rethink­­and reinvent­­their business strategies. Over a half-million copies and several translations later, it still stands as corporate America's single most important and influential customer relationship manifesto.

Service America in the New Economy revisits this classic guidebook, then updates it with new insights and methodologies for refining your organization's performance during the "moments of truth." Unsparing and direct, it reestablishes Karl Albrecht and Ron Zemke as the standard-bearers for a human-values focus in the radically new global marketplace.

Praise for the Bestselling First Edition of Service America:

"Their message is an important one for all companies."
­­J.W. Marriott, Jr.
President, Marriott Corporation

"An uncommonly sensible guide."
­­Kirkus

"Highly recommended to people engaged in the growing service sector of the American economy."
­­Library Journal

"A panoramic view of customer service in America."
­­HRD Review

Today's technological innovations­­introduced with the promise of streamlining and simplifying interactions between consumers and businesses­­instead threaten the very foundation of genuine service. Too many businesses are building an ever-widening digital moat of impersonal­­and impenetrable­­technology around themselves. At the same time, they have relegated proven principles of successful customer relations­­concepts like actual service, value creation, and simple human interaction­­to the dustbin, leaving customers increasingly frustrated and alarmingly disloyal.

The emperor has no clothes­­and it's high time someone in the crowd spoke up.

In Service America in the New Economy, service management icons Karl Albrecht and Ron Zemke do more than speak up. They reveal time-proven strategies for restoring customer value to the center stage of business. While retaining the core concepts from its paradigm-setting predecessor Service America!, their newest book offers new thinking and updated case examples, and adds an entirely new dimension of techniques for winning and keeping customers in the new, technologically-based global economy.

In keeping with the insights of Service America!, this updated and expanded treatment delivers digital-age strategies and solutions for controlling the Moment of Truth­­that all-important episode in which the customer comes into contact with the organization and gets an impression of its service. Leaving behind clichés and platitudes, Albrecht and Zemke tackle complex concepts and issues including:

• The 10 Eternal Truths of Service­­Durable service management lessons that will outlive momentary­­but ultimately ineffectual­­fads, movements, and manias
• Customer-Friendly Systems­­Ways to design facilities, policies, procedures, and communication processes for the convenience of the customer­­not the organization
• Combining Tech with Touch­­Strategies for having real service people act­­in a human capacity­­to supply value in an otherwise technological interaction

A generation ago, customer service was treated more as a discretionary chore than a competitive requirement. Service America! exploded onto America's corporate scene and changed the rules forever. Now let Service America in the New Economy renew, revalidate, and extend the principles set forth in Service America!, and attune your organization for the true service revolution which is right around the corner.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 2nd edition (August 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071377220
• ISBN-13: 978-0071377225
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,354,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an essential classic, March 14, 2002

By 

lanny goodman (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Service America in the New Economy (Hardcover)

this is a very important book for anyone interested in running a business in the 21st century.

i took a class from karl albrecht back in the late '70s and was impressed that this was a very bright guy. i read his book, "brain power" and when service america came out i bought it right away.

this book is the first articulation of the process of management of a service organization as something entirely distinct from the traditional manufacturing model from which management as we know it emerged. it was very timely then as the service and information economies were really taking hold and it is even more timely today.

i was just referencing the book for a quote for my newsletter and i was curious to see if it was still in print and delighted that it is. it should be required reading for every MBA and/or anyone who aspires to lead a business large or small. even manufacturing today looks much more like service business than it did in henry ford's day when you could "have any color you wanted as long as it was black".

it will get your gears grinding as you begin to see all the ways in which your company is service 'unfriendly'. but it will give you a powerful conceptual framework for working with your teams to create systems for delighting your customers.

buy it. read it. mark it up. buy a copy for everyone on your management team. talk about it. then put it to work. it will make you lots of money, make your employees and customers happier, and put you a step ahead of your competitors.