On Great Service: A Framework for Action (Hardcover)

by Leonard L. Berry (Author) "West Point Market delivers great service..." (more)
Key Phrases: service quality information system, service leadership values, total market surveys, Roberts Express, Tattered Cover, West Point Market (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Richard Teeterlink President and CEO, Harley-Davidson, Inc. Provides a succinct formula for achieving service leadership success. -- Review

Review
Richard C. BartlettVice Chairman, Mary Kay Corporation, CEO, The Richmont GroupBerry has provided what is desperately needed in many companies: a hands-on guide to improving service quality. This is the most original and practical book I have seen on the subject.

Christopher HartPresident, the Spire Group, Ltd.The most powerful, comprehensive work on service quality to date.

Jerry RichardsonChairman and CEO, Flagstar Companies, Inc., Owner/founder, the Carolina PanthersAnyone in a service business who isn't familiar with Berry's work is missing a huge opportunity. He is a first-round draft pick on our team.

Philip KotlerS.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Northwestern UniversityFinally, a service book that shows how to go about achieving service greatness.

Richard TeeterlinkPresident and CEO, Harley-Davidson, Inc.Provides a succinct formula for achieving service leadership success.

Robert D. KunischChairman, President, and CEO, PHH CorporationBerry's clear and concise style distills years of research into common-sense guidelines for action.

John E. MartinChairman, Taco Bell CorporationTruly gives a framework for action in the 90s.

David S. PottruckPresident and CEO, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.I could hardly put this down. I almost wore out a highlighting pen identifying all the practical thoughts and implementation tips that take this book from theoretical treatise to managerial handbook. I can't wait for my Schwab colleagues to read it, and I sure hope our competitors never do.

Leonard A. SchlesingerProfessor of Business Administration, Harvard Business SchoolA "high payoff" book. This is a must read!

Carl SewellPresident, Sewell Motor CompanyThe definitive guidebook to great customer service.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029185556
• ISBN-13: 978-0029185551
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #708,842 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insights and counsel even more valuable now than ever before, August 24, 2006

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I recently re-read this book (1996) and Berry's subsequently published Discovering the Soul of Service (1999), curious to know how well they have held up since they were first published. My conclusion? Rock-solid. In fact, both books are even more relevant - and more valuable - now than they were when Leonard Berry wrote them. That is amazing...and commendable. In this volume, he presents what he characterizes as "a framework for action" to provide and then sustain great service. The word "sustain" is critically important. Those organizations whose people always provide great service (e.g. Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton, The Container Store) consider perfection break-even.

Berry carefully organizes his material within 13 chapters. In the first, he introduces the aforementioned "framework for action" (Exhibit 1-1 on page 5); in the last, he shares his thoughts about "the artistry of great service." As he convincingly explains, great service is both an art and a science...and is the result of several factors which include a total commitment, enterprise-wide, to specific principles. "The purpose of this book is to teach the lessons of service quality [begin italics] implementation [end italics]. The book focuses exclusively on [begin italics] how [end italics] to improve service quality." With regard to the aforementioned principles. Berry observes that customers are most likely to do business with companies that "are reliable, excellent in interactive service, prepared to cover if the service fails, and eminently fair. These principles are the essence of service excellence." And they always will be.

I especially appreciate Berry's focus on real-world situations in which these principles are clearly demonstrated. Specifically, in a variety of companies which include Longo Toyota and Lexus, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Hard Rock Café, Lakeland Regional Medical Center, Bank One Texas Trust Division, and Harold's. These exemplary organizations illustrate how to deliver great service, one customer at a time, day after day, month after month. Of course, that is not easy to do. "Nothing in this book suggests that the excellent service journey is easy. It is not. But it is immensely rewarding, not just financially, but spiritually. Excellence nourishes the soul."

In the final chapter, Berry explains what "the artistry of great service," not only to customers and service-providers but indeed to entire organizations and even industries. With the passion of an evangelist but with the precision of a surgeon, he reviews all of the essential ingredients of great service. They include leadership enterprise-wide, a fundamental belief in human potential, having a reason for being...and doing, informed decision-making, collaborative, and an inspiration to excel. Are these "old fashioned values"? Of course. But keep in mind that Fortune magazine's annual list of the most profitable companies includes the names of many which are also on its annual list of the most highly admired companies. Year after year. That is not a coincidence.

Berry's thinking is so clear and his insights are so sound that this book (although written more than ten years ago) will continue to guide and inform any organization's efforts to complete its "journey" from good to great service, whatever the size and nature of that organization may be.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Always Actual Framework To Action!, March 30, 2003

By	Sara Mencia Abre "Just Me" (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) - See all my reviews

Even though this book was first published on 1996, the framework presented by Mr. Berry to achieve Extraordinary Customer Service is still valuable and actual. It has 13 chapters and each one gives a pure meaning of every treated subject. It's not another Customer Service book...It's an strategy customer service book.

Mr. Berry's insights can be applied from Face to Face to Call Center environments and it's a must-read to Top-Executives that have started a company focus change and are wondering why it's the innitiative failing or getting down the hills. The answers could probably be: Your company it's not competing for talented people, has not embrace the technology, has not empowered your front line teams or the most elementary one...maybe have not created yet a Customer Service strategy since the beginning (Of course, where everyone in the company was included, not only you). All this answers are ON GREAT SERVICE.

Extraordinary book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book on Service, February 27, 2009

By	John Marcus (St. Louis, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is as good as it gets on service quality. Leneord Berry is great!