Uncommon service : how to win by putting customers at the core of your business

Welcome to 'Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business,' a transformative book by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss. This insightful guide challenges conventional wisdom by proposing a revolutionary approach to creating a thriving customer-centric business model. In today's highly competitive markets, excellence in service isn't just an advantage—it's a necessity. Through this engaging narrative, Frei and Morriss illuminate a path to an uncommon level of service that propels businesses to new heights.

Detailed Summary of the Book

'Uncommon Service' delves deep into the mechanisms that allow companies to achieve extraordinary service. The authors argue that delivering superior service consistently is not about excelling in every facet of business but rather about making strategic choices that align with customers' needs. They introduce the concept of the "Service Model," which focuses on four essential elements: offering, funding mechanism, employee management system, and customer management system. By tweaking these elements effectively, businesses can design a service culture that outshines the competition.

Frei and Morriss employ vivid case studies from successful companies across industries to demonstrate how businesses can excel by being distinctively bad at certain things, thereby investing more in areas that genuinely matter to their customers. They challenge the assumption that service excellence is universally good, explicating that it often requires companies to make trade-offs—opting to be bad in some areas to excel in others that strongly align with their customer's core values.

The narrative explores the necessity of operating at a low-cost by making strategic decisions about where—and in what ways—the company will compete. It emphasizes that success in service doesn't come merely from intention, but from well-defined operational choices that support a distinctive culture of customer service.

Key Takeaways

• Exceptional service is a strategic choice: Excellence requires trade-offs and focusing on what matters most to your customers.
• Harness the power of your workforce: Employee engagement and alignment with company goals are crucial for cultivating excellent service delivery.
• Customer co-production: Encouraging and utilizing customer involvement can enhance their experience and provide value to the service.
• Innovative funding mechanisms: Creative financial strategies can support service excellence without incurring excessive costs.

Famous Quotes from the Book

"You must underperform competitively in some dimensions to overperform in the things your customers value most."

"True excellence in service means you are intentionally bad in some areas to focus on being great in the areas your customers care about the most."

Why This Book Matters

'Uncommon Service' is more than just a guide on customer service; it’s a clarion call for a radical reconsideration of business strategy. The book underscores the importance of aligning business models with customer expectations, thus positioning service at the core of a sustainable competitive advantage. As companies grapple with the complexities of modern markets, Frei and Morriss offer a clear, actionable framework that stands as a beacon of practical innovation.

Leadership across disciplines will find value in the authors' insights. Particularly, business strategists, customer experience designers, and operational managers will benefit from the actionable strategies and thought-provoking ideas presented in the book. By compelling companies to rethink the basic tenets of service delivery, 'Uncommon Service' equips businesses to flourish in an era where exceptional service is both a challenge and an opportunity.