Several books have focused on creating “delighted customers” and have all laid out paths and logic for achieving it. Ever since the dawn of “customer is king” era mangers and organizations are increasingly investing their resources in finding the right mix of policies and practices for enhancing customer satisfaction even venturing out to go beyond mere satisfaction and achieve delight.
One of the key challenges facing the Leaders of today is the gap between prescription and practice on driving customer satisfaction for no organization manual says customer is not the king. The Author provides the reader with a very well laid out framework of what actually happens… The Gap, genesis of Gap, its manifestation while continuing with contextual enquiry into the realm of remedy. The Author’s style of experiential and conversational writing takes readers to a “familiar” environment and it is for this style of prose that the book becomes very readable. Developing the central thought through continued journey of four organizations and even sharing their vulnerabilities during the journey in an open and candid style gives the book its character of solidity even as the reality helps retain its fluidity.
The book successfully argues that in these continuously challenging times enhanced customer satisfaction is a function of return to basics. Without explicitly stating it the book compels reader to draw a conclusion that Customer satisfaction – enhanced by use of different technologies- in essence has a direct correlation to an organizations capability to truly empower its people. It subtly makes a point that customer satisfaction is a journey and not a milestone as moment(s) of truth define the “satisfaction index” every day. This experiential book strongly draws upon real life and while author has attempted to provide linkages to theoretical world the real world narrative is overwhelmingly powerful.
The author weaves very strong arguments for managers of today to enhance and deliver customer satisfaction. This is not a “how to” book and yet is full of insights that will help reader to become aware of issues that drive employee behaviour in the organizations and that manifest itself in the “moment of truth” experiences for the customers. This is a book written by a practitioner for the practitioners and therein lies the beauty of its simplicity. Read it, imbibe it, draw your own contextual interpretation and practice your conclusions … have a more satisfied customer!