
Service America in the New Economy
McGraw-Hill Professional (Publisher)
2nd Edition
Published on 16. September 2001
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-0-07-137722-5 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
"Their message is an important one for all companies" -J.W Marriott, Jr., President of the Marriott CorporationMore details
Edition
2nd edition
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
McGraw-Hill Education - Europe
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
658 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-07-137722-5 (9780071377225)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Karl Albrecht is co-author of the original Service America and author of At America's Service. (Irwin, 1987). Albrecht is a world-renowned thinker, speaker and author on organizational and individual performance. He is chairman of Karl Albrecht International and has provided consulting services and seminars in Europe, the Middle East, and Australia, as well as throughout the U.S. Ron Zemke is co-author of the original Service America, and is also the key author in Amacom's successful Knock Your Socks Off Service series. Knock Your Socks off books have sold over one million copies worldwide.