
Service Breakthroughs
James L. Heskett(Author)
The Free Press
Published on 12. September 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
306 pages
978-1-4165-7686-0 (ISBN)
Description
Discover the game-changing strategies of Service Breakthroughs, where Harvard Business School experts unveil innovative service management techniques, breakthrough leadership insights, and the self-reinforcing service cycle to elevate customer satisfaction, retention, and profitability in competitive industries.
What Do Citicorp, UPS, and Marriott have in common? They are "breakthrough" service providers, firms that changed the rules of the game in their respective industries by consistently meeting or exceeding customer needs and expectations. To find out how these companies do it, service management experts James Heskett, Earl Sasser, and Christopher Hart put the question to the chief executive officers of fifteen of America's leading service firms attending a workshop at the Harvard Business School. Breakthrough leaders, they discovered, think very differently about their businesses than their competitors. Now, in Service Breakthroughs, based upon five years of exhaustive research in fourteen service industries, Heskett, Sasser, and Hart show exactly what enables one or two companies in each industry to constantly set new standards for quality and value that force competitors to adapt or fail.
At the heart of breakthrough performance, the authors contend, is a sometimes intuitive but thorough understanding of the "self-reinforcing service cycle" that replaces traditional management of "trade-offs." The "cycle" is a paradigm derived from the research results suggesting direct links between heightened customer satisfaction, increased customer retention, augmented sales and profit, improved quality and productivity, greater service value per unit of cost, improved satisfaction of service providers, increased employee retention, and further heightened customer satisfaction. With detailed examples and dramatic case studies of Mark Twain Bancshares, American Airlines, Florida Power and Light, Federal Express, McDonald's, and many other companies, Heskett, Sasser, and Hart show how this self-reinforcing cycle of behavior differentiates breakthrough leaders from their "merely good" competitors.
The authors describe how breakthrough managers develop counterintuitive, even contrarian, strategic service visions. These companies define their "service concept" in terms of results achieved for customers rather than services performed. They target market segments by focusing on psychographics-how customers think and behave-instead of demographics. And instead of viewing a service delivery system as a facility where the service is produced and sold, breakthrough firms see it as an opportunity to enhance the quality of the service.
These profound differences in thought and action have brought spectacular results. For managers who wish to set the pace in their service industries, Service Breakthroughs is essential reading.
What Do Citicorp, UPS, and Marriott have in common? They are "breakthrough" service providers, firms that changed the rules of the game in their respective industries by consistently meeting or exceeding customer needs and expectations. To find out how these companies do it, service management experts James Heskett, Earl Sasser, and Christopher Hart put the question to the chief executive officers of fifteen of America's leading service firms attending a workshop at the Harvard Business School. Breakthrough leaders, they discovered, think very differently about their businesses than their competitors. Now, in Service Breakthroughs, based upon five years of exhaustive research in fourteen service industries, Heskett, Sasser, and Hart show exactly what enables one or two companies in each industry to constantly set new standards for quality and value that force competitors to adapt or fail.
At the heart of breakthrough performance, the authors contend, is a sometimes intuitive but thorough understanding of the "self-reinforcing service cycle" that replaces traditional management of "trade-offs." The "cycle" is a paradigm derived from the research results suggesting direct links between heightened customer satisfaction, increased customer retention, augmented sales and profit, improved quality and productivity, greater service value per unit of cost, improved satisfaction of service providers, increased employee retention, and further heightened customer satisfaction. With detailed examples and dramatic case studies of Mark Twain Bancshares, American Airlines, Florida Power and Light, Federal Express, McDonald's, and many other companies, Heskett, Sasser, and Hart show how this self-reinforcing cycle of behavior differentiates breakthrough leaders from their "merely good" competitors.
The authors describe how breakthrough managers develop counterintuitive, even contrarian, strategic service visions. These companies define their "service concept" in terms of results achieved for customers rather than services performed. They target market segments by focusing on psychographics-how customers think and behave-instead of demographics. And instead of viewing a service delivery system as a facility where the service is produced and sold, breakthrough firms see it as an opportunity to enhance the quality of the service.
These profound differences in thought and action have brought spectacular results. For managers who wish to set the pace in their service industries, Service Breakthroughs is essential reading.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Simon & Schuster
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
522 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4165-7686-0 (9781416576860)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

James L. Heskett
Service Breakthroughs
E-Book
09/1990
1st Edition
Free Press
€15.81
Available for download
Person
James L. Heskett teaches at the Harvard Business School.
Content
Preface Acknowledgments
1. Creating Breakthrough Services
2. Developing a Vision of the Business
3. Building Customer Loyalty
4. Focusing and Positioning the Service
5. Determining the True Costs and Benefits of Service Quality
6. Developing Devices for Achieving Total Customer Satisfaction
7. Managing for Quality and Productivity Gains
8. Managing Demand and Supply
9. Managing Networks
10. Managing Information Technologies
11. Mobilizing People
12. Organizing Work
13. Conceiving Future Breakthroughs
14. Realizing Service Breakthroughs
Appendix: Illustrative Approaches to Transportation Network Design
Notes
Index
1. Creating Breakthrough Services
2. Developing a Vision of the Business
3. Building Customer Loyalty
4. Focusing and Positioning the Service
5. Determining the True Costs and Benefits of Service Quality
6. Developing Devices for Achieving Total Customer Satisfaction
7. Managing for Quality and Productivity Gains
8. Managing Demand and Supply
9. Managing Networks
10. Managing Information Technologies
11. Mobilizing People
12. Organizing Work
13. Conceiving Future Breakthroughs
14. Realizing Service Breakthroughs
Appendix: Illustrative Approaches to Transportation Network Design
Notes
Index