Book Review by Andy Sheehy

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Ap To Customer Service is a book on providing excellent service in your business. It follows the career of an “Area Manager” and his fairy godmother Charlie. Charlie has a knack for mentoring business owners and managers to providing service so well that their fans become raving fans.

Charlie introduces the area manager to four companies that he uses as examples of service, and gives him three concepts to guide his decisions. These concepts are:

1. Decide what you want
2, Discover what the customer wants
3. Deliver the vision plus one percent.

Success requires that we have raving fans and the concepts defined will help you create a company that
creates raving fans.

In conveying the concept of “Decide what you want”, Charlie introduces the area manager to two service
companies. A department store and a grocery store. The department store has a greeter at the door that pins a flower to your shirt, the book he wanted to purchase was out and the attendent went to another store to purchase it for him and was back within 15 minutes. The owner (Leo) has his office at the center of the store so that he can see down all aisles and is approachable by the customers. The grocery store is owned by Sally and it has valet parking. A grocery consultant that will enter your list into a computer and organize it by the rows, give nutritional value and sales. All of these enhancements that these companies implemented have been done by their managers/owners first “creating a vision of perfection centered on the customer”. This detailed vision encompasses every detail of the experience that you want the customer to have. It is the model that you can strive for, that will show you the changes needed in your organization, but this model is not static and must be adjusted as we combine it with the other concepts.

For illistrating the concept of “Discover what the customer wants”, Charle introduces the area manager to one more company. A manufacturing company managed by Bill. “The key is to discover the customers vision for your company and then alter your vision if need be.” Your vision provides the framework for you to understand the customers vision, to fill in the gaps in the customers vision and to help you to know when to ignore the customers vision. It is challenging to get this information from customers for three reasons:

1 Customers say one thing and mean another
2. Customers are disappointed in your service but they do not want to go to the effort of telling you so they just say “fine”.
3. Customers are silent. To get this information you need to listen all the time

Lastley, in conveying the concept of “Deliver the vision plus one percent”, Charle introduces the area manager to two more companies. A taxi cab driver with one cab and a gas / service station. The gas station is a full service station where the attendents pump gas, wash windows, check fluids and their gas price is the same as self serve.

The key to delivering service is to do it consistently, every time!. Consistency creates credibility in the eyes of the customer. As we implement changes do them in small increments. IE he started with only cleaning the windshield even though his vision was to have all windows cleaned. It is better to find a smaller service that you can implement 100% of the time then to strive for too much and underdeliver. Meet the customers
expectations first and then exceed their expectations. “Meet first, Exceed second”. The only way to be
consistent is to have systems and training in place. Systems are the core to a sucessful, consistent delivery. The purpose of systems is to ensure consistency. The rule of one percent reminds us that all we have to do is improve in one percent increments. This guides us to make small managable changes that we can deliver consistently.

Purchase Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Ap To Customer Service at Amazon.com

Book Review by Andy Sheehy – “Getting the Deal Done!” – RE/MAX Greater Waco – 254.776.8100 office