The Best Service Is No Service

Customer service does not need to be huge and expensive to provide high quality – quite to the contrary! This is the substance of the message of the authors of this book, consultants who have worked with many companies, including Amazon, which is often cited as a model throughout the book. The authors introduce the book with an essential principle in the preamble, which many companies tend to forget, namely, that customers don’t want to contact their suppliers frequently. Ideally, they would like to use their products without ever having anything to do with the supplier, and only make contact when absolutely necessary.
A large part of the book is devoted to the role of customer service. The major objective is to eliminate as many low value-added tasks as possible. The two basic measures recommended to accomplish this are eliminating avoidable contacts – very well illustrated in chapter 2 with the examples of Dell and British Telecom – and automating all tasks that customers can do for themselves – developed in chapter 3, with the examples of Alaska Airlines and First Direct. The time and resources thus liberated can then be devoted to an essential activity which is all too often neglected, namely the interface between the company and its customers, with all that this implies in terms of listening, analysis and responsiveness. Chapter 7, devoted to this topic and illustrated with the examples of AHM and Mars, is one of the book’s most original sections and certainly deserves an attentive read.
Another strong message is that customer service must not be isolated, but must be able to count on constant support from the other company departments. Obtaining the cooperation of the latter is not always easy, however, and may necessitate specific incentive measures. Finally, the book offers a long list of concrete suggestions to improve the two essential elements of customer service quality, i.e., being reachable and being proactive.
A highly readable book, if only for its excellent structure: each chapter is designed to facilitate the assimilation of the described ideas, starting with a brief summary of the essential principles, followed by a double column list of do’s and don’ts, and finishing with methodological tips for executing the solutions recommended by the authors – a rare combination of foundational content and practical tools.