|
Our recommendations for thoughtful and engaging writing in the areas of customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention.
Managing Customer Value: Creating Quality & Service That Customers Can See, Bradley T. Gale, The Free Press, 1994.
An engaging book outlining the evolution of corporate America's efforts to measure customer values and customer retention. He offers case
histories from Milliken, AT&T, United Van Lines and Gillette; detailing the importance of customer satisfaction research in weighing such concepts as "market perceived quality" and "customer value
analysis".
Gale is a pragmatist and he insists that customer research can be thrown out the window unless it is used to make businesses better. As a
former overseer of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, his views on the pros and cons of this quality movement is refreshing. There's also a helpful appendix of the Baldrige Award evaluation criteria. He is
a bit heavy-handed and self-serving in discussing his own work developing the PIMS database, but on the whole this book is highly recommended.
Customer Relationship Management Article Index and Resource Center Bookstore, Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals In Business, at
www.socap. com SOCAP's phone # is 703/519-3700
SOCAP is the professional association for corporate management in charge of consumer affairs, customer support and services. Their quarterly
magazine, Customer Relationship Management, addresses many methods for maintaining customer loyalty. Past articles can be ordered through their home page on the web. They also have an impressive array of books and
industry research. We particularly liked The Customer Loyalty Study as a useful benchmark for the value of customer support services.
Manage Marketing by the Customer Equity Test, by Robert C. Blattberg and John Deighton, July/August 1996 issue of the Harvard Business
Review The Harvard Business Review consistently publishes leading-edge articles on customer loyalty topics. In Manage Marketing by the Customer Equity Test the authors try to quantify an asset they call customer
equity. In their view, most marketing plans do not take into consideration the relative rewards and costs of customer acquisition and customer retention. The article is a compelling piece on the importance of basing
company insight on customer management over product management.
Why Satisfied Customers Defect, by Thomas O. Jones and W. Earl Sasser, Jr., November/December 1995 issue of the Harvard Business Review
Why Satisfied Customers Defect is not for the faint of heart who believe satisfied customers are really satisfied and will stick around
forever. The authors cite crucial corporate case histories where only extremely satisfied customers are shown to be loyal customers. This article supports a top box mentality in customer satisfaction programs, where
products and services are geared to producing a fiercely loyal customer base.
Copies/reprints of both articles can be ordered by calling 800/545-7658 To subscribe to the HBR, call 800/274-3214
The Loyalty Effect, Frederick F. Reichheld, Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
The current bestseller in customer loyalty books. It contains a super chapter on the correct way to calculate the economics of customer
loyalty...essential reading if you are trying to rationalize expenditures associated with improving customer loyalty. For us here the best chapter was the one on "The Right Employees" or the economics of
employee loyalty. There are lots of good anecdotes and superb analysis.
There are at least three good research web sites you might try if you are looking for more reading material on the subject of customer
satisfaction and customer loyalty. We have designed this page so that if you click on one of the following icons, you will go to the home page of either Harvard Business School Press, The American Society of Quality
Control or Amazon Press (we did a search on customer satisfaction and got 100 titles on the first page). Pick one and good reading!!!
Harvard Business School Press: www.HBSP.Harvard.edu
American Society of Quality Control: www.ASQC.org
|
