The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from
Customer Service, Keep Them Happy, and Control Costs
In this groundbreaking book, Bill Price and David Jaffe offer a new,
game-changing approach, showing how managers are taking the wrong path and are using the
wrong metrics to measure customer service.
Customer service, they assert, is only needed when a company does something
wrong—eliminating the need for service is the best way to satisfy customers. To be
successful, companies need to treat service as a data point of dysfunction and figure what
they need to do to eliminate the demand. The Best Service Is No Service outlines these
seven principles to deliver the best service that ultimately leads to “no service”:
- Eliminate dumb contacts
- Create engaging self-service
- Be proactive
- Make it easy to contact your company
- Own the actions across the company
- Listen and act
- Deliver great service experiences
Bill Price is president of Driva Solutions, the North American arm of
LimeBridge, a customer service consultancy whose clients include Dell, Hyatt, McDonald's,
Microsoft, and TiVo. Prior to founding Driva Solutions, Bill was Amazon.com's first vice
president of Global Customer Service, a vice president at MCI, and a senior consultant
with McKinsey & Company. A frequent keynote speaker, Price has written numerous
articles and white papers.
David Jaffe is consulting director of Australia's leading customer
experience improvement company and helps major corporations improve the service and sales
that they deliver.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why We Wrote This Book.
1 Challenge Customer Demand for Service: Instead of Coping with Demand.
2 Eliminate Dumb Contacts: Instead of Handling Them Again and Again.
3 Create Engaging Self-Service: Instead of Preventing Contact.
4 Be Proactive: Instead of Waiting to Respond.
5 Make It Really Easy to Contact Your Company: Instead of Dodging the Bullet.
6 Own the Actions Across the Organization: Instead of Blaming Customer Service.
7 Listen and Act: Instead of Letting Customer Insights Slip Away.
8 Deliver Great Service Experiences: How to Delight Customers with Awesome
Support When They Need It.
Appendix A: Best Service Survey.
Appendix B: Glossary.
Appendix C: Bibliography.
Notes.
Acknowledgments.
About the Authors.
Index.
336 pages, Hardcover