Service-Ability Create a Customer Centric Culture and Achieve Competitive Advantage

by Robson, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9781118345566
• ISBN10: 1118345568
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-12-26
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

'Service-ability can be defined as the ability of the whole organisation, through its individual members, to deliver consistently what the organization seeks to do: in a culture of initiative , professionalism , engagement and involvement that resonates with the customer and creates delight and satisfaction in both parties.' Ostensibly, customer service lies in the area of marketing and strategy, however Service-Ability is also about management and organizational behaviour , and the book ranges deeply into these areas to make its point. The scope of Marketing has changed in the last ten years and the books key argument is the need to re-think the way we structure, manage, lead and organize our corporate bodies to be better able to achieve total customer centricity and develop lasting relationships with customers.

Author Biography

Kevin Robson is a former Managing Director and Chief Executive of a number of companies (including as a charity CEO), with extensive management and consultancy experience in a variety of sectors.

He was awarded his MBA with Distinction by the University of Durham and won the Academic Prize in his year for Best Dissertation on the subject of Human Resource Management in the Small and Medium Enterprise, in which field he has also lectured and conducted research at Durham’s Business School.

The holder of the internationally recognized Graduate Diploma in Marketing, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and in 1998, was one of the first practitioners to be awarded Chartered Marketer status following the Privy Council granting authority to the CIM to award that status to individuals.

Kevin’s insight into organizations is deep and wide ranging, and it is from this that the idea of Service-Ability was born.

www.service-ability.com

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Foreword xv

1 Connectedness 1

2 Customer Satisfaction and its Link to Pro t 17

3 Our Industrial Legacy 37

4 Our Service Economy 61

5 Servicing Customers is Not Customer Service 83

6 Understanding Service-Ability 105

7 Getting the People Right 115

8 Appropriate Organization 143

9 Effective Leadership 173

10 Clarity of Purpose 211

11 Bringing it All Together 241

Index 253