Value Added Customer Service: The Employee's Guide for Creating Satisfied Customers by Tom Reilly

We had a book study again, this time it is Tom Reilly's Value Added Customer Service: The Employee's Guide for Creating Satisfied Customers.

It sounds complicated but it is not.  I learned a lot from this book.

The book tells us that everyone is a salesperson and we all have our own customers.  The book also mentioned the nine universal rules of business which I think is a great tool to understand the ins and outs of marketing and selling. Here are the rules:

1. Every employee is a salesperson. Everyone in the organization sells something to someone.
2. Not everybody believes rule number 1. This rule has a relation to rule number 4.
3. Not everyone behaves according to rule number 1.
4. Every employee has a customer.
5. Value-added service is not a spectator sport.
6. Each value-added team member affects the creation of satisfied customers.
8. Value is personal, perceptual and performance driven.
9. Everyone must belong to something.

The book also listed the most common situations where customers become irritated. Here are those:

1. Putting them on hold for an extended periods of time,
2. Mis-spelled names,
3. Shipping the wrong materials,
4. Shipping to wrong address,
5. Printing invoices with incorrect pricing,
6. Failing to return phone calls or to properly acknowledge them.

And here are the things the customer loves:

1. Smile on your face,
2. Using customer's name often,
3. Thanking them,
4. Not leaving someone on hold too long,
5. Offering assistance,
6. Correcting errors long before they become problems.

These are all true.  There's a lot to learn in the book.

If you have a business or a student, this book is a great reference about customer service.