Book Club ~ "Raving Fans"

Today I began reading "Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service" by Ken Blanchard.  This book had been given to me by my Sr. Claims Manager at work last year as part of a Customer Service Focus Group she and the Claims Director had formed and an effort to boost our Customer Service throughout the Tennessee Claims Organization.  Now, I have been working Customer Service oriented jobs for the vast majority of my life, but I am glad that I have never felt that I knew everything there was to know about "good" Customer Service.  Most certainly I can say that I have always tried to treat my customers the way that I would want to be treated by any company that I do business with.  I have learned from great customer service experiences and from bad ones.  But I have to admit that when I was asked to read this book I kind of thought "what is this book going to tell me that I don't already know?"  

In today's society, "Good" Customer Service no longer seems to be good enough.  And according to Blanchard -businesses and organizations need to create "Raving Fans".  So what are "raving fans" and how do we create them?  That is what this book is about.  

I want to point out first that unlike most books, this one is not divided into chapters.  Which, for me makes it a little difficult to read.  Because of it's layout, I almost feel like I have to read the whole thing in one sitting.  The book starts of by introducing the "Area Manager" and his "Fairy Godmother", Charlie.  Yes, Charlie is a man.  Which causes a little bit of confusion at first. 

In general, people today expect bad customer service.  They expect bad goods and rude customer service.  People are satisfied with bad service because this is what they have come to expect.  In addition, no other company is doing better.  That's why we as a society have come to expect "bad" service, but to us, it's just satisfying service.  

So I have learned in the first 20 or so pages of the book that the first step to creating "Raving Fans" is Deciding what you want.  Yep, I guess it's just that simple - the first step anyway.  Decide what you want.  Do you want customers who can't wait to come back for more?  Do you want customers that can't stop thinking about their experience with your business or company?