The Customer Service Solution: Managing Emotions, Trust, and Control to Win Your Customer’s Business by Dasu, Sriram; Chase, Richard;

Long description:

Understand Consumer Psychology to Drive Profits and Growth

Want to know exactly what’s driving your customer's behavior?
NOW YOU CAN!

The Customer Service Solution explains how consumers perceive services and shows you how toenhance the customer experience--every time.

In this economic climate, the customer service experience is more critical than ever. Most leading service firms advocate the TLC mantra: Think Like a Customer. That's a good practice, but first you have to understand what your customer is thinking and feeling. Today's business leaders cannot afford to neglect the psychological principles that govern customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty.

What are the factors that really determine customer satisfaction? Two of the nation's leading authorities on service psychology, Sriram Dasu and Richard Chase, have written this groundbreaking guide that identifies and demystifies the psychological triggers behind customer behavior. You'll go where customer satisfaction surveys, mystery shoppers, and focus groups can't--and learn exactlywhy customers respond and behave the way they do.

With findings drawn from behavioral science research, this book provides all the tools you need to evaluate your current service platforms and design future strategies to enhance customer perceptions positively and drive your sales.

The Customer Service Solution illustrates whyeven companies with high levels of satisfaction are missing tremendous opportunities by neglecting the emotional elements that govern consumer interactions.

This book will show you how to:

• Shape and manage customer perceptions
• Understand implicit versus explicit outcomes
• Develop the roles of control and choiceamong buyers
• Design emotionally intelligent processes
• Build trust among customers

Whatever your business may be--healthcare, hospitality, financial services, e-commerce, and more--this book is an essential tool to help you increase profits by leveraging your company's customer experience.

PRAISE FOR THE CUSTOMER SERVICE SOLUTION:

"Harnessing the power of emotions will help to drive an exceptional customer experience creating customers for life to help your business thrive. Finally, a guide tohelp us better understand how to do this." -- James Merlino, MD, Chief Experience Officer, Cleveland Clinic

"Required reading for anyone designing a service encounter." -- James Heskett, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School, coauthor of The Service Profit Chain and Service Future

"I have always known that our customers shop with us because they want to, not because they have to. How to make them want to is the secret that this great bookunlocks." -- Kevin Davis, President and CEO, Bristol Farms

"[Dasu and Chase] share easy-to-understand ideas and guidance to operations managers who typically do not think about the psychology of customers in designing their services." -- Mary Jo Bitner, PhD, Professor andExecutive Director, Center for Services Leadership, W. P. Carey School, Arizona State University

"Dasu and Chase provide an excellent set of ideas for delivering emotional customer service experiences through systems and operations." -- Rodolfo Medina, Vice President, Marketing & Commercial, Rock in Rio

"This book provides valuable insights to managing and molding the customer's emotional journey, leading to ultimate satisfaction and sustainable loyalty." -- Ali V. Kasikci, Regional Managing Director, Orient-Express

Understand Consumer Psychology to Drive Profits and Growth

Want to know exactly what’s driving your customer's behavior?
NOW YOU CAN!

The Customer Service Solution explains how consumers perceive services and shows you how toenhance the customer experience--every time.

In this economic climate, the customer service experience is more critical than ever. Most leading service firms advocate the TLC mantra: Think Like a Customer. That's a good practice, but first you have to understand what your customer is thinking and feeling. Today's business leaders cannot afford to neglect the psychological principles that govern customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty.

What are the factors that really determine customer satisfaction? Two of the nation's leading authorities on service psychology, Sriram Dasu and Richard Chase, have written this groundbreaking guide that identifies and demystifies the psychological triggers behind customer behavior. You'll go where customer satisfaction surveys, mystery shoppers, and focus groups can't--and learn exactlywhy customers respond and behave the way they do.

With findings drawn from behavioral science research, this book provides all the tools you need to evaluate your current service platforms and design future strategies to enhance customer perceptions positively and drive your sales.

The Customer Service Solution illustrates whyeven companies with high levels of satisfaction are missing tremendous opportunities by neglecting the emotional elements that govern consumer interactions.

This book will show you how to:

• Shape and manage customer perceptions
• Understand implicit versus explicit outcomes
• Develop the roles of control and choiceamong buyers
• Design emotionally intelligent processes
• Build trust among customers

Whatever your business may be--healthcare, hospitality, financial services, e-commerce, and more--this book is an essential tool to help you increase profits by leveraging your company's customer experience.

PRAISE FOR THE CUSTOMER SERVICE SOLUTION:

"Harnessing the power of emotions will help to drive an exceptional customer experience creating customers for life to help your business thrive. Finally, a guide tohelp us better understand how to do this." -- James Merlino, MD, Chief Experience Officer, Cleveland Clinic

"Required reading for anyone designing a service encounter." -- James Heskett, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School, coauthor of The Service Profit Chain and Service Future

"I have always known that our customers shop with us because they want to, not because they have to. How to make them want to is the secret that this great bookunlocks." -- Kevin Davis, President and CEO, Bristol Farms

"[Dasu and Chase] share easy-to-understand ideas and guidance to operations managers who typically do not think about the psychology of customers in designing their services." -- Mary Jo Bitner, PhD, Professor andExecutive Director, Center for Services Leadership, W. P. Carey School, Arizona State University

"Dasu and Chase provide an excellent set of ideas for delivering emotional customer service experiences through systems and operations." -- Rodolfo Medina, Vice President, Marketing & Commercial, Rock in Rio

"This book provides valuable insights to managing and molding the customer's emotional journey, leading to ultimate satisfaction and sustainable loyalty." -- Ali V. Kasikci, Regional Managing Director, Orient-Express

Table of Contents:

CONTENTS
PREFACE xiii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv
CHAPTER 1
CUSTOMER SERVICE SOLUTIONS:LEVERAGING CUSTOMER PSYCHOLOGY
TO DESIGN SERVICE OPERATIONS 1
Implicit Outcomes Are Importantfor Your Customers 2
Types of Knowledge Needed forDelivering Implicit Outcomes 3
Parsing the Service Encounter 6
It Is All About YourCustomers’ Perceptions 7
Factors That Shape YourCustomers’ Perceptions 8
A Scientific Approach to DeliveringGreat Experiences 20
Beyond the Encounter:Memory Management 21
CHAPTER 2
DESIGNING EMOTIONALLYINTELLIGENT PROCESSES 23
Emotions 101 24
Services Differ in Their Emotional Content 29
Emotions and Emotional Intelligence 31
Factors That Drive Your Customers’ Emotions 31
Tiered Approach for Shaping Emotions 36
Designing Emotional Themes 37
Creating Processes to Deliver theEmotional Theme 44
Blueprints for Tracking YourCustomers’ Emotions 47
Segmenting Your Customers 52
Responding to Your Customers’Transaction History 54
A Limited Approach to Managing Emotions 55
Key Principles for Designingfor Optimal Emotional Impact 56
Conclusion 56
CHAPTER 3
ENGENDERING YOUR CUSTOMERS’ TRUST 59
Market Mechanisms for ReducingRisk for Your Customer 61
Benefits of Trust 62
Components of Trust 63
Whom Does Your Customer Trust:The Firm or the Employee? 65
Moments That Influence Trust 67
Cues to TrustworthinessBefore the Encounter 69
Calculated Versus Blind Trust 72
Cues to TrustworthinessDuring the Encounter 73
Building Your Trust Fund 79
Key Principles forBuilding Trust 87
CHAPTER 4
SHAPING YOUR CUSTOMERS’PERCEPTIONS OF CONTROL 89
Control Matters 90
Components of Control: Behavioraland Cognitive Control 91
Moments That Influence Your Customers’Perception of Control 92
Battles for Control 93
Allocating Control to Your CustomerThrough Choice 96
Allocating Control to Your CustomerThrough Self-Service 99
Framework for Sharing Controlwith Your Customers 102
Enhancing Your Customers’Perceived Control 106
Devise Mistake-Proof Processes 111
Manage Server Behavior 112
Sway with Social Proofing 113
Conclusion 114
CHAPTER 5
SEQUENCING THE EXPERIENCE 117
The Sequence Impacts YourCustomers’ Perceptions 118
Customers’ Preferences for Separatingor Combining Events 125
Sequencing When There AreMultiple Encounters 126
Designing the Sequence 128
Sequence Theory Mattersfor Your Employees 133
Principles for Sequencing the Encounter 134
Self Quiz: DSL Help Desk 135
CHAPTER 6
TIME WARP: DURATION MANAGEMENT 139
Perception Is Everything When ItComes to Time 140
Temporal Distortions 141
Factors That InfluenceDuration Judgments 146
The Value of Time 147
Factors That Alter Your Customers’Valuation of Time 147
Pacing and Cultural Intelligence 149
Reducing Your Customers’ PerceivedDuration of the Wait 150
Build Your Customers’ Anticipationfor Positive Outcomes 162
Enhance Value-Added Activities 164
Conclusion 167
CHAPTER 7
ATTRIBUTION: ENSURING THAT YOUGET YOUR DUE 169
Subjective Perceptions 170
Do Your Customers Recognize a Successor a Failure? 172
How Your Customers May Discern the Cause 173
When Memory Plays Attribution Tricks 177
How Your Customers May AssignResponsibility 179
Feeling the Hurt 182
Channeling Your Customers’ Attribution 184
Principles for Managing Attribution 191
CHAPTER 8
PUTTING THE CONCEPTS TO WORK 193
Identify the RelevantPsychological Factors 195
Develop Service ExperienceImprovement Projects 199
Project Examples 202
Think in Terms of Three Ts and Four Ps 206
ETCs for Employees 207
ENDNOTES 211
INDEX 217