Building Great Customer Experiences

View other editions of Building Great Customer Experiences.
View books by Colin Shaw, John Ivens.

Bit Off Focus? - Rated
If this is supposed to be about the customer experience and how that is critical to corporate success, many of the other companies used as examples of good client experiences are those we all like to knock at dinner parties - intuitively we don't see some of these organisations as great at customer service. I think this book is a dissappointment. It's as though it is reporting and supporting the assertions of the big corporates, rather than exlusively looking at those who are really providing customer satisfication at the 'coal-face' of the real selling and buying and analysising in detail how those organisations are doing it and seeking to stay on top of it.

Terrific - Rated
Very good and applicable work on building customer experiences. The writing style is relaxed and this makes this a business book that is easy to read.

I found it applicable, thought provoking and will definately use some of the messages in my business.

In short, catch the Tsunami or get drowned by it.

Weak methodologies and writing - Rated
Methodologies are weak and lack sufficent backup. Writing style is overly padded.

Lessons from some good operators - Rated
Shaw and Ivens have gathered some good lessons in how leaders in customer experiences have achieved their results, citing Amazon, Lexus, Pret a Manger, First Direct and others. In fact this book is a distillation of their interviews with CEO's in service businesses. You will find many of the same companies in another book, "Managing the Customer Experience"

For me the most relevant chapters are Chapter 2 The physical customer experience and Chapter 3 the emotional customer experience. I found the Moment map on page 39 a good analysis of a service experience from the customer's perspective setting out expectations, threats, opportunities to exceed physical and emotional expectations and an overview of the emotion at each stage in the customer experience. Any service business ought to have a clear idea of what emotion you aim to leave the customer with. People buy emotionally (and then justify with logic). Their big idea is that service organisations can differentiate by focusing on stimulating a particular planned emotion.

There are useful tips and pointers in the chapter on people - like suggestions on approaches that help to recruit staff who enjoy engaging with customers. Throughout, there are also lots of short quotations that you could use in presentations I guess. I'd like to have seen more on measurement and targets.

Another recommended book with insights on the customer experience and how to build relationships over time is "Customers that Count".

Leading Edge - Rated
I found the authors approach fascinating and fresh. I'm sure that we will soon see a surfeit of books on the whole area of Customer Experience - but I am sure that most of them will have to use this work as their reference point. As someone who has been in business for more than a few years, I found this book full of leading edge stuff. Its always been obvious that feelings and engaging emotionally with customers is a key part of the Customer Experience and there aren't many people I'm aware of who have identified an easy and practical way to drive and bring to life the emotional dimensions of a Customer Experience. Well done.