Intro -- America's Service Meltdown: Restoring Service Excellence in the Age of the Customer -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- I. Leadership from the Top -- Leadership in the Service and Information Age -- Buggy-Whip Accounting Is Obsolete -- Industrial-Age Myopia Is Not Dead by a Long Shot -- What to Look for in a Customer-Focused Leader -- Where to Find a Customer-Focused Leader? -- What Customer-Focused Leaders Must Do -- A Customer Focus versus a Blurred Vision -- The Principal Leadership Challenge: Overcoming Inertia -- Streamlining the Organization for a Customer Focus -- Leaders Must Live Their Own Mandate -- The Greatest Service Story Ever Told -- Coming Full Circle -- II. A Customer Focus Trumps All Other Strategies -- The Winds of Change Favor the Customer -- Strategic Planning Cannot Yield Strategy -- Strategic Planning Is All about Control -- Finding the Customer's Voice -- Customer Survey Design and Administration -- Bring in the Planners -- No Customer, No Strategy -- Ignoring the Customer Is Fraught with Peril -- III. The Service Ethic -- What Is Ethical Behavior? -- Ethics in Business -- Regulation Is Not a Proxy for Ethical Behavior -- The Service Ethic in Action -- Service Is a Non-Zero-Sum Game -- Customers Are First -- Quality as an Ethical Standard -- Service: Quality versus Quantity -- Customers as Partners -- A Partnership Can Be Sabotaged by Legalisms -- Communication: A Key Weapon of the Ethical Provider -- Customers from Hell! -- Service Is Not Surrender -- Is This the End of Personal Service? -- IV. Power to the Front Line -- Frontline Skills That Make a Difference -- Vetting the Frontline Worker's Background -- Aligning Frontline Performance to the Service Ethic -- Supporting the Front Line with Education and Training -- Deploying Computer Systems That Inform the Front Line.

Business to Business: Enter Service Management -- The Customer Account Manager -- Account Manager in Name Only -- Service Leverage Comes from the Front Line -- Everyone Works for the Customer -- V. Musings on the Economics of Service -- Service as a Differentiating Strategy -- Customer Satisfaction and Profitability -- Service Quality, Value, and Price -- Quo Vadis Customer Satisfaction? -- Survey, Survey, Survey -- Customer Satisfaction versus Customer Loyalty -- J. D. Power, Where Have You Been? -- Considerations in Customer Acquisition and Retention -- Don't Fire That Customer-Yet! -- Poor Service Places a Heavy Tax on Business -- Purchasing as a Competitive Sport -- Auctions in Reverse -- Outsourcing: Improved Service or Economy? -- What's Service Got to Do with It? -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index.