Service America in the New Economy

by Karl Albrecht, Ron Zemke

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Product Description
Service America was Dow-Jones Irwin's best selling book in history. As the definitive book on customer service--and the first major title in the field--it helped to define the category, spurring on dozens of imitators and creating an entirely new customer-service publishing category. Their seminal book became the blueprint that companies used to reform their service management stratgies. In the original, Karl Albrecht and Ron Zemke predicted that delivering customer service value would become more and more important in the years ahead. Althoug no one could have predicted the new digital world, Karl Albrecht makes a powerful argument for why customer service is even more important in the new economy. He contends that customer service has suffered a major setback in the new e-commerce marketplace: "Web-based businesses, so far, at least, have probably set back the state of the art in delivering customer value by at least ten years. Even the best of them have simply transformed their businesses into virtual vending machines. The mindless use of digital technology to depopulate the customer interface will turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes many compajies will ever make." As examples, Albrecht points to many industries and companies in which it seems virtuall impossible to get a human being on the phone (e.g. phone company, airlines etc.). Cusotmers are becoming tired of infereior levels of service (e.g. United Airlines customers), and Albrecht predicts that the problem will only get worse as e-commerce becomes more commonplace.

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Average Customer Review: 5 out of 5 stars

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

an essential classic, 2002-03-15
this is a very important book for anyone interested in running a business in the 21st century.

i took a class from karl albrecht back in the late '70s and was impressed that this was a very bright guy. i read his book, "brain power" and when service america came out i bought it right away.

this book is the first articulation of the process of management of a service organization as something entirely distinct from the traditional manufacturing model from which management as we know it emerged. it was very timely then as the service and information economies were really taking hold and it is even more timely today.

i was just referencing the book for a quote for my newsletter and i was curious to see if it was still in print and delighted that it is. it should be required reading for every MBA and/or anyone who aspires to lead a business large or small. even manufacturing today looks much more like service business than it did in henry ford's day when you could "have any color you wanted as long as it was black".

it will get your gears grinding as you begin to see all the ways in which your company is service 'unfriendly'. but it will give you a powerful conceptual framework for working with your teams to create systems for delighting your customers.

buy it. read it. mark it up. buy a copy for everyone on your management team. talk about it. then put it to work. it will make you lots of money, make your employees and customers happier, and put you a step ahead of your competitors.

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