Uplifting Service

The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues, and Everyone Else You Meet

Evolve Publishing, 2012

15 min read

10 take-aways

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Transform your company to create a unique culture of service.

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Today’s customers are angry and frustrated; they don’t feel heard. Service providers are equally annoyed by consumer complaints. Service expert Ron Kaufman teaches companies how to redefine customer service to wow their clienteles. Kaufman explains how to elevate service as a corporate mission from the top down. Leaders must define the firm’s purpose, take charge of their actions and inspire employees to build a foundation for service. Kaufman draws examples of exceptional customer service from a variety of organizations, including Google, Zappos and Singapore’s Changi Airport. While his light, breezy tone makes the book easy to read, some of his stories are a bit corny. Still, getAbstract recommends Kaufman’s advice to executives and managers, customer service professionals and anyone who deals with the public – which is just about everybody.

Summary

Redefining Service

Declining levels of customer service are epidemic. “Customers are angry and complain. Service providers are irritated to the point of resentment and resignation.” Problems abound because people tend to think of service as a humble occupation. The notion of service implies subservience or acting like a servant. Indeed, the word “serve” is derived from the Latin word for “slave,” and no one wants to be a slave. Clichés such as “the customer is always right” further undermine the value of providing good service: Customers may be wrong. For example, someone might misunderstand what a product does or might not read the fine print on a package.

Employees must redefine what it means to serve. Rather than regarding service as deference, they must see it as creating value for others. Instead of viewing service as a chore, staff members should “uplift and inspire others.” People want to feel connected. Customers want to be surprised and delighted by great service. Service is more than fulfilling customer requests. Service requires being curious, applying what you learn and inspiring others.

Providing “uplifting service” means taking customer service ...

About the Author

Author and consultant Ron Kaufman writes for Bloomberg Businessweek. Speaker Magazine named him one of the world’s “Top 25 Who’s Hot” speakers.

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E. C. 8 years ago

I had the privilege to work with Ron Kaufman and it's amazing how practical is his methodology. This book is very good if you want to understand your business and your customers and if you want to build a long term service culture in your organization.
J. C. 10 years ago

i like the pavlovs dog analagy, very good. robin shama says nothing fails like success. once yiou reach the top/success people tend to forget who or what got them there to start off with. and this abstract relates to that for me.
A. D. 10 years ago

The author reminds us that common sense is a valuable tool. I enjoy the concept of building a service culture through language as many adverts today all rely on catch phrases...so let's find that winning catch phrase for each of our teams. Like Pavlov's Dog, everytime they hear the phrase, the values and common sense of good service are reminded.

Ron Kaufman