Even Monkeys Fall From Trees - Softcover

Lipp, Doug

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0970764804 ISBN 13: 9780970764805

Publisher: Hickethier Publishing Internat, 2001

Synopsis

Outstanding customer service is a balance of technical expertise and interpersonal skills. Balance…a simple concept, yet something that is missing in the customer service and leadership approaches used in many organizations today.

Join Doug, the former head of training at Disney University, on a journey to assess your service and leadership approach. Blend some "back stage" secrets of Disney with a dose of Eastern philosophy, then mix in a number of strategies than can be immediately applied in the workplace and you have the essence of Monkeys. This book is designed to be a practical tool to help you analyze the service and products you or your organization provide from the standpoint of being in balance. How well are you attending to both the "art" and "science" needs of your employees and customers? If not taking care of both, you are losing valuable customers and employees. Eleven exercises, that have been adopted by world-class organizations, are included to help you determine:

·Your individual and organizational strengths
·Where you need to make improvements
·Specific action steps to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.

The result is a blueprint to attain and maintain your service and leadership balance!

About this title

About the Author

Doug Lipp, MA, an internationally acclaimed expert on customer service, leadership and global competitiveness, motivates and challenges audiences around the world as a consultant and speaker. Doug has spent over 25 years working from the front lines to the boardrooms of corporations in the United States, Asia and Europe.

Formerly the head of training at Disney Studio's Walt Disney University, Doug also worked at Disneyland where he provided the well-known "Traditions" orientation program and other leadership courses. Pivotal in Doug's career with Disney was his experience in the mid-80's when the corporate culture changed from the arrogant: "we're the best, why change?" To the progressive: "don't rest on your laurels" powerhouse corporation that it remains today.

Fluent in Japanese, Doug was on the start-up team for Tokyo Disneyland, working in Japan for two years creating Disney's first international theme park. Both when he worked for NEC Electronics and currently in his private consulting practice, Doug addresses the topics of global and domestic customer service, leadership, and cultural diversity with his clients in the U.S. and abroad.

As a much sought after consultant, trainer and speaker, Doug now helps audiences around the world understand the Disney magic by taking them “behind the scenes” to discover the secret of this success. His humorous and down-to-earth style has attracted a wide variety of organizations and industries including: Motorola, GE Capital, Universal Studios, NEC Electronics, Pebble Beach Resorts, Bell Mobility Cellular, Northstar-At-Tahoe, Merrill Lynch, Boise Cascade, Macy’s, IBM, ADAC Labs, Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), U.S. Postal Service, Conseco Fund Group, Paramount, University of California, Veterans’ Health Administration, Toshiba America and Wells Fargo Bank.

He is the author of Tokyo Disneyland: The Secret of Its Success; and co-author of: Danger & Opportunity: Resolving Conflict in U.S.-Based Japanese Subsidiaries.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Balancing Act (Excerpt): "Good evening to all of you and welcome to our annual all employee meeting. I am sorry to inform you that, in spite of the superior performance of our products, the numbers before you tell the awful truth. We have answered the call of our competitors by improving product quality; we're second to none. But, we have lost virtually every one of our premium accounts; our client turnover is virtually 100% for the year. Why? Because we haven't taken the time to contact our clients and let them know we appreciate their business. We leave them in the dark when we should be giving them regular updates on changes in our industry and how it will affect them. They feel ignored and are tired of it. These aren't my words, these are the words of our ex-customers".

Sound familiar to you? A senior executive at a meeting of about 700 sales and service professionals recently made these comments. The company? A household name. Anyone who has ever invested a dollar of their savings on Wall Street or watched a few hours of television knows it well. Their problem? They, like thousands of other organizations large and small, are out of balance. They put all of their eggs in the product quality and technology basket and forgot the interpersonal needs of their customers. Unique? Not a bit. But, this is not to say that technology is bad and interpersonal stuff is good, it is simply a matter of equilibrium. It would be equally disastrous for a company to focus on developing nice employees at the expense of product quality, reliability or availability.

In the past 25 years, customer service has been alternately hailed as the magic bullet for business success or derided as just another "management program". After being bombarded with books, speeches, videos, training sessions, magazine articles, and more, customer service is a subject with which we are intimately familiar. Many organizations and corporations have taken great strides to improve and maintain outstanding quality and service, some with outstanding success. The quality service drive got its start in the 1970s after we realized the Japanese were cleaning our plow with better products. To combat this, we embraced the notion of Quality Control Circles, expanding to Total Quality Management and Statistical Process Control in the 1980s and 1990's. As a result, organizations made great progress in improving the quality of many products and services. Many of us have come to know and respect names of people and organizations synonymous with the push for quality. Statistical process control gurus Edwards Deming, and Dr. Joseph M. Juran; the governing organization ISO 9000 and the Malcolm Baldridge Award are well known and respected.

And yet, in spite of the thousands of dollars, and countless hours spent on improving service and quality, there is still something missing from the customer service approaches of many businesses...a lack of balance. The ability to provide outstanding customer service is as much an "art" as it is a "science". The art of customer service appeals to the emotional needs and ego of the customer. The scientific side consists of the ability to provide technical information, quality products and support. Both are necessary, but many companies are terribly skewed to one side or the other of this balance and the results are similar to the scenario listed above lost business.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hickethier Publishing Internat
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0970764804
• ISBN 13: 9780970764805
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 179