Keeping the Edge: Giving Customers the Service They Demand

Revisits the ninety-nine surviving companies originally profiled in The Service Edge, examining overall industry trends and explaining how business leaders can rally their own organizations to succeed by perfecting service levels.

Service quality is reexamined by Schaaf in this sequel to his 1989 coauthored The Service Edge. The financial realities of the marketplace, the proliferation of technology and the maturing of our economy all dramatically affect business. But how do these factors specifically affect the delivery and management of service? Schaaf's answer is interesting and surprising: companies delivering good service focus not on tactical issues concerning specific customer interactions but on strategic issues integrating the fundamentals of the business. For example, service quality is more about systems and how they are managed than about people and how they act. Broad outlines of successful service strategies are concisely presented here and supported with anecdotal evidence. This book is highly recommended to corporate executives and business students who want to gain insight into the basic issues of quality service in a rapidly changing environment.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.