Book Description
Here they are . . . 50 stories of the worst customer service in America. We've all been at the receiving end of poor or just downright bad customer service, but best selling author and professional speaker Hal Becker, the #1 salesperson for Xerox in his earlier career, tells it like it is.
Let's face it. Getting good customer service these days is about as easy as winning the lottery. In this enlightening collection of true stories, Hal Becker takes a look at how bad customer service has gotten. But, while he's at it he also makes suggestions as to what can be done to improve it. Also, on the flip side of the coin—the book features interviews with the 10 best companies that are the tops at meeting the needs of their customers and providing exemplary customer service and free help (rather than a lot of “lip service”).
"Hal Becker has done it again. . . . a light-hearted approach to a serious issue facing all businesses today . . . how to serve and keep customers."—Ray Gross, Senior Vice President, ADT Security Services "Hal Becker's new book is a classic about customer service. It has given me a lot to think about and a new motivation to always satisfy the customer."—Pat Williams, General Manager, Orlando Magic
"This is a great book for anyone whose livelihood depends on serving consumers or customers. Those who manage service environments would do well to require their employees to read these instructive stories. It's a fun way to do important training."—Joel Hyatt, Founder, Hyatt Legal Services
"Hal Becker's creative 'what should be done' approach makes the anecdotal stories a unique training book on customer service, one that is entertaining and educational."—Peter T. Gaughn, President & CEO, PIP Printing
Customer Reviews:
Quick read, enjoyable, instructive.......2002-01-07
Every one of us has encountered horrible customer service. We've each had those experiences where we'd like to just grab some executive by the shirt collar and scream, "Do you have any idea what you're doing? Don't you want me to be your customer??"
Hal Becker has been down that same road of lousy service, but he's said something about it. "Lip Service" is a monument to lousy customer service, written by a man who has enjoyed a career as an award-winning salesman, sales trainer, business owner, and professional speaker. What a bully platform! And Becker uses it.
I'd like to say Becker pulls no punches in this book, but that's not quite true. Many of his examples make it obvious, without identifying the company, who he's talking about. Other references are more obscure. As an angry customer myself, on too many occasions, I'd like to be much more aggressive in naming names, dates, and specifics. I can just imagine this author sitting in a law library in his attorney's office while his legal advisors read the original manuscript. "No, you can't say that. You're asking for a heavy lawsuit" "That's bordering on libel; I can't let you say that." And Becker's protesting against his attorney's protective advice. "But, I wanna . . . ." The "Don't" prevailed, but quite a bit of really juicy stuff still crept in.
Becker's consultant hat is on in this book. He tells the story (while the reader cheers), then provides a response of what should have been done. Again the reader will shout "Right on!" So, it's a fun read from this perspective, like enjoying one of those hard-hitting investigative television news shows.
But this book has even more value as a customer service textbook. Everyone in a role of serving customers, especially in those high-contact retail environments, should read this book. Customer service is more than lip service, and Lip Service makes that clear.
You'll get a kick out of the writing style in this book. In the fifty humorous stories, Becker sounds like a combination of an impatient New Yorker, Seinfeld, and Mr. Everyman. The book closes with strong, instructive interviews with ten (profitable, naturally) companies that do customer service the right way.
Hal Becker is speaking for us. Have fun with this book, then give it to your favorite customer service specialist who needs some serious help.
Good reading, low on information.......2001-10-20
The book was well written and made for entertaining reading. However, the materials were more like a pep talk on good customer service. I needed, and expected, more straight-forward tips of how to implement an improved service program.
Amazon.com
With Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity, Lester Thurow follows on his bestsellers The Zero-Sum Society and The Future of Capitalism by addressing the path to globalization. Thurow--a Professor of Management and Economics at MIT's Sloan School--draws uncompromising conclusions: only a bold embrace of globalization will bring prosperity, and nations that fail to engage in global economics will fall behind the world's dominant powers.
He sees three simultaneous revolutions that fuel the rush to global business: the birth of knowledge-based industry, the creation of a global economy built on a worldwide information infrastructure, and the victory of capitalism. But Thurow is not naively optimistic about the prospects for prosperity in this new framework. The U.S. trade deficit, the Chinese export economy, the SARS epidemic, and the stagnating Japanese economy all offer real threats to short-term and long-term well-being.
Some readers will be frustrated that Fortune Favors the Bold does not deliver a detailed set of solutions to these impediments to global prosperity, despite Thurow's thorough research. The U.S. trade deficit, like the absence of international intellectual property rights, he labels a "dilemma": a problem that has no prescriptive answer. Crises will occur, he suggests. The challenge is to prepare for them and manage them well. Thurow urges the creation of new institutions to confront these dilemmas head on, notably the creation of a Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) for governments and major corporations. The CKO will provide a central intelligence to steer nations and corporations through the difficulties of economic revolution. For Thurow, fortune will favor those leaders who boldly shape globalization and invest in emerging technologies. Those who stand by will be doomed to marginalization. --Patrick O'Kelley
Book Description
The new global economy is linking the fortunes of every nation on every continent -- for good or for ill. Its hallmark is a rising instability and a growing inequality between the first and third worlds, in spite of rising average incomes. The United States and other first world economies are finding it hard to recover after the boom of the 1990s and the bust of the early 21st century. Financial crises in the third world come frequently and are increasingly severe. Globalization is invoked to explain riots, civil disobedience, and as a factor in the rise of terrorism.
Lester Thurow argues now is the time to shape globalization into what we want it to be -- before it's too late. Today, he explains, we are at a critical crossroads in the development of the global economy. We can sit back and let it grow as it will, or we can seize the moment and build economic systems that will minimize instability, allow second and third world countries to thrive, and protect and enhance our own American interests. In short, a win/win global economy that benefits all participants.
Globalization, says Thurow, can be shaped.
In Fortune Favors the Bold, Thurow provides an insightful analysis of the ills of globalization and, more important, offers solutions. He tackles subjects such as:
- The dangers of the burgeoning U.S. trade deficit and the falling dollar
- Solving the problem of intellectual property rights violations
- Restarting Japan's stagnating economy
- How best to help underdeveloped countries enter the global economy
- Reforming the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
Further, Thurow shows how the economic successes of Ireland and China provide a model for other countries to follow. He even proposes creating anew role for a "Chief Knowledge Officer" to help guide companies and governments in the developing global knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.
Globalization will continue whether we like it our not. We are at a critical moment; great challenges lay ahead, and our economic future is at stake. Now, with Fortune Favors the Bold, we have a map and guidebook to a prosperous economic future.
Customer Reviews:
Pragmatic and well thought.......2005-12-31
Lester Thurow has a penetrating mind. His ideas and arguments are intellectually pure and for that reason invaluable. He is a true CKO - Chief Knowledge Officer.
Nothing new here.......2005-10-10
I bought this book recently while in Thailand, hoping that Thurow would offer-up something interesting - more or less along the lines of the early 90s work, such as "Head to Head." Not here. I checked the date and the book was initially published in 2003, which means he probably wrote the mainstay in 2002. To me, if you have never thought about globalization and its implications, then buy it. If you have already, then this is nothing more than a collections of truisms that anybody with any interest in the subject would know already.
How can one be wrong so much and still be called an expert?.......2004-06-08
It is so sad how wrong someone can be proven over and over again and still, he/she is rewarded, called a genius and is allowed to teach our youth. Here is a quote from the author: "Can economic command significantly... accelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can... Today the Soviet Union is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States." This was in 1989, just shortly before the Societ Union collapsed. Unfortunately, being this wrong in economics gives one awards and allows you to teach college students while being described a genius. Sad. Mr. Thurow may be a 'genius', but geniuses can be wrong too.
Infrastructure.......2004-05-29
One of the wildest claims in this book has to do with the question of infrastructure. Thurow claims India has better infrastructure than China. But today the chairman of GE, Jeff Immelt, told his audience in India that they would never catch up with China unless they improve their infrastructure. Immelt said India lagged behind China in health and in things like airports and roads. And this, he said, was a major reason why India was a "disappointing" market for GE.
Somebody must be wrong - either the GE chairman or the MIT professor. There are many other errors in this book, not only in facts and statistics, but also in analysis. (Another whopper, of the analysis variety: Thurow says that Confucianism and Communism combined to emphasize education in China, and that this is one reason why China is so highly educated for a developing country. I don't know about Confucianism, but I do know that for years Mao decimated higher education in China, so that at one point college students had the reading ability of a junior high student while junior high students could barely read.)
Logical and important........2004-04-20
A thorough and logical overview of economics and globalization, with predictions as well as prescriptions to manage potential problems. Although the predictions may or may not come true, the book is important because it allows readers the opportunity to understand in a clear, readable and factual manner, the issues we face as a "world economy".
If you want to read only one book which explains globalization, the rationale behind government run fiscal policies, the impact of trade deficits, and changing roles of governments and the world bank, this is a great one.
Average customer rating:
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Chains of Fortune: Best Practices in Linking Local Women Producers with Global Markets
Manufacturer: Commonwealth Secretariat
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Exports & Imports
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ASIN: 0850927986 |
Book Description
Much has been written about the negative impact of globalization on the world's poor, and especially on women. But globalization also opens up new economic opportunities if poor women producers and workers are enabled to take advantage of them. The need for assistance differs between independent producers on the one hand and wage workers in export industries on the other. In the former case, the need mainly is for increased access to global markets. In the latter case, it mainly is for better organizing so as to bargain for better wages and working conditions.
This edited volume brings together six case studies: three which focus on linking local producers with global markets; and three which focus on improving conditions of wage workers and outworkers already integrated into export markets through global value chains. On the producer side, they include examples of: a cocoa cooperative of 45,000 producers in Ghana who are co-owners of a chocolate company in the UK; family-based cooperatives in Samoa which produce organic virgin coconut oil and related value-added products for export to Australia, New Zealand and Germany; and newly established small enterprises in Mozambique which are helping to regenerate the cashew processing and export industry with benefits for women small holders and factory workers. On the wage worker side, they include: thousands of women who have found jobs in the expanding industry in South Africa which exports deciduous fruits to Europe; hundreds of thousands of women in Bangladesh who have found paid employment and increased empowerment in the factories which export ready made garments to Europe and the UK; and thousands of women who have found employment in the newly created industries in India which export information technology-enabled services to Europe and the US. Each case study is written by a team of international and national researchers and aims to present decision makers with concrete examples of how policies and programs which shift the balance of access, power and returns within global value chains can assist the working poor to derive greater benefits from globalization.
Average customer rating:
- Highly recommended for students of international capitalism.
|
Global Fortune: The Stumble and Rise of World Capitalism
Ian Vasquez
Manufacturer: Cato Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1882577906 |
Book Description
This collection of essays proposes improvements to the international financial system and evaluates the prospects that the recent conversion to global capitalism will be sustained.
Customer Reviews:
Highly recommended for students of international capitalism........2000-09-06
Experts from four continents here show how Asian nations and others have suffered from government intervention as the world renews its global economic links. Issues of social improvements and reforms are related to increasing world capitalism in a title which promotes adherence to market principles to allow nations to enjoy real prosperity. A recommended pick for any studying world capitalism markets.
Average customer rating:
- reader
- A Blueprint of Life
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The Global Oracle
Edward Tarabilda , and
Doug Grimes
Manufacturer: Sunstar Publishing Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Ayurveda Revolutionized: Integrating
ASIN: 1887472223 |
Book Description
The Global Oracle is a revolutionary rediscovery of the fundamental blueprint of life-64 universal principles uniting body, mind, spirit and cosmos. Ancient seers expressed the essential order of life as oracles like astrology, Tarot and the I-Ching. Now, for the first time in history, author Ed Tarabilda reveals the common basis of the ancient oracles in simple terms.
Customer Reviews:
reader.......2007-05-16
This is a very interesting book. I enjoyed studying it. My knowledge of the various areas increased with the study of this book. The only issue I have is how to determine your own 8 fields of living so that you can apply specifics to yourself. This book does not tell you how nor have I found other books that do.
A Blueprint of Life.......1997-12-14
Are the major oracles of antiquity -- the I"Ching, The Tarot and Astrology -- unrelated in their approach and viewpoints, or do they reflect common, archetypal principles which form "a spiritual blueprint" of creation? The authors suggest the latter and not only elaborate this blueprint, but also create an oracle ideal for our global society. The genius of this book is its appeal to both layman and scholar. Teachers and professors will appreciate "The Global Oracle" as a new subjective discipline of knowledge. Everyone else will enjoy consulting this oracle due to its simple, clear and articulate guidance.
Average customer rating:
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2006 Fortune Global 500 Databank
Research Bank
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B000Q67CTA
Release Date: 2007-04-30 |
Book Description
This report provides in-depth company profiles for companies ranked in the 2006 Fortune Global 500 list. All data is gathered from primary source. Reports are available in easily accessible PDF format and data is consistently presented. Data is regularly tracked and enhanced to ensure data on these high profile companies is accurate and current. This report is an indispensable tool for investors wanting to gather the relevant facts on Fortune Global 500 companies. Research Bank concentrates on a small number of high profile companies using tested and trusted research and editorial methodologies.
Average customer rating:
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Asia Pacific - 2006 Fortune Global 500 Company Profiles
Research Bank
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ASIN: B000Q67CTK
Release Date: 2007-04-30 |
Book Description
This report provides in-depth company profiles for companies operating in Asia Pacific as ranked in the 2006 Fortune Global 500 list. All data is gathered from primary source. Reports are available in easily accessible PDF format and data is consistently presented. Data is regularly tracked and enhanced to ensure data on these high profile companies is accurate and current. This report is an indispensable tool for investors wanting to gather the relevant facts on Fortune Global 500 companies operating in Asia Pacific. Research Bank concentrates on a small number of high profile companies using tested and trusted research and editorial methodologies.
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Asia Pacific - Fortune Global 2005 Company Profiles
Research Bank
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ASIN: B000G6APQC
Release Date: 2006-02-25 |
Book Description
This report provides in-depth company profiles for companies operating in Asia Pacific as ranked in the 2005 Fortune Global 500 list. All data is gathered from primary source. Reports are available in easily accessible PDF format and data is consistently presented. Data is regularly tracked and enhanced to ensure data on these high profile companies is accurate and current. This report is an indispensable tool for investors wanting to gather the relevant facts on Fortune Global 500 companies operating in Asia Pacific. Research Bank concentrates on a small number of high profile companies using tested and trusted research and editorial methodologies.
Average customer rating:
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Automotive - 2006 Fortune Global 500 Company Profiles
Research Bank
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ASIN: B000Q67CUE
Release Date: 2007-04-30 |
Book Description
This report provides in-depth company profiles for companies operating in the Automotive sector as ranked in the 2006 Fortune Global 500 list. All data is gathered from primary source. Reports are available in easily accessible PDF format and data is consistently presented. Data is regularly tracked and enhanced to ensure data on these high profile companies is accurate and current. This report is an indispensable tool for investors wanting to gather the relevant facts on Fortune Global 500 companies operating in the Automotive sector. Research Bank concentrates on a small number of high profile companies using tested and trusted research and editorial methodologies.
Average customer rating:
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Automotive - Fortune Global 2005 Company Profiles
Research Bank
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ASIN: B000G6APNA
Release Date: 2006-02-25 |
Book Description
This report provides in-depth company profiles for companies operating in the Automotive sector as ranked in the 2005 Fortune Global 500 list. All data is gathered from primary source. Reports are available in easily accessible PDF format and data is consistently presented. Data is regularly tracked and enhanced to ensure data on these high profile companies is accurate and current. This report is an indispensable tool for investors wanting to gather the relevant facts on Fortune Global 500 companies operating in the Automotive sector. Research Bank concentrates on a small number of high profile companies using tested and trusted research and editorial methodologies.
Book Description
This is a comprehensive handbook of statistical data on the economies of Eastern Europe (including Yugoslavia) and the Soviet Union in regard to production and distribution, foreign trade and indebtedness, domestic finance, energy, households, and standards of living. It is the only compendium in English of facts and figures widely scattered in the statistical yearbooks published in the respective European countries, supplemented by international organizations' compilations. The handbook can also be used as a tool for gaining access to the on-line database maintained by WIIW via Reuters. The reference commences with comprehensive indicators of CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) countries' foreign trade--then presents data from official publications of the CMEA countries and Yugoslavia. Based on Western and United Nations' statistical sources, the handbook then details East-West trade, trade of the industrialized West, and trade of eight individual industrialized countries with the individual COMECON countries, all broken down by SITC commodity groups. The final part of the handbook is devoted to currency, balance of payments, and indebtedness. Much of the information presented here is not readily available, as many of the sources are published only in the languages of the COMECON countries. Combined with the data published by Western countries, this results in a well-rounded and up-to-date picture of current affairs. This guide will be an important reference for individuals in corporations and academia who are involved with international trade, particularly in the area of Eastern Europe.
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Comecon Data 1989 (Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies)
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0333457196 |
Average customer rating:
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United Kingdom Business Intelligence Report
USA International Business Publications
Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0739764454 |
Book Description
This report contains business intelligence information for succesful export-import, business and investment operations, strategic contacts and more... The report also contains selected information on investment and business opportunities, international economic projects, tenders, government projects, as well as, marketing and export-import opportunities information.
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Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2002-2003 (Command)
Intelligence & Security Committee
Manufacturer: Stationery Office
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0101583729 |
Books:
- Make Your Space Ads Pay : Using Space Advertising as Effective Direct Marketing
- Making Direct Mail Work for You: Get Great Results from All Your Direct Mail
- Managing Scientists: Leadership Strategies in Research and Development
- Managing the Design Factory
- Marketing and Consumer Identity in Multicultural America
- Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation with SPSS, Fourth Edition
- Marketing Research Project Manual
- Marketing Research: The Impact of the Internet
- Measuring Customer Satisfaction: Development and Use of Questionnaires
- Microsoft Help Desk for Microsoft Office 2000 (Eu-Help Desk)
Books Index
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Can I Have 5 Minutes of Your Time? : A No Nonsense Fun Approach to Sales
Get What You Want!! A Fun, Upbeat and Fresh Approach to Negotiating
Tales of Knock Your Socks Off Service: Inspiring Stories of Outstanding Customer Service (Knock Your Socks Off Series)
The Big Book of Customer Service Training Games (Big Book)
Secret Service: Hidden Systems That Deliver Unforgettable Customer Service
