Audio-Tech Business Book Summaries Inc. - Crafting the customer experience for people not like you: how to delight and engage the customers your competitors dont understand

Contents

Cover design: Gearbox

Copyright 2013 by Kelly McDonald. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN 978-1-118-36072-9 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-46164-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-46166-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-46167-9 (ebk)

To my Powers ,

my air,

my light,

my refuge,

and my momentum

Acknowledgments

The words thank you dont seem adequate when it comes to acknowledging the people who helped me with this book. Whether it was for their contributions, their wisdom, their insight, their support, or their patience, I relied on all of them for months on end.

To my editor, Richard Narramore, for his steady guidance and skill. You always know just what to say to keep me on track. And you cheered me on when I was flagging. It meant the world to me. Thank you.

To Lydia Dimitriadis, Christine Moore, and the entire team at John Wiley & Sons who make a manuscript turn into a book. I so appreciate your talent, coaching, dedication, and hard work.

To John, for hanging in there and doing this with me again. Thanks for all your help and the hundreds of hours of research in finding the best examplesgood and badof the customer experience.

To Jennifer Martin, my BFF forever, for understanding and supporting me, always. And for letting me go underground for months at a time, only to pick up right where we left off. Love you and need you in my life, even when I dont tell you that.

To Adam Fitzgerald, for always, always saving the day, and inevitably, at the most inconvenient times. And specifically, for recovering Chapter 2 after I inadvertently saved over it. Thanks also for having the coolest dog in the world, Turbo.

To my inner circle, for letting me be me. And for being right there for me when I finally came to the surface: Robert Swafford, Katie Hollar, Lynne Swihart, Jerry Martinez, Cliff Bohaker, Adam Bowden, Melissa Timmerman, Tina Harrison, Todd Young, William Siskron, Joel Benjamin Griffin, Alejandro Gonzalez, Tayfun Aut, Gregorio Kishketon, Trace Symonds, Alejandro Perez, Matthew Skelly, Shawn Quish, Luis Rodriguez, Darin Iglehart, Anthony Derego, Andrea Cleverley Howard, Randy McCauley, and Ronnie Sullivan. I count on you for fun, but you have all become so much more than that.

To Jessica Levin, for providing outstanding expertise and insights and helping with, possibly, the most important chapter. Respect, girl, respect.

To Cliff Bohaker, for your ability to make the most mundane errand an adventure and a blast and for being a wonderful friend. Oh, and your cupcakes rock.

To Pam Atherton, who knows how to give a damn good pep talk and an even better interview. And for knowing exactly when a girl needs some new, expensive makeup.

To Kenja Purkey, for the ability to make me laugh, always. And for taking the wheel on the work I simply could not do while writing this book. Your talent and your brain leave me in awe.

To Katie Hollar, Black Swan, for sending me texts that were either supportive or snarky and for somehow always knowing which I needed at that exact moment.

To Melinda Fishman, for helping out with stories and examples and understanding the hiatus that writing imposed on our daily telephone chats.

To Melissa Timmerman, for sending me a text every few weeks that said, You alive? Just checking. It always touched me and made me smile. Thank you.

To all those who contributed and helped with specific insights and anecdotes:

Breanna Ridge (you have the worlds greatest smile and attitude), Kim Edwards (I always turn to you for customer insightsyou are the best), Daniel Eaton (aka Pookie forever), Chandra Livingston (for making time to help out a complete stranger), and Joe Martin and Jake Martin, my other family and my dear friends forever.

And to my clients, who have cheered me on, encouraged me, and put in advance orders for the book.

You didnt pick up this book because you want to know how to provide terrific customer service. There are plenty of good books and articles on the subject, and they all cover the basic principles of being polite, efficient, and responsive to customers needs. You picked up this book because youre smart enough to know that the business climate out there is changing . In fact, its already changed. Its not easy to provide a level of customer service that resonates with all your customers anymore. Its more fragmented than that. People are not one size fits all, and therefore, one sweeping customer service approach isnt going to cut it when it comes to satisfyingmuch less delighting a diverse group of customers.

Providing a great experience to different kinds of people isnt just the right thing to do. Its the strategic thing to do. Crafting a customer experience that caters to people not like you will improve your business in five ways: