Chip R Bell - Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do About It

Acclaim for Wired and Dangerous

As Chip and John relay in this book, a good customer relationship is governed by honesty, caring, forgiving, lack of judgment, flexibility, and a willingness to try again. If leaders brought these values to the workplace, the world would indeed be a better placeand customers would be happier too.

Cheryl A. Bachelder, CEO, of AFC Enterprises Inc., and President, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

Wired and Dangerous is a wake-up call to business leaders about how todays empowered customers can build or destroy brands in record time. Buy it and use the insights and tools to deliver loyalty-building customer service experiences.

Bob Thompson, founder and CEO, CustomerThink

Chip and John have taught our company the power of turning satisfied customers into advocates. Their lessons in Wired and Dangerous lead to effective strategies for creating loyalty among todays demanding customers.

Carrie Freeman Parsons, Vice Chair, Freeman

Wired and Dangerous should be mandatory reading for anyone with a customer! The only downside would be a reduction in the creation of viral YouTube music videos!

Dave Carroll, singer/songwriter and creator of the United Breaks Guitars viral YouTube music video

When you include your customers in your business, you build an army that grows your business for you. Using their mouse, voice, and influence, they will become your greatest megaphone! Chip and John show how the new normal customer can create the prosperity all businesses desire.

Jeanne Bliss, author of Chief Customer Officer and I Love You More Than My Dog

This will be on the test: if you want customers to come and play in your backyard, read Wired and Dangerous and then deliver what Chip and John will teach you.

Jim Blasingame, host of The Small Business Advocate Show

Serving customers has never been more challenging: new generations with different values, new channels, new technologies. Chip Bell and John Patterson argue that to make sense of this we need a new covenant with customersas usual they are spot on.

Shaun Smith, coauthor of Bold

At Zappos, we found that the more we invested in customer service, the more loyal our customers became. Wired and Dangerous can help anyone interested in delivering happiness to todays Internet-empowered customer.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, Inc., and author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Delivering Happiness

Bell and Patterson explain how to master the new service paradigma partnership between you and your customers. Their rich stories and practical advice will prepare you to give up the control needed to make these partnership covenants succeed.

Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership and coauthor of the bestselling Groundswell

Provocative insight, an irresistible page-turning look at the empowered customer.

Lou Dobbs

Whether through personal anecdotes or insightful research, Chip and John have succeeded in providing the sobering truth: the consumer is more empowered than ever before and expectations for service have changed. They provide meaningful advice on how you can still succeed.

Jay Karen, President and CEO, Professional Association of Innkeepers International

wired and dangerous

how your customers have changed and what to do about it

Chip R. Bell
John R. Patterson

Wired and Dangerous

Copyright 2011 by Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Ordering information for print editions
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First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-60509-975-0
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-60509-976-7
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-60509-977-4

2011-1

Cover Designer: Susan Malikowski, DesignLeaf Studio
Text designer: Adriane Bosworth
Proofreader: Katherine Lee
Indexer: Kirsten Kite
Book producer: Detta Penna

Tools

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.

Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities

These words opened Charles Dickenss classic book A Tale of Two Cities, written 150 years ago. The passage was Dickenss elegant attempt to describe the late 1700s as the bridge between two eras; the era of the farm was transitioning to the era of the factory. That transition saw great upheaval, including several major revolutionary wars; it was also a period of extensive invention and discovery. If Dickens were here today he might use similar words to describe the present timeas a bridge between the period of technology and the era of the customer.

Whether or not you accept the hyperbole of an emerging revolution, there is no doubt customers today are significantly different than those of just a few years ago. Then, we were easily wooed by the new restaurant with the cool sign or catchy brand name. Then, a call center that quickly answered the phone got high marks, even if the rep had an attitude, or simply couldnt answer our question and transferred us from Patty to Paul to pillar to post. Then, we excused indifferent service on the grounds that someone was having a bad day, but gave little thought to voicing our displeasure or abandoning the service provider.