Customer service

The best stay attuned to their customers’ signals in the social graph.

While management skills can improve service systems, a manager is better off if he or she first has a clear understanding of the operating characteristics that set one service system apart from another. This author offers one view of services, which, if followed, results in a “rational approach to the rationalization” of services. His view, […]

CEO Tony Hsieh explains why the company moved from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

It's one of the most basic aphorisms of business: The customer is always right. But when companies, especially large ones, try to rectify a service failure,...

Jill Hoover was looking skyward, marveling at the heart-stopping beauty of Paradise Park-Seattle's newest attraction, its tallest and scariest roller...

Cisco’s CEO on reading market trends before anyone else does

A genuine and human approach to transactions is rare, but it can transform a business.

Four recommendations to improve the (virtual) doctor-patient relationship.

A framework to help policymakers, insurers, and providers consider how telehealth fits into their future.

The pandemic has cast a spotlight on a historically undervalued asset.

Managers typically look for ways to reduce wait time to increase customer satisfaction. New research suggests there's a better approach: showing customers...

An organization's culture powerfully shapes how people behave and how they do their work. Culture can therefore be more important than strategy for sharpening...

New research confirms that the bigger the employees' smiles, the happier the customers.

Lessons from an American Express exec who threw out the script.

Learn to detect subtle discrimination in your customer service.

As technology becomes more powerful and affordable, your company is only limited by its imagination.

A couple of years ago, I coauthored with Rob Lachenauer an article called “Hardball: Five Killer Strategies for Trouncing the Competition.” The piece, along with a subsequent book, was misunderstood by many people. Critics said that hardball meant playing dirty or mean, neither of which is true. What is true is that hardball—let’s face it, […]

Research suggests a new way for companies to use customer satisfaction surveys: Instead of asking customers what went wrong, begin by asking what went...

The Inn at Little Washington, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is one of America’s most acclaimed restaurants, rated number one in North America by Travel + Leisure magazine and listed among the top ten in the world by the International Herald Tribune. Yet, as co-owner and chef Patrick O’Connell explains, exquisite food is the norm at […]

Meet the innovative finalists.