Are you meeting your customersâ demand for great serviceâand saving money at the same time?
If not, youâre at a serious disadvantageâmissing out on building a sustainable business thatâs profitable, scalable, and capable of delivering
excellence every day.
In Uncommon Service, Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei and coauthor Anne Morriss bring a provocative new argument to the
table: that companies must dare to be âbadâ in order to be great, choosing strategic ways to underperform while fueling a winning service advantage.
According to the authors, âuncommon serviceâ is created by specific design choices made in the very blueprint of a business model. And itâs
not about making a customer happy; instead, itâs about creating an organization where all employeesânot just star performersâprovide excellent
service as a matter of routine. Outstanding service organizations create offerings, funding strategies, systems, and cultures that set their people up
to excel casually.
Introducing a decidedly fresh view of service, the authors present an organizational design model built on tough choices you must make about
four dimensions of your business:
⢠Your service offering: How do customers define âexcellenceâ in your offering?
⢠Your service funding mechanism: How will you get paid for delivering excellence?
⢠Your employee management system: How will you prepare your employees to deliver excellence every day?
⢠Your customer management system: How will you get your customers to behave in ways that improve their service experienceâwithout
disrupting anyone elseâs?
Create an organizational culture that reinforces smart decisions around these four dimensions and youâll achieve a service advantage that rivals
canât hope to copy.
Frei and Morriss illustrate the power of this approach with examples of winning companies from a wide array of industriesâincluding financial
services, commercial aviation, health care, and retail. Practical and engaging, Uncommon Service makes a powerful case for a new and systematic
approach to customer service as a pathway to unprecedented productivity and profitability