Are you meeting your customersā demand for great serviceāand saving money at the same time?
If not, youāre at a serious disadvantageāmissing out on building a sustainable business thatās 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 ābadā in order to be great, choosing strategic ways to underperform while fueling a winning service advantage.
According to the authors, āuncommon serviceā is created by specific design choices made in the very blueprint of a business model. And itās
not about making a customer happy; instead, itās about creating an organization where all employeesānot just star performersāprovide 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:
ā¢ Your service offering: How do customers define āexcellenceā in your offering?
ā¢ Your service funding mechanism: How will you get paid for delivering excellence?
ā¢ Your employee management system: How will you prepare your employees to deliver excellence every day?
ā¢ Your customer management system: How will you get your customers to behave in ways that improve their service experienceāwithout
disrupting anyone elseās?
Create an organizational culture that reinforces smart decisions around these four dimensions and youāll achieve a service advantage that rivals
canāt hope to copy.
Frei and Morriss illustrate the power of this approach with examples of winning companies from a wide array of industriesāincluding 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