Introduction

Why is it that customer service is still cited so frequently as being terrible, with evidence from your most recent bad airline experience offered up? It could be because a brighter spotlight on services has led to improved management and, with it, rising customer expectations. Airlines, for example, have never provided such dependable service to so many people. Good airline service, perhaps too fondly remembered 25 years later, is no longer remarkable or even adequate for customers who experience it much more frequently than their counterparts in earlier days. We still complain mightily when an airline service snafu occurs. Regardless of reasons why customers complain about the services they receive, or whether or not overall levels of service have improved, it's clear that there is room for a great deal of improvement in the way services are managed and consumed.

Meanwhile, some firms have become known for providing exemplary service. In every service industry, one or two organizations—breakthrough services—are leading the way. Whether we're talking about Whole Foods Market or Apple in the retailing sector, the Vanguard Group or ING Direct (now Capital One 360) in financial services, Disney in entertainment, the Mayo Clinic or Apollo Hospitals in medical services, Southwest Airlines in transportation, or a select group of other service organizations in their respective industries, they share one thing in common: they have all changed the rules governing how entire global service industries are operated. That's what is so exciting about them. It's what makes it important to understand how they are designed and led.

Over the past 35 years we've observed some of the world's most effective service leaders. Good leaders are good teachers. And they have taught us a lot. In the process, we have tried to get into the heads of these leaders to figure out how what they know influences what they do in creating successful services that have stood the test of time.

Through stories based on our collective experience, as well as an exploration of the underlying theoretical work in the field and its practical application, we present a narrative of remarkable successes, unnecessary failures, and future promise. We write with a definite point of view. The book seeks to provide a road map for the design and delivery of winning services for leaders entrusted with the task in the years to come.