Customer Astonishment: 10 Secrets to World-Class Customer Care

What is "Customer Service?" What does this phrase really mean? For years, I thought I truly knew what it meant, and that I was doing a great job of delivering it to my customers. Then along came Darby Checketts' book, "Customer Astonishment - 10 Secrets to World Class Customer Care" and, "Wow", what an eye-opener! I realized it was not so much about delivering great customer service, but understanding how to create a service excellence culture within your organization, which involves the commitment and participation of every employee, no matter what their job title or function or position in the Company. Every customer interaction is an opportunity to grow your business, and if you are not astonishing your customers internally and externally with each interaction, you're not quite there! Darby's book contains useful strategies written in plain language. The book is a sort of "how-to guide" with some pretty funny real life stories that inspire you to move from where you are to where you want to be. This book helps you look at what service excellence is and what you need to do to get there. If you can no longer afford to deliver service that is just average, prepare to move to the next level and create a service excellence culture within your organization that will last for years to come. I highly recommend Darby Checketts - "10 Secrets to World Class Customer Care".

Darby Checketts hits a home run with this book, it's worth way more than the asking price. It's full of great examples, good advice, and step-by-step ways to achieve customer astonishment. This book would benefit anyone that owns, runs, or manages a business.

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (2/07) Darby Checketts's "Customer Astonishment: 10 Secrets to World-Class Customer Care" is another of the many "how-to" books geared towards anybody dealing with customers; which in today's business world is nearly everybody. Most people would agree that it is relatively easy to get a new customer, but much more difficult to keep them - and that's where Checketts provides some very interesting and useful insights. The book is divided into several sections, starting with an introduction and preview of the 10 secrets to world-class customer care. This is followed by the author's special note on how to use this book. Section I, which consists of the next five chapters, is entitled "Get Ready" and it sets the stage for Section II: 10 Secrets. Each of the secrets is illustrated with several examples, with the companies doing a great job being named and those that do not kept anonymous. Checketts helps us find our own path by providing examples, key words, catchy slogans and numerous questions to be asked of ourselves. The last few chapters, Conclusion, Epilogue, Recommended Books and Appendix with the Additional Friendly Tips were some of the most powerful pages in the book as far as I am concerned. The final example of customer service that truly cares about the customer, described in the Epilogue, should be a must read for every entrepreneur. Checketts clearly shows which factors are the deciding ones when it comes to gaining a customer's loyalty and he explains how any company, whether large or small, could achieve similar results with small, oftentimes extremely inexpensive changes. Numerous examples quoted in the books should give any company owner, manager or just an employee a great starting point for developing a similar winning strategy for their company. One of the points that Checketts stresses repeatedly is that EVERYBODY is responsible and everybody should own up to it. The "I just work here" attitude does not produce results. The success is only guaranteed when each and every person working for a company takes responsibility and shows initiative. Oftentimes the smallest changes could lead to the biggest shifts in customers' loyalty, as Checketts illustrates perfectly when describing a hotel where they washed his car's dirty windows for him and doing so, they saved him a trip to the nearest service station and gained a loyal customer. Although the entire book reads a little bit like a cheerleader's manual, very "rah-rah, let's go..." I do have to admit that some of the ideas in it are quite valuable and they seem to be really easy to implement. The writing style is easier to take once you learn that Checketts is a motivational speaker. Although I did not find any radically different and novel ideas in it - maybe I've listened to too many motivational speakers already? - I would still recommend "Customer Astonishment" to anybody who is looking to improve their customer care

Customer Astonishment: Ten Secrets To World-Class Customer Care by Darby Checketts (President of Cornerstone Professional Development, Mesa, Arizona) is an informed guide to creating a positive and effective customer relationship regardless of the service or project being provided. Knowledgeably conducting an exploration of good marketing skills for both the employees and the company, Customer Astonishment deftly addresses the issues of professional accountability, simplistic economic value, and personal satisfaction between sales rep and the customer. With the inclusion of Darby Checketts' "10 Secrets to World-Class Customer Care", Customer Astonishment is very strongly recommended as invaluable, profitable, reading.

Darby Checketts' writing generates excitement. In "Customer Astonishment" Checketts identifies 10 key aspects that assure you that customers will bring their business to you rather than to someone else. The book is arranged in two sections. The first section "Preparation" boldly sets the stage for the specific principles and methods that follow. Darby asks 21 powerful questions to stimulate your creativity. He then introduces you to dynamic proposals for generating your own personal customer astonishment strategy. A grid is provided to help you strategize your plan of action. Checketts exudes confidence and enthusiasm in his writing. He shows intuitive insights in customer relations as he energizes you, the reader, to apply these contagious principles personally. In part two Darby introduces his secrets, numbers one through ten, using questions, lists, illustrations, charts, and grids, to enhance your customer and staff communications. The chapter "Get Connected" is jam packed with practical ideas for building these relationships. Darby intersperses case studies throughout the book. These provide situations that can be adapted in your own day to day operations. In the chapter "Get it Together" Checketts presents a plan for working through challenging and difficult situations while developing principles of team conduct. His illustrations are incredible. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to be on the cutting edge by entering into this world of "Customer Astonishment." Darby Checketts has crafted a superlative template for customer care.