The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

"New Gold Standard" is a super, if slightly older, book on a really important subject: The Ritz-Carlton is one of the organizations whose methodology has truly transformed our understanding of what customer service quality and consistency can be. I recommend "The New Gold Standard, especially if you're in the hotel business; Michelli, who also wrote The Starbucks Experience, is a consultant who did a great job writing it. I don't agree with the catty comments on this page that its writing style is sleep-inducing, etc. -- I guess they're complaining because it's written in an academic style and is maybe overly deferential to the owners of the Ritz (hey, it is an "official" history). Nonetheless, in my opinion it is still full of many well organized details and a helpful book for anyone in hospitality. Some of the strong points in particular are the historical overview and the interviews Michelli includes. (One note to be aware of: There's now also a newer book on practical applications of Ritz-Carlton customer service and management techniques that's just come out this May; I really enjoyed it a lot. I got a lot out of this newer book ("Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit"); it's by the founder of the Ritz Carlton Leadership Center along with Horst Schulze, the Founding President of The Ritz. They collaborate with an entrepreneur/systems expert from *outside* of the hospitality industry; this allows them to cover management issues in a lot of depth and in fields that are often far removed from just hotel-industry topics. Here's the link: Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization.

This is a fantastic book, something every Hotel Manager should read and keep in their personal library as well as motivate his/her team to do the same. It is a must read for those who are willing to provide high quality service on a consistent basis.

Dr. Joseph A. Michelli has established the platinum standard for books on branding with his newest publication, The New Gold Standard. Michelli provides readers with an in-depth, experiential analysis of how employees bring to life the gold standards, credo, motto and values of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company brand. The book is filled with tons of WOW moments delivered by Ritz-Carlton employees, which result in exemplary service to their customers. As someone who works with organizations in the service industry, I found great value in understanding brand strategies developed by Ritz-Carlton, and realizing new ways to apply those to my work, and the work of my clients. As he has done with past books, including The Starbucks Experience, Michelli provides a broad range of readers with insights into the reasons why certain brands exceed customer expectations by engaging employees in the brand development process. The New Gold Standard is a must for anyone involved with the development of brands, which should be all of us!

As a business advisor and CEO coach to companies around the world, I read upwards of 120 books a year in order to find the very best ideas I can to help my clients succeed. I have several clients who are struggling to take the level of customer service their firms deliver to a much higher level -- so I sent every one of them a copy of this book! If you really want to understand what it takes to deliver consistently superior customer service "The New Gold Standard" is superb. When you combine it with Dr. Michelli's other fantastic book "The Starbuck's Experience" you have a solid platform to build on. Great ideas and tools, motivating stories and rigorous research - both of his books are at the very top of my list for customer service! I strongly recommend this book - you will not be dissappointed in any way. John Spence

As a frequent guest of Ritz-Carlton throughout much of my life, I can personally attest to the validity of its reputation for superior guest service in all respects. In fact, such service is consistently of such a high quality that guests take it for granted. Founder César Ritz observed long ago that "people like to be served, but invisibly." I agree while presuming to suggest that the "Ritz-Carlton experience" becomes visible whenever I stay elsewhere. What we have in this volume is a rigorous and comprehensive examination of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company that, to the best of my knowledge, has not previously been provided. Joseph Michelli seems to have had almost unlimited access to its senior corporate executives, hotel managers and staff members ("the heart of the house"), and of special interest to me, its Leadership Center headed by Diana Oreck, vice president of global learning. Michelli observes that "From my perspective, the Ritz-Carlton [customer] experience is reflected in leadership committed to unrelenting quality, respect for all of the company's staff encounters, and oddly enough, also a great spirit of candor." Individual initiative is not only encouraged but indeed expected at all levels and in all areas in fulfillment of The Motto, "Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen." As I read this book, I was reminded of what retired CEO Herb Kelleher says when anyone asks him to explain Southwest Airlines' competitive advantage: "The intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplane. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn't something you can do overnight and it isn't something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways. That is why I say that our employees are our competitive protection." He could have just as easily been explaining Ritz-Carlton's advantage in another highly competitive industry in which others also have excellent locations, superb facilities, state-of-the-art technologies, haute cuisine, etc. The framework of Michelli's narrative is based on Ritz-Carlton's five principles that any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can establish and then sustain, creating a "gold standard" of its own: define core values and refine by leveraging continuous improvement; empower people with authority as well as responsibility through trust in their ability and eagerness to live The Motto; "It's not about you" (i.e. focus on serving associates as well as guests); deliver WOW! (i.e. a "thrilling customer interaction," especially when problems develop unexpectedly, as they i vitably do); and "leave a lasting footprint," an enduring legacy of great service for generations to come. Michelli ex