The Real Heroes of Business

The real heroes of business and not a CEO among them is meant for readers who want to know "how to find, train, manage and retain world-class service workers." It is also for readers who want become world-class service workers. This book is about "the people who answer the phones and wait table, who open doors and give directions , who load planes and serve drinks, who fix cars and stack apples, who sell recliners and cash register tapes, who clean drains and fix telephones, who make bank loans and manage frontline workers." The stories of each of these individuals is of value to those of us providing service to our customers. The authors "set out to find some of the best frontline service workers in America, and write a book explaining what made them special, what motivated and satisfied them. We also wanted their insight about how bosses could create a working environment in which high standards would be the norm, in which customers would be treated like a blessing instead of an inconvenience, in which creativity, innovation, and, not incidentally, profits would flourish." Bill Fromm is the author of The Ten Commandments of Business and How to Break Them. He is also the founder and president of Barkley & Evergreen, a national marketing and advertising agency based in Kansas City. Leonard Schlesinger is a professor at Harvard Business School. He served as vice president and chief operating officer of Au Bon Pain, a chain of French bakery cafés. I suggest that this will be of interest to service providers, internal support to service providers, and those hiring service providers. The definition of service provider here includes sales, tele sales, sales service, technical service, customer service, and others that come in contact with customer. The authors searched Fortune magazines top 500 service providers plus over 300 additional companies from the national's finest service providers. This provided a list of several hundred nominations that were first reduced to about forty candidates, then reduced further before being contacted by a "mystery shopper." The result was the fourteen individuals discussed in the book. Each of the fourteen chapters tells us about an individual and explains why they were selected. During the chapter the authors include inserts explaining the relevance of the preceding information about the individual. The final paragraphs of each chapter provide tools for defining the value of the individual (what does their service excellence mean in dollars to the organization) and how to find more of them (what do you ask or look for?). After the fourteen chapters that discuss the individual service providers there is a conclusion about "the care and feeding of the real heroes of business." This is followed by an appendix with twenty questions to help you find world-class service workers and another to help determine their worth to the organization