Raving Fans
by Ken Blanchard
Reviewed by: Dave Wiseman, Team-wise.
ISBN - 0006530699
n Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles have done it yet again. An inspiration read about customer service. The book is an easy read written in the style of business fable.
I have given this book to so many people to read and they all came back talking about it. It has been adopted as the standard for customer service in many organisations.
So what is Raving Fans about. This approach suggests that if we want competitive advantage in our business that we don't just want to create happy customers, we want Raving Fans, people who think that our business is the best thing since sliced bread as it were.
So does it work. There is lots in this book that is awesome and whether or not you can implement it step by step is another thing however I have found in my own business that simply being aware of the concept has had a profound impact on how I have worked towards both external and internal customers.
There are of course some parts of the book that I liked more than others, the fairy godmother, Charlie, and the Golf, would not have been my first choice, but I have to respect Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles for giving it a go and as always, making it work. I did like the way that I could read it in a couple of hours and give it to anyone without them thinking it was a boring text book.
Some of the concepts have been incorporated into the development programmes that we run and when I re-read the book I realised that the customer service programme that I had run and called "+1%" had come straight out of this book.
So that's a big well done from team-wise.
