Customer care - learn from those who do it right

This is neat: FastCompany released its 2006 Customer First Awards. The winners, "transform ordinary transactions into entertaining experiences -- delighting customers and showing everyone else the way." What's great is that the Fast Company site not only lists the winning companies, but it also describes why they're worthy of the honor so it's an ideal place to find some pointers and ideas. Also featured are podcasts from the winners as well as related articles.

Speaking of customer service, don't forget about internal customers as well. Employees are the people who actually take all of the strategies laid out in marketing plans and make them happen...or not. To be successful, employees must understand what the organization is trying to accomplish and be given the tools and support to get the organization to where it aims to be. Services, unlike goods, involve employees creating the service along with the customer. This unique aspect of services gives employees a promising opportunity to shape the service to meet or exceed customers' expections. However, if under-trained and unprepared, employees can fall short of what customers want. Obviously, the role of front-line staff is extremely important in any service, including library services. For these reasons I was very excited to find the blog Quality Service Marketing that specializes in internal marketing and internal communications. It's written by a former Chairman of the American Marketing Association who is currently a marketing and organizational advisor. Of course, we all know of more good blogs than we can keep up with, but this one appears to fill an important internal marketing niche. As an added bonus, the author writes with an accessible, educational tone for non-marketing types. I'm already finding some terrific ideas (take a look at this post for instance).

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