Book Club: Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

I heard Ken Blanchard talk about this book once, and I made notes. I've just dug them out for you. Here's what he said: 

“Sheldon Bowles and I wrote the book Raving Fans: Satisfied Customers Are Not Enough. (NB Sometimes the strapline is 'A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service' - Phil).

Sheldon is an entrepreneur from Canada. In the 1970s, when everyone decided to go to self-service gasoline, Sheldon’s gut instinct was that it was a perfect time to go to full service.

He created a series of gas stations across western Canada called Domo Gas.

His vision was that going to one of his stations would be like an Indianapolis 500 pit stop.

All the attendants were dressed in red jumpsuits. When the customer drove in, they would race to the car. One would begin working under the hood, another would start pumping gas, a third would ask the customer to step out of the car, give them a cup of coffee and a newspaper while the other attendants vacuumed the car.

Sheldon's stations blew away the competition. They created raving fans. That's where the concept came from.

At some of Sheldon’s stations the employees had cards made up and after they had given you a coffee, passed you a newspaper to read, cleaned your windscreen, checked your oil, asked you if you wanted to step out of the car while they vacuumed inside for you as you looked as if you were on a long trip and might welcome a little internal car tidy up…they would give you a card as you were leaving that said ‘We also do gas!’�

Tom Peters and his co-author Robert Waterman put customer service at the heart of the leadership agenda in their book In Search of Excellence twenty-five years ago or so. Ken Blanchard, with his focus on bringing together 'serving' and 'leadership' helped cement the idea that great leaders serve , and that great organizations exist to serve.

As trading conditions get tougher and some organizations turn inwards to deal with it - focussing on realigning themselves, cutting costs, headcount and so on, we need to remember that keeping a sharp focus on the customer is, more than in the good times, vital to survving and thriving.

Some people might not like the parable approach of Ken Blanchard's writing - the 'fairy godmother' in the book, for example. But, his ability to simplify into the 'Decide, Discover. Deliver' framework that is outlined in the book is powerful.

It's short, it hasn't dated. It's well worth reading. Cauvery mentioned it in a post a couple of days ago, which prompted me to dig my copy out and mention it here.