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World Hotels - Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience
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List Price: $26.95
Our Price: $17.79
Your Save: $ 9.16 ( 34% )
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Manufacturer: Wiley
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 647.94068
EAN: 9780470043554
ISBN: 0470043555
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2007-02-26
Publisher: Wiley
Studio: Wiley
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Editorial Reviews:
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Praise for Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough "Jonathan recognizes that in today's Internet-fed, savvy-consumer world, it is the people-to-people connections, regardless of price point, that differentiate a customer's experience. Gimmicks come and go, but without sincere and caring people delivering the overall experience, from start to finish, well, it's true--chocolates on the pillow are not enough. A great read!"
—David Neeleman, founder and CEO, JetBlue Airways Corporation "If you don't work for your customer, you're not doing your job. Who better to turn to for lessons in great customer experiences than Jonathan Tisch? He has long been one of the most respected leaders in travel and hospitality, and when it comes to treating all customers like guests, to put it simply, he gets it. And then some."
—Millard S. Drexler, Chairman and CEO, J. Crew Group "What brings customers back to my restaurants? Why do viewers watch my TV show? It's more than Bam! It's delivering a kicked-up customer experience. Tisch is the guy who knows how to do this best. His book gives the inside scoop on how to excite your customers and bring 'em back for more."
—Emeril Lagasse "Attention to detail, passion, and dedication are a few of the things that made me successful as an athlete. Jonathan knows that by doing the same in business, you maximize the customer's experience and outscore the competition."
—Tiki Barber
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Easy read, but useless on customer experience
Comment: This is a good book to read with really lots of cases and examples from current business landscape, even though it contains boring and repetitive cases of Target, Starbucks, Prius, iPod etc. But the problem with it is that as the book progresses, authors begin to forget what they initially claimed they were going to talk about, i.e. customer experiences. The book is a cocktail of every business thing under the sun. You only get a few real customer experience cases. Regarding theory, don't expect to find any as the lead author is obviously a businessman and not a theoretician. So, no theory and no good and sound examples on customer experience management, not even from the 'hospitality' industry where the author comes from. Although it is quite easy to read, the book is totally useless from a learning point of view. So I suggest you should look for other sources on customer experience management rather than buy and/or read this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting but lacks cohesiveness
Comment: Jonathon Tisch is Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, one of the premier hotel groups in the world. In Chocolates on the pillow aren't enough, he takes us beyond some simplistic (but important) customer centric concepts to show us how to re-invent the customer experience. If you are looking for a book that describes the hotel business, you need to look somewhere else, because Tisch and co-author Karl Weber take us far beyond the walls of Loews Hotels.
Tisch endeavors to show how to engineer the total customer experience by in effect re-imagining the customer experience.
Tisch writes about The Hospitable Organization - Turning customers into guests. Here he shows how Gerry Levin, former CEO of AOL Time Warner is re- imagining health care although it should be noted that his concept is only suitable for extremely wealthy people.
To some extent the book lacks continuity and a real sense of cohesiveness as we are taken through numerous concepts to re-invent the customer experience.
Concepts include;
Home away from Home: The art of welcoming customers
One size does not fit all: The new art of customization
Let me introduce you: Customer communities in an interactive world
Everyone is welcome: The challenges of customer diversity
This is not a standard customer service book but the benefit of this book is that it will help you to think through some potentially new customer centric solutions that may help you grow your business.
Customer Rating:
Summary: ho hum - buy this used.
Comment: If you have been living under a rock and have no clue about trends in customer service over the past few years - this is a good book. However, if you have ever studied the Dell customer experience and looked at successful retailers, or unless you want to read an infomercial for Loew's hotels, your money is better spent elsewhere. I found the constant references to Loew's hotels annoying given the chain isn't exactly the pinnacle of the customer experience. The anecdotes could have come from any number of fine hotels around the globe. You're better off buying this used or looking elsewhere. This work is neither eye opening nor inspiring. I found myself reading it quickly in order to drop it off in a reading room instead of allowing such garbage to take up room in my carry on bag. You can go to the Villa Andarra in Bali (which in spite of being a small hotel, connects well with its guest) to read my copy for free.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Give Your Best, Then A Little Bit More
Comment: Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Are Not Enough" is a must read for anyone who is in the business of serving people - whether in the private, the non-profit, or the public sectors. (I have extrapolated the application of Tisch's ideas to organizations that are not commercial enterprises). Tisch translates his years of experience and observation as a hotelier to address both the why and the how of "meeting a challenge that never ends." It is the challenge of creating deeper, richer, more satisfying connections to your organization in today's complex, rapidly changing world. While you can get closure on a number of key management tasks, you can never declare "mission accomplished" when connecting with customers,employees, or donors. Like other relationships in life, a relationship with any stakeholder is a long-lasting, evolving, living entity.
Themes and practices in "Chocolates" are drawn from some of the world's smartest and most successful organizations including In-N-Out Burger, McDonalds, Dell, Sephora, Commerce Bank (NJ), Virgin Healthcare, Revolution On-line (Steve Case), Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Target, E-Z Pass, 311 phone exchange, Harley Davidson, and EBay. Any reader is bound to find one, two, or three exciting ideas that can be applied immediately in his/her own organization. Tisch adds "Big Aha's" at the end of each chapter summarizing the key thoughts/actions making the book a useful reference.
Tisch provides the hotelier's secret (people remember the experience not the attributes), and answers to the question "What happened to my customers?"(in world beset by discord, inequality, hyper-partisan politics, and the threat of terror). He helps us to re-imagine the customer experience and focuses our attention on creating customers who are happy to buy.
A most valuable part of the book for all will be the sections on the "The Art of Welcome." This is something most companies (and in particular, non-profits) do not give attention to, whether with customers, new employees, or suppliers. Tisch warns us to pay attention to the decompression zone, where people enter, and THEIR threshold resistance. We must learn to understand what makes people feel welcome, comfortable and relaxed. If we do, they want to buy (the customer), or make a significant contribution (the new employee, supplier, or donor).
"Chocolates" highlights why the art of the welcome is crucial to all organizations. And Tisch chides us to give our best, and then, a little bit more.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lots of solid customer experience know-how
Comment: The book has two main sections - a problem/solution statement and a (much longer) section on "Reimagining the Customer Experience". Each chapter has a "Big Ahas" section at the end to summarize the critical points Jonathan is trying to make and the book is generally well-written and an easy read. It is a little hotel- or hospitality-industry centric but not more than you would expect given his background.
The first section lays out why the authors think that customers are more fickle and harder to please than in the past. Arguing that there is no way to turn back the clock, they talk about "getting back to basics" and creating stronger, longer-lasting ties to customers. He quotes the CEO of Proctor and Gamble "People remember experiences. They don't remember [product] attributes." The book talks about engineering the total customer experience as the solution, starting by focusing on the totality of the customers experience across every touchpoint. Among his solution ideas are looking for ways to give your customers both simplicity and flexibility, thinking about all the touchpoints your customers have, linking with customers directly even if you are not selling directly and that customers are a moving target.
The second part has a series of chapters, most of which had some great points. These range from discussion of the power of personalization and customization in making customers feel in control and happy to buy, to the challenges of providing security. He is a big proponent of transparency, arguing that what one customers knows all will soon know and that you can get real benefits out of being more transparent. He argues that even big organizations can think small in terms of welcoming customers that you should build your future with existing customers.
All in all a good and worthwhile read. You might want to consider The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More also.
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