The Ownership Quotient

Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit such enthusiasm for their organization that they infect countless customers with similar satisfaction, loyalty, and dedication. Customer-owners are in turn so satisfied with their experience that they relate their stories to others, persuade them to try your product, and provide constructive criticism and new product ideas. As a new generation of managers has been changing the way that products and services are designed and delivered, authors Heskett, Sasser, and Wheeler have followed the evolution of this new ownership model. Case studies from companies as diverse as Harrah's Entertainment, ING Direct, Build-a-Bear Workshop, and Wegmans Food Markets bring home the central principle of engagement - and showcase ways to raise the ownership quotient among both your employees and your customers. With the authors' decades of consulting and research paving the way, you'll learn to identify your customer-owners; consistently exceed their expectations in ways they truly appreciate; and foster, measure, and grow the Ownership Quotient throughout your company. An organization that learns how to cultivate an ownership attitude creates a self-reinforcing relationship between customers and front-line employees. The lifetime value of a customer-owner can be equivalent to that of more than a hundred typical customers. And that makes the lifetime value of an employee who can promote customer ownership priceless. This powerful and practical book shows you how to add that value to your company and delight your employees, customers, and investors. Is your organization ready to make the transition to an ownership state of mind?

Organizations worldwide have used a groundbreaking tool the service-profit chain to improve business performance. In The Ownership Quotient, the authors reveal the next level of thinking about the service-profit chain based on recent research into exemplar companies. Heskett, Sasser, and Wheeler extend the service-profit chain to include customer and employee "owners." Customer-owners are so satisfied with their experience that they relate their stories to others, persuade them to try a product, and provide constructive criticism and new product ideas. Employee-owners exhibit such enthusiasm for their organization that they infect customers with similar satisfaction, loyalty, and dedication. The lifetime value of a customer-owner is equivalent to that of a hundred merely typical customers. That makes the value of employees who promote customer-ownership priceless. Powerful and practical, The Ownership Quotient is your playbook for pushing performance to unprecedented levels.

In this pathbreaking book, world-renowned Harvard Business School service firm experts James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger reveal that leading companies stay on top by managing the service profit chain. Why are a select few service firms better at what they do -- year in and year out -- than their competitors? For most senior managers, the profusion of anecdotal "service excellence" books fails to address this key question. Based on five years of painstaking research, the authors show how managers at American Express, Southwest Airlines, Banc One, Waste Management, USAA, MBNA, Intuit, British Airways, Taco Bell, Fairfield Inns, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and the Merry Maids subsidiary of ServiceMaster employ a quantifiable set of relationships that directly links profit and growth to not only customer loyalty and satisfaction, but to employee loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity. The strongest relationships the authors discovered are those between (1) profit and customer loyalty; (2) employee loyalty and customer loyalty; and (3) employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Moreover, these relationships are mutually reinforcing; that is, satisfied customers contribute to employee satisfaction and vice versa. Here, finally, is the foundation for a powerful strategic service vision, a model on which any manager can build more focused operations and marketing capabilities. For example, the authors demonstrate how, in Banc One's operating divisions, a direct relationship between customer loyalty measured by the "depth" of a relationship, the number of banking services a customer utilizes, and profitability led the bank to encourage existing customers to further extend the bank services they use. Taco Bell has found that their stores in the top quadrant of customer satisfaction ratings outperform their other stores on all measures. At American Express Travel Services, offices that ticket quickly and accurately are more profitable than those which don't. With hundreds of examples like these, the authors show how to manage the customer-employee "satisfaction mirror" and the customer value equation to achieve a "customer's eye view" of goods and services. They describe how companies in any service industry can (1) measure service profit chain relationships across operating units; (2) communicate the resulting self-appraisal; (3) develop a "balanced scorecard" of performance; (4) develop a recognitions and rewards system tied to established measures; (5) communicate results company-wide; (6) develop an internal "best practice" information exchange; and (7) improve overall service profit chain performance. What difference can service profit chain management make? A lot. Between 1986 and 1995, the common stock prices of the companies studied by the authors increased 147%, nearly twice as fast as the price of the stocks of their closest competitors. The proven success and high-yielding results from these high-achieving companies will make The Service Profit Chain required reading for senior, division, and business unit managers in all service companies, as well as for students of service management.

Praise for Adversity Quotient. "With AQ, Paul Stoltz has done something remarkable: He synthesizes some of the most important information on how we influence our own future and then offers a profound set of observations which teaches us how to thrive in a fast-changing world!"-Joel Barker, President, Infinity, LTD, author of Paradigm Shift. "Adversity Quotient will show that you have more control over events than you think. The key is changing your beliefs. Believe it or not, that can usually be done in One Minute." -Ken Blanchard, co-author, The One Minute Manager. "Paul Stoltz's AQ explains why some people, teams, organizations, and societies fail or quit, and how others in the situation persevere and succeed. With this book, anyone or or organization can learn to reroute their AQ and hardwire their brain for success." -Daniel Burrus, author, Technotrends. "AQ is one of the more important concepts of our time. Paul Stoltz's book provides the direction and tools necessary for putting this idea into practice. It is a must read for anyone interested in personal mastery, leadership effectiveness and/or organizational productivity." -Jim Ericson, Program Director, The Masters Forum.

Entire service businesses have been built around the ideas of Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger, pioneers in the world of service. Now they test their ideas against the actual experiences of successful and unsuccessful practitioners, as well as against demands of the future, in a book service leaders around the world will use as a guide for years to come. The authors cover every aspect of optimal service leadership: the best hiring, training, and workplace organization practices; the creation of operating strategies around areas such as facility design, capacity planning, queue management, and more; the use—and misuse—of technology in delivering top-level service; and practices that can transform loyal customers into “owners.” Looking ahead, the authors describe the world of great service leaders in which “both/and” thinking replaces trade-offs. It's a world in which new ideas will be tested against the sine qua non of the “service trifecta”—wins for employees, customers, and investors. And it's a world in which the best leaders admit that they don't have the answers and create organizations that learn, innovate, “sense and respond,” operate with fluid boundaries, and seek and achieve repeated strategic success. Using examples of dozens of companies in a wide variety of industries, such as Apollo Hospitals, Châteauform, Starbucks, Amazon, Disney, Progressive Insurance, the Dallas Mavericks, Whole Foods, IKEA, and many others, the authors present a narrative of remarkable successes, unnecessary failures, and future promise.

This book presents the Cube One framework, which provides a basis for understanding, diagnosing, and improving organizational performance. It is based on the premise that successful organizations enact practices that satisfy three key constituents: the enterprise itself, customers, and employees. This book offers a uniquely empirical approach by examining enterprise-, customer-, and employee-directed practices. Validity evidence is provided by survey research, studies of financial metrics, and the analysis of cases involving well-known organizations (such as Google, Four Seasons, and Mayo Clinic). The Cube One framework is equally applicable to organizations in the for-profit, nonprofit, and government sectors. After reading this book, students and scholars, as well as organizational practitioners in the fields of organizational behavior and management, will find a practical approach to improving organizational performance.

The definitive guide to designing digital-first experiences customers love. In his third book on the topic of customer experience, bestselling author and consultant Joe Wheeler tackles the challenges many organizations are facing as they attempt to design compelling experiences in a digital-first world. It features case studies of leading brands including Lemonade, Spotify, CEMEX, VMware, Starbucks, NIKE and Amazon. Part One introduces the new "3 Cs", key trends associated with technology convergence, competition and culture change in a post-pandemic world. Part Two takes a deep dive into seven design strategies, from designing emotional peaks across channels to empowering customers through immersive experiences that merge physical and digital assets. Part Three provides a playbook for how to design digital-first experiences, including how to solve the right problems, develop a measurable business case, design digital-first experiences customers love and execute the new design at scale.

"An incredible reckoner for anyone navigating a leadership position or on a career path to successful leadership in an organization. Yugandhar’s work should serve as a book that one can keep referring to for almost any situation in the work environment. Experienced professionals and those embarking on their first jobs will benefit tremendously."-Vikram Sudarsan, President and CEO, Engrail Therapeutics, San Diego former CEO Cipla Technologies "Today, when technical skills in a person are easier to find and learn, the competitive advantage of an organisation and a person comes from their people management skills. Through the Lens of people management, the book provides insights into the qualities that make a leader. A timely book for SME owners looking to scale up, employ more people and build loyalty."-Nupur Pavan Bang, PhD, Associate Director, Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise, ISB "The Transformational Lens is an insightful book for anyone interested in transforming their leadership and people management skills. It is a much needed read for People Managers in these challenging and unprecedented times."-Ajay Keerthy, Global Head of International Marketing, HSBC How does one empower teams and enhance capability? How does one manage oneself while influencing and leading teams? This book simplifies the complex journey of building a wonderful enterprise of highly effective employees. It provides actionable insights along with some real-life examples emphasising more on those critical aspects that many leaders and supervisors often tend to neglect or avoid practicing at work. Beyond catering to fundamental and transformational needs, the book dishes out practical solutions for people development, influencing teams and building workplace synergies.