In Customer Mania! , Ken Blanchard, one of America's biggest bestselling authors and inspiring business leaders, writes of the key to customer service—creating a people-oriented, performance-driven, customer-first organization. Customer service is the single most pressing problem for business managers and people in any service or sales operation, especially at the retail level. In fact, many experts believe that you build a business from the customer up. With coauthors Jim Ballard and Fred Finch, Blanchard explains why the customer is the right starting place from which to build a successful business. By drawing on examples from the world's largest restaurant company, Yum!—owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants—the authors explain how any company, large or small, can develop a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture. Packed with practical insights, Customer Mania! emphasizes four critical steps: • Set Your Sights on the Right Target. The bottom line grows from taking care of customers and creating a motivating environment for your people. • Treat Customers the Right Way. Determine the kind of experience you want your customers to have as they interact with every part of the company. • Treat Employees the Right Way. Use strategies ranging from smart hiring to training and development to managing performance and creating a recognition culture. • Build the Right Kind of Leadership. You can't do it all yourself, so let your people put their own brains to work and then support them all the way. By relying on these concepts, businesses everywhere can cultivate passionate and engaged team members who contribute to the company's overall success. From CEO to middle manager to the person facing the consumer, Customer Mania! is a vital tool for enhancing their experience -- and their customer's. Kenneth Hartley Blanchard is an author, business consultant, and motivational speaker. His writing career includes over sixty published books, most of which are coauthored books. Jim Ballard has written a number of inspirational books, including Mind Like Water and What's the Rush? He has coauthored several popular books along with bestselling business guru Ken Blanchard. Teachings of the worldrenown author and yogi Paramahansa Yogananda inspired Jim to write this wave fable. Jim is a business consultant, hospice volunteer, and Big Brother. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. Please visit Jim's website at www.littlewave.org. Customer Mania! Chapter 1Yum! Meets the One Minute Manager I HAVE THE GREATEST job in the world. I travel hither and yon, observing how organizations behave. I’m always looking for companies that are trying to build themselves the right way—by focusing on their customers and creating people-first, performance-based cultures. Why is customer focus so important? Because whether you’re selling pizzas or professional services, your business is not about you. It’s about the people you serve. I say I’m always looking for companies that are trying to do it right because building a company the right way is a continuous journey. There is no final destination. When I find an organization on this journey, I am excited. The Beginning Four years ago I was asked to speak about customer service to an annual meeting of KFC (originally Kentucky Fried Chicken). At that conference I met David Novak, who at the time was president of Tricon—the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. During that meeting, David told me about the journey he and his folks were on to revitalize a lackluster balance sheet by becoming a customer-centric organization. David knew that his company, like most companies, had already been giving lip service to focusing on the customer. He believed that building a company the right way meant going beyond merely listening and responding to the customer; it meant putting together a can-do team that was obsessed to go the extra mile for the customer. David intended to create nothing short of a Customer Mania culture throughout all their restaurants worldwide. Talk about an ambitious dream. In 1997 KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut had been spun off from PepsiCo to form Tricon. At that time, Tricon’s balance sheet was in trouble. The new company had inherited a $4.7 billion debt and its return on invested capital hovered at a feeble 8 to 9 percent. As if that weren’t a big enough challenge, in 2002 Tricon bought two additional quick service restaurant brands—Long John Silver’s and A&W All American Food Restaurants—and in the process became by far the largest restaurant company in the world, employing some 840,000 people at nearly 33,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories. It was at this time the company changed its name to Yum! Brands. Given their financial situation and the sheer size of the enterprise, the task of creating massive cultural change was daunting, but that didn’t seem to faze David. I loved that attitu