"Filled with treasure and big ideas, this book will help you become exceptional." - SETH GODIN In a tight market, your most powerful growth engine and your best protection from competitive inroads is this: put every thing you can into cultivating true customer loyalty. Loyal customers are less sensitive to price competition, more forgiving of small glitches, and, ultimately, become "walking billboards" who will happily promote your brand. In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit insiders Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon reveal the secrets of providing online and offline customer service so superior it nearly guarantees loyalty. Their anticipatory customer service approach was first developed at The Ritz-Carlton as well as at Solomon's entertainment and technology company Oasis , and has since proven itself in countless companies around the globe from luxury giant BVLGARI to value-sensitive auto parts leader Carquest, and everywhere in between. Now, readers can take the techniques that minted money for these brands and apply them directly to their own businesses. As Ken Blanchard writes, "Leonardo and Micah's philosophies, rules, and winning examples of service excellence will make you want to implement their suggestions immediately in your own organization." Filled with detailed, behind-the-scenes examples, the book unlocks a new level of customer relationship that leaves your competitors in the dust, your customers coming back day after day, and your bottom line looking better than it ever has before. Honors received: * A Jack Covert Selection * CEO Refresher Top Ten Best Business Book of the Year * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Awards Shortlist winner * Philadelphia Bulletin "Must Read" business book * Book of the Month, Las Vegas Women's REALTOR® * DearReader.com Business Book Club Selection * Shanghai Daily Press #1 U.S. Business Book " If you want to deliver a superior client experience, then have every employee read this book.  That's what we've done .  This volume is simply that profound, that good." Jim S. Miller, President, Prime Performance "A must-read for anyone interested in transforming their interactions with clients - a manual for winning customer loyalty that actually inspires." Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us " Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profi t is a book after my own heart. This is the way to run a customer-focused company!" Ken Blanchard, coauthor The One Minute Manager® --Ken Blanchard "What you read here will allow you to recalibrate your business--on any scale--to truly know your customers and keep them coming back for more." Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company --Horst H. Schulze ' Aha ' -type examples... Inghilleri and Solomon draw on their experiences with blue-chip service companies [to show how] companies must deliver "anticipatory" service. Inc. Magazine review by Editor Leigh Buchanan "A wonderful, practical book that explores the interactions that build customer loyalty. Required reading for anyone [building] a new company and for seasoned business leaders." Prof. Frank A. Philpot, George Mason U. School of Management Author interview with Micah Solomon by Blog Business World . ( Interviewer: Wayne Hulbert) Micah Solomon, President of Oasis Disc Manufacturing, founder, College of the Customer website, co-author with Leonardo Inghilleri of the highly practical and transformational book Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions about the book. What was the background to writing this book?   Micah Solomon :  Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit has an interesting genesis: In part, it is a distillation of the ideas that have led to the growth of my own business, Oasis Disc Manufacturing from its start in a room in my basement to its current status as a leader in its sector of the entertainment industry. This growth has been possible because I created systems that allow customers to retain a personal, human experience at our company in spite of the rate at which our company has scaled. And, I was extremely fortunate to team up with someone I've always wanted to work with: Leonardo Inghilleri , an instrumental force in creating similar systems in a different context at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, The Walt Disney Company , and now The West Paces Hotel Company . Leonardo and looked at the parallels in our systems and extracted a single comprehensive strategy for our readers. We wanted to wind up with a single set of technologies, principles, and strategies that could leverage shoestring budget businesses and much larger ones equally well. Your book is about creating exceptional customer service. Why do so many otherwise astute companies fail so badly at providing great customer