The Customer Rules (Book Review)

The Customer Rules: The 39 Essential Rules for Delivering Sensational Service by Lee Cockerell

As an HR professional, I don’t often interact with the end-customers for our business. However, I learned early in my career that HR’s internal customers (managers and staff) are to be treated as well as, if not better than, we actually treat our customers who purchase our products and services. It’s the opportunity for an HR/recruiting professional to serve others well.

I’m always looking for ideas on how to better serve our people here, and when I saw this I knew I had to check it out. Read on for a few ideas that I picked up from this handy book.

The Customer Rules Lee CockerellWhat I liked

  • You hear stories every day about great service, poor service, and everything in between. This simple statement hit me pretty hard: Great service does not cost any more than average or poor service. When it costs nothing to offer a smile and a kind word, why isn’t it the norm instead of the exception?
  • Your service statement should inspire your staff to new heights of delivering world-class service to customers. This quote from the book is a perfect example: It has been our responsibility to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality. Wow. It doesn’t say, “Be nice” or “Help customers quickly.” It says “fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality.” If that doesn’t inspire you I don’t know what will.
  • In the chapter on hiring the best people, Cockerell talks about the time he learned to stop asking leading questions in interviews. We all know that behavioral interviewing can bring great results, but when the question sets the person up to sound like a rockstar (whether they truly are or not), it reduces the value of the responses provided. An example he gave is “Tell me about a time you went above and beyond to satisfy a customer.” A better question might simply be “Tell me about a time you served a customer,” and then you judge if it’s truly an above and beyond type of experience.

Wrap up

I would recommend this book for anyone looking for ideas to serve customers (internal or external) better. I think we can all learn a few lessons (or be reminded of the tried-and-true principles of service, at the very least) from this book. If you are interested in checking it out, click here to get your copy of the book.

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The Crown Publishing Group provided this review copy.

2 thoughts on “The Customer Rules (Book Review)

  1. Pingback: The Customer Rules « Lee Cockerell – Lessons in Leadership

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