Review: Customer-Focused Quality: What to do on Monday Morning Reviewed for Sbshow.com by Gene Fairbrother, MBA Consulting Inc. (posted Feb. 24, 1999) Customer-Focused Quality: What to do on Monday Morning By Tim Hinton and Wini Schaeffer Publisher: Prentice Hall There is often one key reason why a business will fail: inattention to the customer. That's a bold statement, in consideration of all the hype we hear about "customer service" in today's business world; yet so many businesses make the mistake of talking-the-talk without walking-the-walk. Customer-Focused Quality is a comprehensive guide that provides many of the business-tested tools you need, to implement and sustain a customer-focused process to maximize profits, improve productivity and establish a reputation for greatness. You'll discover, step-by-step, how to: Listen to your customers and measure their satisfaction -- with guidelines for tracking and resolving customer complaints, and implementing better customer service through your business. Ensure your business's quality process is supported by your employees -- including easy-to-implement plans for enhancing the work environment, formulating professional training programs and boosting productivity and morale. Search for the real cause of a problem -- avoiding "quick fix" solutions and setting realistic goals based on your customers' expectations. Achieve a business reputation for quality -- with the help of the "Real-Win-Worth" approach and "v-i-s-i-o-n" problem solving methods. Make a commitment with your staff, in the pursuit of quality, through employee training, motivation and implementing a "can-do" culture. Customer-Focused Quality has ready-to-use checklists, diagrams and examples to help you implement customer-focused programs in your business. In addition, you also get dozens of real-life examples of these successful techniques in action. Businesses today can't succeed without focusing on quality. This guide gives you the tools you need to gain a distinct edge in the competitive marketplace. In Customer-Focused Quality you'll find solid answers to the all-too-often-asked question, "I've read all the books, but what do I do on Monday morning?" This book is packed with strategies to help business owners maximize earning and productivity through quality improvements and by paying attention to the lifeline of every company -- the customer. If you really want to target the synergy between your business products or services and your customers, this book is a good starting point. About the authors Tim Hinton is president and CEO of the Customer Relations Institute of San Diego, Calif., a firm specializing in customer relations training programs. Wini Schaeffer is director of customer-focused quality for Motorola, a winner of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. About the reviewer Gene Fairbrother is the president of MBA Consulting, Inc., and one of the leading small-business experts in the United States. Fairbrother is a frequent contributor to numerous small-business publications and is often interviewed by such national publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune and other publications looking for professional expertise about marketing, finance and entrepreneurship. He appears as a speaker throughout the country, addressing a wide-variety of business topics. Fairbrother also directs the popular ShopTalk 800 service offered to members of the National Association for the Self-Employed. Customer-Focused Quality: What to Do on Monday Morning By Tim Hinton and Wini Schaeffer What would you like to do next? Return to the SBS Bookshelf index Learn about our starter package Find out about available upgrade options Visit our frequently asked questions (FAQs) area © Small-Business Showcase