Passionate and Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and Ten Steps to Do Them Right

By Lior Arussy

Book Overview

"I've always said that education without execution is just entertainment - and Lior illustrates this beautifully in his book. It is important to learn HOW to implement a successful Customer focus strategy and you need knowledge and process to do it well. Read this book and learn."--Tim Sanders, Author of "Love is The Killer App"

"Lior brings original thought to the world of business, ideas drawn from reality, based on solid observations with the clear objective of helping people make money. Read this and profit."--Jerry Vass, Author of "Soft Selling in A Hard World" and President Vass Consulting

"You might not like this book. It's not filled with easy shortcuts and feel-good platitudes. BUT, when you're ready to walk the walk and not just talk the talk) about treating your customers right and growing your business, Lior's book is a fine place to start down that rarely-followed, very profitable path."--Seth Godin Author, Purple Cow & Free Prize Inside

"Lior Arussy is a true customer advocate. This book is a must-read for anyone who knows that the only sustainable competitive advantage is to create a unique and meaningful customer experience."--Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief, CRM magazine

According to Strativity's 2003 CEM global study, 45% of executives surveyed do not believe they deserve the customer's loyalty. Following a decade of customer-centric books, the market is in a state of crises with over 50% customer focused projects fail. Passionate and Profitable is a new book that takes a critical look at the state of the companies' commitment to customers and exposes the fatal mistakes companies make and the lip service they pay to their customers.

Full of examples and statistics, Passionate and Profitable argues that customer strategies success depends on making serious tough choices and not cosmetic works. It is those tough trade offs that will help companies unleash their passion for customers and in return, increase their profitability and sales.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471713929
• ISBN13: 9780471713920
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book

Excellent book. A great answer to those they think that the customer is part of their graphs.

Customers are #1

I bought this book because I was buying another one of Lior's books, and I am glad I did. This book is a great book if you want to change the way your company does business and how it treats it's customers. Like other reviews about this book have said this book gives you basic principals on how to build better customer "relationships" (not relations, notice the "ship" at the end) with your customers. I am an IT Director for a company, and have a side network consulting business and I have put the ideas in this book to use in both places. If you buy this book and don't get anything out of it, at least take this little nugget: "Remeber your customer is the reason why you are in business." -- Lior Arussy, Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right!.

Great book for those serious about their customer strategy

Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right has a rather simple premise - spending time and money on customer retention is of no value if it is not done in the context of having a well-defined execution strategy. The goal of the book is to show the reader how to form strong, sustainable, and profitable relationships with customers. The challenge is that there are many critical decisions and trade-offs that have to be made, but many companies often make the wrong decision. Another issue is that many companies live by the credo of `Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door'. The problem is that even with the best mousetrap, the world won't come if you don't have a well-developed customer strategy. Passionate & Profitable is all about creating that well-developed customer strategy. The book is worth it alone for the 25-question corporation-customer experience aptitude survey on pages 19-20. The survey examines the health of your relationship with your customers and is likely a good indicator of your profitability. Another great section is pages 109-115 which goes into the organization-focused vs. customer-focused organizational structure. This section shows how many organizations are created with functional expertise via groups, i.e., engineering, R & D, sales, operations, etc. Arussy shows that a customer-centric organization must have the customer focused in the center, with the various groups supporting those customers. The beauty of a customer-centric organization is that all of the employees and functions are fully aligned around the customer cause. Chapter 8 reiterates the importance of organizations training their employees and trusting them to make the correct decision. A focal point is that if you do not trust your people, do not hire them. And if you hired them, give them the tools to excel. After all, their success is your organizations success. For those organizations that are serious about their customer strategy and looking for ways to improve it, Passionate & Profitable is a valuable book that can help achieve that goal.

Passion - it's the name of the game

I've had the pleasure of attending Lior's seminar and I was extremely impressed with his passion towards the subject of customer experience and focus. After the seminar I read his book and I was not disappointed - it's a goldmine - full with insights and concepts that are right on money. Share this book with your peers...I did - it helped me drive some great new ideas in my organization.

Go get some passion

I had the privilege of reading "Passionate & Profitable" over the past couple of weeks. This book is well worth the investment in time. There are quite a number of useful nuggets of information here, as in the customer segmentation analysis and the customer experience mapping models. Customers drive business needs, this is the bottom line. If you want happy customers then get some passion and figure out why they are your customers in the first place. It sounds simple, but it isn't. Arussy does a fine job explaining the pitfalls, and offers mechanisms to steer you in the right direction. Also, if you have ever had the chance to attend a "training" class, you will soon find out why you should have been in an "education" class instead. There is a difference as Arussy points out. Get this book and read it, then give it to a friend and have her read it also. But have her get her own copy; you will want yours back. -Scott Feldman