Socks and service.

* Knock Your Socks Off Service on the Phone by Ron Zemke, print, 1999, 113pp., American Management Association (800-262-9699, www.amanet.org), $89.95. Other material: audiotapes.

* Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service by Ron Zemke with Bobette Hayes Williamson, print, 1999, 248pp., American Management Association (800-262-9699, www.amanet.org), $159.

Ron Zemke is an established expert in explaining how to "wow" your customers with his trademark Knock Your Socks Off customer service publications. His materials (including several books, audiotapes, and seminars) have already earned high ratings for their practical and insightful advice. Now, several of the Knock Your Socks Off books have been developed into a self-study course, Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service. Its message and design are consistent with the quality of the earlier publications.

Since customer service is important for all industries, this new resource is an easy, yet effective, way to deliver basic skill training or refresher training. Although designed for self-study, it can easily be adapted for classroom or group discussion forums. The course is organized into manageable and well-defined segments. Zemke delivers a balanced menu of sequential topics.

The book starts with the basics you would expect in a customer service course: the importance of service and explanations of basic customer service communication skills (tone of voice, listening, questioning, etc.). A customer service training toolbox should also include tactics for handling irate or angry customers, and this area is covered, including helpful information for handling complex customer service problems.

Specific areas that give this workbook an extra "spark" are more in-depth customer handling sections such as "Smart Answers to Tough Customer Questions," "Educating the Customer," and "Problem Solving." The latter section includes knowing when to abide by the rules and when to make an exception to retain customers. Also addressed is how service and sales work in tandem, dispelling any we-they misconceptions. The book rounds off a full perspective of customer service by finishing with a chapter on "Taking Care of You" (i.e., the employee). This is an appropriate ending for an often stressful job that demands high performance.

The structure of the book's eight chapters includes "interactive features" such as self-assessment exercises, goal-setting and action-planning worksheets, and mini concept review exercises. Each chapter has a brief concept recap and corresponding review questions at the end. Customer service "pointers" are organized as "desktop reminders." The reminders are supplemented with a laminated quick reference card.

The text meets the challenge of a self-study course. The content is sequenced effectively, both as a whole and within individual chapters. The reader's interest and motivation are sustained with the exercises that are interspersed throughout each chapter. The exercises ask the learner to apply the principles to his or her own work environment. Many of the exercises take the customer's perspective. If the learner does not have specific personal experiences to associate with a specific concept, the case studies help to provide a real world context.

The end-of-chapter reviews provide the learner with a feeling of satisfaction for completing the chapter. The reviews are quick, usually five multiple-choice questions. They test "big picture" concepts, not application. I'd rate the book even higher if it provided learners with examples of poor customer service and asked them to recommend remedies.

Knock Your Socks Off Service on the Phone, also by Ron Zemke, is to Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service what the PDA is to the computer. The Phone book is compact but it still carries a powerful message. It's an excellent companion piece to Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service because it fine tunes the principles addressed in the larger book with a specific telephone delivery channel focus.

The Phone book could also be utilized as quick stand-alone training or as a jump-start to telephone customer service training, which would then be followed up with the larger book. For those who are really on the go, an audiotape (two cassettes) version of the Phone program is included.

The Phone brings you the same conveniences as the phone -- immediate, easy access. The chapters are quick and easy to navigate. The material covers the essential elements of quality telephone customer service. The customer service concepts have the same punch as the larger book and many topics unique to the telephone service format are also added to this specialized book, for instance, the chapter devoted to mastering telephone technology.

This course covers how to handle difficult calls ("Saying No-Positively," "Ending the Endless Call -- Gracefully"), irate callers, and job stress. The last chapter, "Personal Action Planning," underscores the benefits of keeping a learning log, a nice touch for a self-study program.

The book doesn't include the recaps or quick reviews at the end of the chapter nor the case studies of the Delivering book. However, the Phone workbook is intended to enhance and extend the information or methods provided on the audiotapes. Therefore, the learner can rely on the flexibility of the tapes to review and assimilate concepts rather than the book learning. Learners are encouraged to listen to the tapes more than once, replay sections as often as needed, and take notes while listening to the tapes. This flexibility fits naturally with the self-study format.

Recommendation

Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service is practical and effective as a stand-alone self-study course. If your employees are motivated to earn college credits or if you provide them with incentives, the course could pay big dividends in improved customer services. The breadth of the Zemke message and the flexible design allow you to customize as much as necessary for your own customer service training needs. As a text in a classroom course, it provides excellent discussion points, and the self-study exercises may easily be adapted to a group setting.

Knock Your Socks. Off Service on the Phone is a compact print course on telephone customer service that stands out because it features the good advice of Ron Zemke and the flexibility of a print-audiotape combination.

Diane Sidwell Jones ([e-mail]) is a training and development specialist for National City Corporation in Franklin, PA. She has been involved in various training and development projects in the banking industry since 1989. She has developed, facilitated, and supervised training initiatives such as customer service and sales, coaching and performance management, and several merger and consolidation projects.

Customer service product ratings

Product/               Delivering Knock Your  Knock Your Socks off
Ratings                  Socks Off Service    Service on the Phone.

Holds reader interest          ****                   ****
Instructional value            *** 1/2                *** 1/2
Self-study value               ****                   ****
Value of content               *** 1/2                *** 1/2
Diversity                      ***                    ***
Value for the money            ** 1/2                 ** 1/2
Overall rating                 ** 1/2                 ** 1/2
ONLINE REVIEWS September-October 2001


Confined Space Entry              Software  *** 1/2
Hazard Communication              Software  *** 1/2
Knowledge Anywhere                Online    ** 1/2
Managing Web Projects             Print     *** 1/2
Mark of a Leader                  Online    * 1/2
Mission Critical:                 Video     ** 1/2
 Attacking Conventional Thinking
Selecting Strategic Hires:        Software  *** 1/2
 Interviewing MBAs
Teamwork:What's Trust Got to      Video     ** 1/2
 Do with it?

(****)Outstanding

(*** 1/2)Very good

(***)Good

(** 1/2)Above average

(**)Average

(* 1/2)Below Average

(*)Poor

(NA)Not applicable

(NR)Not rated (usually not enough information)