Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces With Customers

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Summary: An excellent guide to service in the internet age
Review: "Best Face Forward" looks at how today's technology advances have revolutionized the front office. It argues that savvy companies can outpace the competition by employing the right blend of technology and people to best service customers. The authors convincingly argue that service - be it via a website, a telephone, a TV, a kiosk, or in person -- is the last frontier of sustainable competitive advantage.

The arguments are supported with references to the business literature as well as many original examples. For instance, the authors show how QVC, a company that generates more revenue and earnings per employee than either its chief competitor Home Shopping Network or Wal-Mart, uses people and machines to deliver an intelligent, coordinated, efficient customer service proposition. The authors also examine the damage that can be done when businesses fail to recognize that a customer's experience with a telephone reservation line or website matters as much as the experience they have at a physical location. Anyone who has ended up in "voicemail hell" when trying to call their credit card company will recognize the importance of this message. "Best Face Forward" is a must-read for anyone who wants to overhaul or audit their customer touch-points and replicate the success of the leading companies.

Also, on a side note, this is a refreshing change from most business books. Many offer an exciting if obvious idea that gets you to buy them, only to then leave you flabbergasted at how completely obvious and rudimentary they are inside. Or, they are filled with management science that is totally divorced from any practical advice. "Best Face Forward" offers an exciting new idea, but is also well researched and supported with interesting content, and is highly actionable. As a bonus, it is also fun to read. I greatly enjoyed it.

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Summary: A Must-Read for a New Kind of Competitive Advantage
Review: I found this book compelling and actionable. The stories - which are drawn from a wide range of examples and not just the usual suspects that seem to appear in every book these days - were on target, covered a variety of industries, and were fun to read. I especially liked the frameworks for taking a look at the business and figuring out what to do next. These frameworks move beyond understanding customers to understanding customer experience - an important new dimension. The authors clearly know both the practical and the academic dimensions of the topic, and the bibliography is helpful in pointing to other places to look for deeper dives into the material. This is one of those rare books you can enjoy and learn from at the same time.

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Summary: A practical and good read for real managers
Review: My MBA son-in-law gave me this book (he'd taken a course with one of the authors) and I couldn't put it down. I'm in what the book would call B-to-B, and the book provided some pleasant surprises. I got the argument right away, and the examples are on target. At the end they give some extremely helpful ways to start attacking the challenge. My business is in the middle of what Rayport and Jaworski talk about and I kept seeing what we're struggling with in their stories. We've got a number of different ways we deal with customers, too: a couple of websites, a sales force, and a call-center. You always want to make how you meet customers as effective as possible, but the book shows that you've not only got to do it at each point, but also across what they call the "interface system." It all sounds right, but I've seen books that say the right things without giving you a way to actually start doing something. The authors here actually go the last mile. The last chapter goes through questions you can ask yourself and your business, and then walks you step-by-step through how you can begin to take up making the system "efficient and effective," as they put it. Having only experienced home shopping on the bill-paying side (!), the extended comparison near the end of the book of how QVC and Home Shopping Network differ in their interface systems really got me thinking. This book actually meets the argument about people being replaced with machines head on in a way folks who are actually in the trenches running a business can understand. Let people do what people do best (isn't that the truth!), and let machines do what they do best. There are even places where putting people and machines together (what they call "hybrids") can work well. I can't recommend this strongly enough (although I'd hate to tell my son-in-law that!).

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Summary: A must read for anyone concerned with customer experience
Review: This book captures the essence of what organizations need to do today to help improve their relationships with their customers. It clearly outlines why we are at an inflection point in this new industrial revolution and provides pratical and easy to understand advice for addressing the problems! I highly recommend it.

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Summary: Not worth the bother. Stick with the article.
Review: This is a very disappointing book. I like the concept of "Reengineering the Front Office" but the book falls completely flat and does not live up to this initial promise. After reading through over 200 pages of case studies and the authors personal experiences of interacting with companies, I am completely unsure of what it is that I am suppose to take away? My only real conclusions from the book are that companies can use people, machines or a combination of the 2 to interact with their customers, and that how companies interact with their customers is important. I am not sure what is new here? Every business person has known these facts since the ancient market vendor and the invention of the postal system or telegraph.

I think that a large part of my confusion comes from the complete lack of framework that underpins the book. There is nothing that allows me to make trade-offs - for example: technology vs. human interaction; high touch vs. low cost; customer segment 1 vs. customer segment 2. As a result, the random series of case studies (from QVC to iPod to First Direct) and their personal anecdotes leave me with nothing more than nice little tid-bits for cocktail parties. As a business person, I am left grasping to understand how these stories are relevant to my experiences and how I can actually implement any of the concepts.

What shocks me most about this book is the sloppiness of its academic rigor. As leading researchers at HBS, I would have expected a much higher standard of research. For example, Rayport and Jaworski make the upfront assertion that excellence in customer "interfaces as the next frontier of competitive advantage". They only justify this assertion with high level econometric and other data related to such things as labor costs and customer satisfaction. It strikes me that there are a lot of companies out there that are doing just fine thank you very much, without having blue-ribbon interface systems in place. The authors have probably not set foot in a Wal-Mart store? Equally, the authors conclude that Toys "R" Us potential departure from the toy market is the result of the consequences of poor customer interfaces: "Toys "R" Us, once the category-killer for children's products, now offer impersonal service by employees who cannot locate SKUs, let alone remember what it was like to be a child; as a result, the chain now plans to exit the toy business". The same source of their academic research (an article in the NY Times) states that WalMart and Target have been significantly growing their share of the toy market to 20% and 18%, respectively. Again, these competitors are not companies that leap to the tip of the tongue as leaders in customer interfaces? Following Rayport and Jaworski's logic, FAO Swartz, known for its well informed and helpful staff and pleasant shopping experience, should be the market leader, rather than a bankrupt toy merchant?

This is a compilation of nice but old stories. I am not sure where the authors have been for the last 10 years? For example, First Direct bank was a market innovator in the UK in the late 80s. If you are looking for some good stories and some possible new ideas for interacting with customers than buy this book and skim it in front of the fireplace. However, if you are looking for clear take-aways and insights that will help you to re-think the way that you interact with your customers, and to put them in to practice, then stay away. At best, read the article 10 page article in the December, 2004 edition of Harvard Business Review. This book is really nothing more 200 pages of additional filler to that article?