Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service

Harvey Mackay, a businessman and writer, explains that successful businesses share a focus on customer service. This is a widely accepted tenet in theory, but it is relatively rare in practice. Mackay attributes this to the lessons managers learn in business school, which treat customers as a monolith to manipulate via clever advertising. Nevertheless, Mackay sees signs of a shift. The quality of consumer goods has reached a point where further improvement will lead to diminishing returns for businesses. By contrast, improvement in customer service could yield substantial rewards.

Mackay introduces the book’s coauthors, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, who he says have distilled the practice of customer engagement to a few core principles. Mackay knows both men personally—Blanchard mentored him in the writing of his own book, and Blanchard, Bowles, and Mackay were all involved in the Young Presidents’ Organization—and vouches for their expertise. Mackay considers Raving Fans so important that he plans to give copies to all his employees.

A freshly promoted Area Manager for an unnamed business is worried about his new responsibilities. He has assured his company president (“the President”) that he will focus on total quality for his department only to be told that his focus is too broad.