Product Description

Whether your business has a few employees or several thousand, providing them with a handbook that spells out your company's benefits, policies and procedures makes great sense, practically and legally.

Create Your Own Employee Handbook provides all the information and policies managers, HR professionals and business owners need to create their own reader-friendly guide. Each chapter covers a different topic, including:

*at-will employment
*hiring
*pay and payroll
*workdays and hours
*performance evaluations
*benefits
*discrimination and harassment
*complaints and investigations
*leave health and safety
*substance abuse
*privacy in the workplace
*discipline

Each chapter first explains the legal and practical considerations that apply to its topic, then supplies sample policies that readers can use as-is or tailor to meet their needs. A CD-ROM lets readers cut-and-paste the policies to create their own handbook instantly.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #712310 in Books
* Published on: 2003-06
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 290 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
During her years as a law student at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, Lisa worked for Nolo as a research and editorial assistant. After a stint as a staff attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Lisa worked primarily in the field of employment law, in both government and private practice. Lisa recently rejoined the staff at Nolo, where she is the co-author of Nolo's Pocket Guide to California Law.

Attorney Amy DelPo brings more than six years of criminal and civil litigation experience to her work at Nolo, having litigated cases in all levels of state and federal courts, including the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Before coming to Nolo in January 2000, Ms. DelPo specialized in employment law, handling a wide variety of disputes between employers and employees, incluging sexual harassment, discrimination and wage-and-hour issues. Her real-world experience enriches her work at Nolo, where she writes and edits numerous employment law titles, including Dealing with Problem Employees (co-author), The Employer's Legal Handbook (editor) and Your Rights in the Workplace (editor). Ms. DelPo received her law degree with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Customer Reviews

Wonderful resource!5
This was a very useful purchase. I was able to use it very easily and I created a very good handbook with it's help.

Product Description

A proven method for measuring the value of every relationship in the era of collaborative business.


Progressive companies claim to focus on customers, yet too few understand how to profitably deliver what their customers truly value. Award winning business architects, Jeffrey Shuman and Janice Twombly have developed a proven method for measuring the value of every relationship. It is a method specifically designed for today's era of collaborative business. Their book, Everyone is a Customer, offers entrepreneurs and business executives easy to follow advice about how to achieve success through "win-win" collaborative relationships. Readers will learn how to redefine every business relationship as a "customer" relationship; value, measure and manage those relationships; and create new value and improve company performance.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #1453520 in Books
* Published on: 2002-08-07
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 240 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap
Every Single Name in Your Rolodex Represents Potential Income

In today’s business relationships, the balance of power has shifted to the customer. This is not news. But in Everyone Is a Customer, the "customer" has been redefined.

Everyone with whom a business interacts—internally and externally—is a customer. However, companies need to effectively allocate resources to those relationships that create the greatest strategic value in order to improve performance and increase profits.

Traditional customer relationship management (CRM) and partner relationship management (PRM) strategies and technologies recognize that organizations need to interact with customers and alliance partners in a more meaningful way. But they do not take into account relationship currencies. According to award-winning entrepreneurs Jeffrey Shuman and Janice Twombly, collaboration is the key to success in today’s networked economy. Successful collaboration, say Shuman and Twombly, comes through effectively trading in relationship currencies.

Built on the revolutionary concepts from their last book, Collaborative Communities, Shuman and Twombly outline methods every company and businessperson can use to develop and measure win-win collaborative relationships.

Managers, leaders, and business owners will learn how to:

*Redefine every business relationship as a "customer" relationship.

*Value, measure, and manage relationship currencies.

*Realize value through both cash and non-cash currencies.

*Work toward Purposeful Collaboration, that is, the allocation of resources toward the most valuable relationships.

*Determine a company’s value from a new perspective by putting a tangible value on an intangible, such as customer relationships.

In the age of collaborative business, you must think from the perspective that everyone is a customer, that there is quantifiable and significant value in non-cash relationship currencies, and that the intricacies of all forms of business relationships can be objectively measured and managed. By thinking about business from these new perspectives, you can accomplish your goals and achieve success.

About the Authors

Jeffrey Shuman, Ph.D., and Janice Twombly, CPA, are founders of The Rhythm of Business, Inc., a firm that helps businesspeople and organizations measure and manage the value in their business relationships for strategic benefit. Shuman is also professor and director of entrepreneurial studies at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts, and in 1999 received an Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur Of The Year Award. David Rottenberg is an editor at Shuman and Twombly’s company and has written for several regional and national publications. Together, they are the authors of Collaborative Communities: Partnering for Profit in the Networked Economy.

Advance Praise for Everyone Is a Customer:

"Many companies are realizing that the relentless forces driving collaborative business—customer-driven markets, smarter applications of business technology, and a relentless drive for innovation—are too powerful to ignore, and they’re trying to jump in, any way they can. Shuman and Twombly’s book can give those companies—as well as those that have yet to take the plunge—not only the broad perspectives they’ll need to make it work but also a set of tactical and tangible tools that’ll help them measure their progress against their objectives."
—Bob Evans, Editor-in-Chief, InformationWeek, and Senior Vice President, CMP Media

"Just when I was beginning to think ‘business book’ was an oxymoron, Everyone Is a Customer lands on my desk. This is the real thing: a substantive, useful guide to rethinking the true value of business relationships. Chapter 3—exploring how to monetize all of your company's relationships—is worth the price of admission by itself."
—George Gendron, Editor-in-Chief, Inc.Magazine

"As the web of the extended enterprise increases in complexity, managers and entrepreneurs need more than good instinct to conduct business relationships profitably. Everyone Is a Customer provides a smart, practical framework and tools that we can use today for measuring and extracting fair value from the relationships we rely on to meet our business goals."
—Gregory K. Ericksen, Global Director, Entrepreneur Of The Year, Ernst & Young

"In an era of uncertainty, economic turmoil, and global unrest, the greatest asset of any business or businessperson is the relationship. Rich in ideas, tactics, and actions, Everyone Is a Customer delivers a clear and crisp framework for understanding and leveraging every business relationship to its fullest. Jan and Jeff have become masters of effectively communicating the essentials of business success and choreographing the road map to business opportunity."
—Thomas M. Koulopoulos, President, Delphi Group, and Author of X-economy

About the Author
Jeffrey Shuman, Ph.D., and Janice Twombly are founders of The Rhythm of Business, a knowledge firm that helps create awareness, understanding, and adoption of collaborative business. Shuman is also professor and director of entrepreneurial studies at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts, and in 1999 received an Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Janice Twombly and Jeffrey Shuman, Ph.D., are founders of The Rhythm of Business, a knowledge firm that helps create awareness, understanding, and adoption of collaborative business.

David Rottenberg is an editor at Shuman and Twombly's company, and has written for several regional and national publications.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Collaboration may be the most important concept in business ttoday. A recent search for the term on the Internet turned up thousands and thousands of business-related references. Yet in March 2000, while researching our last book, Collaborative Communities: Partnering for Profit in the Networked Economy, a similar online search came up with just a few references, and they mainly related to cooperative housing and academic or intellectual collaboration.

So why the sudden attention to collaboration? The answer is simple.

Collaboration is important because we live our lives and conduct our business in an increasingly connected and interdependent world. Collaboration is how work gets done when we can’t get it done alone. In our personal lives as consumers, whenever we have the financial wherewithal, we rely on an increasing number of specialists to help us with our needs. In war, we form alliances for very specific advantages. In business, more and more companies understand that to truly succeed in our global and networked economy, growth and profits come through true partnerships with all our varied constituencies.

Indeed, many businesspeople are realizing that significant financial benefits accrue through collaborative relationships with other businesses. And increasingly companies are finding that the best strategy is to collaborate with their customers in the design, development, and delivery of their market basket of goods and services.

So not surprisingly, many businesses have essentially made collaboration their new corporate mandate. It’s as if all you need to do is implement software that allows you to conduct "collaborative commerce" and you’re on the road to success. However, it is our view that to be effective, collaboration requires both a mindset nurtured and developed by an entrepreneurial focus on the customer and the support of technology that provides realtime information and measurements. Collaboration must have a clearly defined purpose. Collaboration driven just by the ability of tools or by the management concept du jour results only in costly failures. Unfortunately, based on what we see and hear, in too many instances it is the superficial approach that is being taken.

Since writing Collaborative Communities, we have worked with dozens of companies to develop collaborative business models, all the while building our own Collaborative Community. And whether using the entrepreneurial clean sheet of paper to start a new business or iterating an xisting business model, we have observed and experienced firsthand the myriad challenges to building a collaborative business.

Lately, we’ve stepped back from all the details to think about what we’ve learned. More than anything else, we realize that what separates the successful from the unsuccessful is the ability to build trusting, purposeful, mutually beneficial relationships. Of course, like you, We’ve always known that relationships are important in business. What we hadn’t appreciated is that in addition to requiring a lot of hard work, successful collaborative relationships require an analytical and disciplined approach.

Like many things in life, some people have an in-born, intuitive ability to build trusting, win-win relationships both in business and in their personal life. However, for the majority of us, this ability isn’t programmed into our DNA. For us, the ability to build trusting relationships requires understanding and practice. With understanding and practice, we, too, can develop this ability.

And that’s fortunate because now, more than ever, we need to work collaboratively to better understand our customers’ changing needs and take aggressive action to profitably meet those needs. Indeed, the necessity to work across traditional boundaries with like-minded people to achieve shared goals and the benefit from doing so have never been greater. But how do you truly evaluate which relationships are the right relationships to develop and nurture?

This book identifies and describes how you build, measure, and manage successful collaborative relationships. We call this skill Purposeful Collaboration and have methodically spelled out the step-by-step process it follows. Further, we have used the detailed description of that process to develop several analog and digital tools that, when coupled with your growing understanding, empower you to successfully build and maintain collaborative relationships.

Once you have developed the ability to trade in relationship currencies, you can focus your limited resources on those relationships that provide you the greatest benefit and offer the fastest return. Very simply, it’s how you do business in the era of collaborative business.
Customer Reviews

Reshaping A Business To Meet Customer Needs5
"Everyone Is A Customer"(2002) is a companion book to last year's "Collaborative Communities"(2001), which taken together, present a realistic roadmap for companies interested in changing with the times. They build on Peter Drucker's insight that when a business thinks through the relationships that make the most sense, it is the customer they should focus on to increase sales and profits. According to authors Jeffrey Shuman and Janice Twombly with David Rottenberg, This well written and insightful book, takes the reader step-by-step through an understanding of what it takes for a business owner to survive, innovate and prosper in the new era of collaborative business that relies so heavily on the networking of relationships to succeed.

The authors urge business owners to recognize the natural process of change that takes place once a business is started, resulting in the unforseen development of new products,new service, and new customers. They call this

Product Description

Filled with case studies and anecdotes, How to Talk to Customers demystifies the most critical aspect of customer service: conversations employees have every day with customers. In this must-have resource, Diane Berenbaum and Tom Larkin outline a proven system based on their MAGIC customer service training program. MAGIC, which stands for Make A Great Impression on the Customer, can help anyone become the type of communicator that makes their customers feel special.

For more on this book, visit www.howtotalktocustomers.com
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #325834 in Books
* Published on: 2007-03-30
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 224 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
“How to Talk to Customers presents a system for interacting with customers based on empathy, dignity, and doing the right thing. Use these ideas to turn your customers into raving fans.”--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and Customer Mania

“Warning: This book will radically change corporate cultures and provide businesses with a competitive advantage in customer service. MAGIC smashes superficial, ineffective approaches to solve complex customer service issues through a simple and fun approach. This framework can resolve even the thorniest predicament.--Barry L. Ogle, vice president, Leadership Enrichment Institute, Wyndham Vacation Ownership

“You have to take care of your co-workers and customers. This book takes common sense approaches and guides you on how to build successful business relationships.”--Paul Orfalea, Kinko’s founder and coauthor of Copy This!

“How to Talk to Customers illustrates the keys to making MAGIC every day with every contact. If service is a differentiator for your organization, this book should be on everyone’s desk, from the day they start!”--William M. Lyons, president and CEO, American Century Companies, Inc.

“The book that leaders at all levels have been waiting for. It provides a clear and practical tool for assessing customer interaction skills and will help any organization wow their customers with extraordinary service.”--Asheesh Advani, CEO, CircleLending

"Talking to customers seems so easy; however, to make a great impression on them, you need the MAGIC System."--Norma Diaz, CEO, Community Health Group

“Whether you are moving up the ladder or already running your organization, the advice in this book is truly MAGIC and will help you leave a lasting legacy with everyone you meet. Be remembered for the right reasons and make a positive impact with every encounter starting now; it will change your life!”--Paige Arnof-Fenn, founder and CEO, Mavens & Moguls

“I hope you believe in MAGIC, because this system can really help you build the generous, intimate, personal relationships with customers that will power the growth of your business!”--Keith Ferrazzi, author, Never Eat Alone and CEO of professional development and consulting firm Ferrazzi Greenlight

“If you deal with people, this book is a must-have! The relationships with your 'customers' (clients, co-workers, family and friends) will flourish as you put MAGIC to work.”--Jason Checketts, manager of learning and development, Wells Fargo

“There's no greater way to help your team build a culture of customer service than by using the MAGIC system. You'll see results immediately...and those results will truly amaze you (and your customers!).”--Brian Cole Miller, author, Quick Team-building Activities for Busy Managers

“MAGIC is one of those simple-but-far-from-easy ideas that can revolutionize a company because it transforms how people think and act. At FreshDirect, we believe in MAGIC and strive to practice it daily.”--Dean Furbush, CEO, FreshDirect

“Any call center senior executive, manager, supervisor - or anyone who talks to your customers - should read this book then commit to applying its simple principles. Tom and Diane bring to light the fact that all consumers are seeking a unique experience from companies today, and this is it.”--C. Paul Turner, managing director, Training and Performance Improvement, Citifinancial Mortgage, Inc. and Citicorp Trust Bank, fsb

“Any organization interested in creating passionate and loyal customers should read this book. The MAGIC system shows you how to impress even the most discerning customers.”--Rudy Escalante, CEO, ICSA Software North America, Inc.

“I Love How to Talk to Customers! I want this to be required reading for our employees going forward.”--Monica Kelly, quality analyst, account services, Colonial Supplemental Insurance

“One of the most useful manuals for companies and individuals who are serious about exceeding customers' expectations. Follow the 5 MAGIC

Steps, understand why words are perceived as tragic and how they can

become MAGIC, and MAGIC will become part of your company -- and personal culture.”--Jansje Stramwasser, Sr. Training Manager, Convergys Employee Care

“The journey required to develop a long-term relationship begins with that first, critical face-to-face conversation. Berenbaum and Larkin have created a masterful roadmap for how to build immediate rapport and lay the foundations for enduring trust.”--Andrew Sobel, author, Clients for Life and Making Rain

“What distinguishes you from your competition is often the customer's perception of his or her service experience. Read this book to discover practical ideas that you can use to delight your customer, every time.” --Deb Ketcham, Manager of Process Improvement, ACCO Brands Corporation

“Trust-based supplier/customer relationships are the wave of the business future. How to Talk to Customers is the handbook of how to create and navigate those critical relationships.”--Charles H. Green, founder and president, Trusted Advisor Associates

From the Inside Flap
"Every once in a while, we as consumers have a truly wonderful experience as a customer of a company. These interactions leave us feeling so positive about our purchase, our relationships with the company, and ourselves that we say, 'The experience was magic!'" —from the Introduction

Filled with case studies and anecdotes, How to Talk to Customers demystifies the most critical aspect of customer service: conversations employees have every day with customers. In this must-have resource, Diane Berenbaum and Tom Larkin outline a proven system based on their MAGIC customer service training program. MAGIC, which stands for Make A Great Impression on the Customer, can help anyone become the type of communicator that makes their customers feel special.

More than a simple set of skills that can be learned and practiced, MAGIC begins with a mind-set that reflects implicit respect for everyone and a commitment to demonstrate that respect. The book is filled with humorous and touching MAGIC (and Tragic) Moments that are real-life illustrations from customers, colleagues, and friends.

Using the detailed "33 Points of MAGIC," the authors show how any customer dialogue can be evaluated, measured, and improved. The book also contains a wealth of relationship-building ideas and dozens of tips, checklists, and exercises that will help you apply the principles to your own daily interactions.

How to Talk to Customers is a practical guide to customer contact for any business that wants to serve its customers at world-class levels day in and day out. And it will help any individual who wants to strengthen personal and professional relationships.

From the Back Cover
Praise for How to Talk to Customers

"How to Talk to Customers presents a system for interacting with customers based on empathy, dignity, and doing the right thing. Use these ideas to turn your customers into raving fans."--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and Customer Mania

"Warning: This book will radically change corporate cultures and provide businesses with a competitive advantage in customer service. MAGIC smashes superficial, ineffective approaches to solve complex customer service issues through a simple and fun approach. This framework can resolve even the thorniest predicament."--Barry L. Ogle, vice president, Leadership Enrichment Institute, Wyndham Vacation Ownership

"You have to take care of your co-workers and customers. This book takes commonsense approaches and guides you on how to build successful business relationships."--Paul Orfalea, Kinko's founder and coauthor of Copy This!

"How to Talk to Customers illustrates the keys to making MAGIC every day with every contact. If service is a differentiator for your organization, this book should be on everyone's desk, from the day they start!"--William M. Lyons, president and CEO, American Century Companies, Inc.

"The book that leaders at all levels have been waiting for. It provides a clear and practical tool for assessing customer interaction skills and will help any organization wow their customers with extraordinary service."--Asheesh Advani, CEO, CircleLending

"Talking to customers seems so easy; however, to make a great impression on them, you need the MAGIC System."--Norma Diaz, CEO, Community Health Group

"Whether you are moving up the ladder or already running your organization, the advice in this book is truly MAGIC and will help you leave a lasting legacy with everyone you meet. Be remembered for the right reasons and make a positive impact with every encounter starting now; it will change your life!"--Paige Arnof-Fenn, founder and CEO, Mavens & Moguls
Customer Reviews

A good alternative to the even better training!5
I'm familiar with the customer skills training program that this book is based on (MAGIC). Extraordinary! I've seen unbelieveable results when people apply the principles taught here in real life customer situations.

But if you dont have access to their MAGIC training, this book is a good back-up plan. All the info they hit in the training is here--you just have to be more self-motivated to study it and apply it without the benefit of any coaching or feedback. Nevertheless, the book is laid out in an easy to read. The topics flow naturally one into the next. You can imagine a customer interaction playing out as you make your way through the chapters. The book is chock full of examples as well as charts, graphs and checklists that make the points effectively.

One caution: dont expect to read this through some evening and then start applying it. I recommend you approach it more like a workboook...read a bit, put it down, try what you just learned (see the results!) and then pick it back up again.

Interestingly enough, I also use these principles when I'M the customer and others around me are amazed at the much-better-than-expected results i get when i complain or make requests! Thanks!

Great book for training customer service staff4
We've used this book to train our staff in how to be better customer service representatives on the phone. The book is more applicable to phone conversations, but works for in-person situations as well. Has given my staff good methods for dealing with really irate customers, long talkers, and in creating good report with customers.

Only negative is that the book is a bit cheesy, especially in the beginning. You have to read through the first 5 or 6 chapters before you start getting to things that you can readily apply in daily situations.

A practical method on a topic that is more important than most people realize5
The notion that we only get once chance to make a first impression is true. But it is also true that you make an impression with every customer interaction. This very practical book teaches you how to think through every kind of customer interaction and how to make it a positive experience for the customer. The authors make the word MAGIC into an acronym. Well, two

Product Description

Good customer service might seem like a matter of attitude, but with a little knowledge of basic behavioral psychology, any service rep or team can dramatically improve service quality. Great Customer Connections presents a step-by-step program for turning each customer interaction into a peak experience. Adapting scientific research into easy-to-apply practices, the book lets service professionals:

* connect with customers and "speak the language" of each one's unique personality * use the "secret phrases" that make them feel great * tell them anything without upsetting them * stop saying "no" --permanently * defuse any crisis and take command of each interaction even with difficult or unclear customers

Combining known principles of behavioral psychology with field-proven techniques, Great Customer Connections is the key to revolutionizing the service quality that you, your team, and your entire company provide.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #261060 in Books
* Published on: 2006-05-19
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 256 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
"If you're ready to wipe out customer complaints, and keep your employees for years, it's time to read this book." -- Niche

"Gallagher has nailed the essence of serving others with practical ideas that work. Make great connections with your customers today!" -- John G. Miller, author of QBQ!: The Question Behind the Question and Flipping the Switch

Review

“If you’re ready to wipe out customer complaints, and keep your employees for years, it’s time to read this book.”

-Niche Magazine

About the Author

Richard S. Gallagher (Ithaca, NY) is an authority on communications skills and workplace culture. A former customer service executive who is now a popular corporate trainer and public speaker, he specializes in the mechanics of customer interaction.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Resource5
In my research for our Customer Advocacy initiative, I've looked at a number of resources, including several books. Of the materials I've read, Gallagher's book is the best. The book is filled with practical advice and many examples for building good customer relationships. Highly recommended for anyone interested in improving customer service.

A Communication Handbook for all Seasons5
In his new book Great Customer Connections, Rich Gallagher has done us all a favor by calling our attention to the need for a more positive approach to dealing with customers, service people, and indeed everyone in our lives. Positive behavior generates positive results. Speaking from a strong understanding of behavioral psychology, Rich's tenets and the vignettes in his book generate a wonderful teaching manual for customer service situations and indeed for communicating in our day to day lives.


A book directed toward business ethics and customer service, I see this book as also a way to teach something we sometimes forget: basic manners when dealing with others. I'm all for encouraging communication skills and re-instigating the use of "Please," and "Thank you," and "May I help you?" in our day to day lives. Gallagher notes that those businesses that are most successful are the ones that provide excellent customer service, that treat all people at all levels in the company with respect, and that know how to react with class to both positive as well as challenging situations. Great Customer Connections is a fabulous learning tool for teaching these communication success strategies.

Lucy Lewis
Co-author, Create Your Own Family Originals