When customers complain, employees respond. However, most service systems never move out of firefighting into a preventive mode. And what about the customers who don't complain, but leave? You can transform customer service into a proactive, preventive, strategic function and reap benefits far exceeding investments-often ten to twenty times more. Strategic Customer Service is a data-packed roadmap that shows you how to anticipate and prevent problems while creating a can-do, risk-taking frontline staff that boosts loyalty. This new edition of a landmark book distills decades of research to create the business case for great versus mediocre service, and specifically expands on five areas: customer engagement, outsourcing the right way, the voice of the customer (VGC), low-effort technology, and staff empowerment and retention. Also, while the first edition focused heavily on large companies serving consumers, this updated second edition adds a focus on business-to-business (B2B) customers as well as start-ups and medium-sized businesses. Complete guidelines and case studies explain how to Surface unarticulated dissatisfaction, Empower employees to fix problems, Gather actionable customer feedback, Track your impact on revenue and margins, Generate sensational word of mouth, letting your customers sell you to others, Delight customers to foster cross-sell and up-sell, Become a strategic service director Implement a strategic customer service plan to revolutionize your business and watch your sales and margins soar.