I discovered over the weekend that there is a game called “What’s On Page 123″ that involves bloggers tagging each other. As Ken Molay, an old friend who writes the Webinar blog tagged me I now have to post to keep it going. The deal is that you have to write about the book you are currently reading, citing the 6th through 8th sentences on page 123. It turns out that I am reading The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from Customer Service, Keep Them Happy, and Control Costsand the relevant sentences are:

1. Understand all customer contact-causing events using the Value-Irritant analysis or the impact-urgency matrix.
2. Classify the events with a focus on two key types in particular - critical life cycle and revenue bearing - and then focus on where the customer needs to be more in control. Work thorough the principal steps in the process, stapling yourself to the issue so that the need for proactive contact becomes clear

Now, out of context, this may not be very helpful. If you check up on the book (and you should) you will see that it is about improving customer satisfaction not by improving customer service but by eliminating it - eliminating the need for it. Page 123 comes from the “Be Proactive” section and this, in turn, is one of the three ways to “challenge customer demand for service” with the others being “eliminate dumb contacts” and “create engaging self-service”. The book is a good read and makes a great overall point - customers don’t want a relationship with most of the companies from whom they purchase things, they want to be able to buy stuff and have it just work. For many transactions, a need for a “relationship” is a mark of failure - a product that does not work, a billing system that has problems, poor communication etc.

I will write a review of the book when I finish it but I am certain that enterprise decision management - EDM - is a great way to deliver some of the systems that would be required for this mindset. while you wait for the blog post on the book, check out this series on using EDM to improve customer service.

My last step in this is supposed to be to tag someone else so here goes - Sandy Kemsley (Column 2) - what’s on page 123 of the book you are reading?