Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service

“More and more, managers in individual organizations are zeroing in on customers, and their success stands as a beacon for others. Five to eight years ago, the quality wave was about to break over us. We discovered quality isn’t enough. Today, the customer-service wave is welling larger than the quality wave, and when it fully hits, those not prepared will be washed into history.”

This passage describes the unique tipping point that Mackay viewed the US as experiencing at the time of the book’s publication. As production of commercial goods increasingly occurred abroad, retailers were less able to guarantee the quality of their products. Moreover, not all interactions were taking place in traditional storefronts as sales began to occur over the phone and, eventually, online. Savvy customer service leaders realized that they would have to improve their quality of service to alleviate this dip in product consistency. Otherwise, retaining customers in an increasingly changing and competitive market would be near impossible.

“Panic. Palpitations and Panic. He was aware of sweaty palms and cold feet as he wandered around his new office, the Area Manager’s office.”

This quote uses sentence structure and vivid descriptions to achieve a specific mood: anxiety. This start to the narrative quickly sets up the primary conflict, which is the Area Manager’s anxiety about the requirements of his new job—a job, moreover, that all his predecessors have failed at. This leaves him in the perfect spot to receive the help that Charlie later offers.

“Quality is how well our product works in relation to the customer’s needs. That’s just one aspect of customer service. Customer service covers all the customer’s needs and expectations.”

This message offered by the company’s president leaves the Area Manager confused. However, its message lays the groundwork for later developments; it centers on broadening the scope of what the Area Manager’s job entails, which is also where Charlie begins in his efforts to impart the importance of excellent customer service. Quality is often referenced as the pinnacle of service, but this aspect of business isn’t where customer service ends. As the second secret to creating Raving Fans will later reveal, understanding a customer’s needs and expectations in full is required for offering good customer service.

“‘The only positive thing about this panic,’ he thought, ‘is that it shows I’m in touch with reality.’”

This is an example of how the work uses humor to make its narrative more engaging and personable. A magical being has just appeared to the Area Manager to teach him how to better perform his job, and this plot device is necessary to conveying the lessons of the narrative. The text describes the situation with a comedic tone that smooths over how quickly the Area Manager adjusts to Charlie’s presence, rendering the story more believable without slowing the pacing.

“I’m your Fairy Godmother […]. I’m here to show you the three magic secrets of creating Raving Fans, the ultimate in customer service.”

Blanchard and Bowles decide to use magical realism in their narrative: They incorporates a fantastical element into day-to-day life, and that element is accepted nonchalantly by virtually everybody. Leo, Sally, Bill, and Andrew are all comfortable with Charlie and don’t remark on his magical existence; they merely accept the new initiate, the Area Manager, into their circle of business representatives with Raving Fans. To offset the incongruous combination of magic and the real world, however, the authors also use a tongue-in-cheek tone regarding Charlie. Charlie remarks shortly after this that “fairy godmother” is simply the easiest thing to call him and that he doesn’t actually have a name—Charlie is just an easy thing to remember—implying that the specifics of what he is aren’t important to the story.

“Now here it is in a nutshell. Service is so awful customers expect to be abused. Cold food in restaurants, dirty public washrooms, late deliveries, rejected parts, lost orders, lazy staff—it’s all normal. […] As long as the abuse isn’t any worse than they expected, they’ll be back for more. They’re not upset. Do a survey. Check it out and they’ll say they’re satisfied. Satisfied customers. Ha! Satisfied sheep, that’s what I call them. […] Your customer service slogan should be: No Worse Than the Competition.”

Charlie uses the drive to the golf course to explain the state of customer service to the Area Manager, taking the opportunity to insult his workplace’s paltry service in the process. Though the assessment is unpleasant, the Area Manager agrees with it. This casual rant presents the primary obstacle to be overcome over the course of the story: low expectations. The issues that he lists are common and often regarded more as annoyances than “abuses.” If the Area Manager wants to succeed in his role, he’ll have to offer things the customers aren’t even aware they should expect.

“DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT.”

This first secret to creating Raving Fans is written on the pendant of a bracelet given to the Area Manager, its shield-like shape implying that he can protect himself with this knowledge. This constitutes the first secret because no positive interactions can take place with customers—and, arguably, no business can happen at all—without someone first deciding what a business should be and what it should offer. The more specific a vision is, the better standard to which a customer service representative can hold themselves. A lack of vision creates aimlessness, uncertainty, and, ultimately, bad service.

“I used to work in another department store. It was boring work. I resented the store treating me like a stupid machine, and my bad attitude was reflected in the way I treated their customers. It’s the exact opposite at Varley’s. Now I help people and enjoy doing it. […] It’s nice to do a good job and be recognized for it.”

This staff member at Varley’s department store marks the first presentation of the idea that the staff’s happiness is essential to good customer service, introducing the theme of Empowering and Engaging Employees. This idea recurs throughout the text, constantly reminding the Area Manager that customer service isn’t solely about the customer. Unsatisfied or mistreated staff simply aren’t motivated to treat customers well. This attendant mentions that her old job was “boring work”; however, she still works in a department store, so the job hasn’t necessarily changed. What has changed is how she’s being treated and, in turn, how she feels in her role.

“‘One customer out of a thousand steals something in a dressing room,’ said Charlie. ‘Next day the store puts up a sign offending the other nine hundred and ninety-nine customers and making one crook laugh as she finds a new way to steal. No one ever seems to compute the cost of offending so many customers in order to slow down one crook.’”

This aside from Charlie offers a small example of why establishing what a business wants is important. A business that offends its customers by assuming they might be stealing is trying to protect its assets; on the other hand, one that accepts the minor profit loss from theft is focused on retaining its existing customers, which Charlie implies is a more sustainable model in the long run. Charlie encourages the Area Manager to create a vision for his company that aligns with the second option.

“When you decide what you want you must—create a vision of perfection centered on the customer.”

This statement shows that while a business may exist to serve its owner in some capacity, its goal must be to serve the customer. The owner must want to offer the customer something, and this is best achieved by focusing the vision for the business on the customer’s needs. Customers are the lifeblood of commerce, and developing a business model that centers on them is the only way to succeed.

“DISCOVER WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS.”

This second lesson is meant to feel obvious. The Area Manager, a stand-in for the reader, is himself confused, feeling that it reiterates his existing knowledge. However, this “secret” expands into lessons about specifically seeking out what the customers ask for, recognizing their needs, and establishing how those needs fit into his existing vision for the business.

“First, unless you have your own vision, how can you understand the customers’? […] Second, when you find out what customers really want, what their vision is, it will likely focus on just one or two things. Your own vision has to fill in the gaps. Finally, you have to know when to ignore what the customer wants and, if necessary, tell the customer to take his vision elsewhere to be fulfilled.”

This lesson focuses the most on The Relationship Between Businesses and Customers. All the secrets to creating Raving Fans involve the dynamic between the two ends of a transaction; however, this dives into the details of how the needs of a business and its customers can coalesce. What a business offers and how it offers that must be flexible enough to adjust in accordance with what a customer is asking for. This involves listening to what they say but also being perceptive and recognizing a need before it is vocalized. While market and customer wants can be ever-changing, a business must learn to incorporate them into its vision as much as possible.

“‘I must admit I thought good customer service meant looking after every whim of the customer,’ said the Area Manager.”

After being told he needs to understand what the customer wants, the Area Manager expresses a commonplace assumption about how customer service works. As the Area Manager is a stand-in for the authors’ intended audience, his claim sets the book up to refute its readership’s expectations. The Area Manager is told to assert the boundaries of his vision and acknowledge that he can’t offer what absolutely every customer needs. Moreover, Bill frames this as an aspect of good customer service: Helping a customer find the right business for them is more effective than trying and failing to fulfill their needs.

“‘The customer’s vision might change your window, but if you don’t have your own vision to start with, you’ll never put the necessary limits in place,’ said Bill.”

The metaphor of the window is used a couple of times throughout the narrative. Here, Bill uses it to describe the vision for a business: Only so much can be achieved—and achieved well—before it becomes too much for a business to sustain. A window is a finite object, and a business cannot reasonably extend or go outside of it to suit customer wants. By asserting limits, a business allows itself to excel and create fans who know what to expect.

“We ask [the customers] and then we listen closely both to what they say and to what they don’t say.”

Everyone the Area Manager speaks to expresses sympathy over the challenges of customer service, as satisfying a broad range of customer needs can be difficult. Nevertheless, this instruction emphasizes the importance of paying attention and sincerely engaging with customers. Instead of simply focusing on perfecting one’s vision—which is only half the transaction—someone in customer service must be attuned to everything the customer communicates, whether explicit or implied. Only then can a business operate perfectly.

“When a customer complains, you know you’re hearing the truth. Listen to him. When a customer is a Raving Fan and is enthusiastic, listen to him too. But when a customer is silent or says ‘Fine’ with a smile, you have to really perk up your ears. You’ve got a problem. If nothing else, that customer isn’t a Raving Fan.”

The Area Manager is encouraged to listen to all feedback, not just explicitly negative or positive remarks. Middling or even silent responses are crucial, as they expose what customer service may not recognize about its performance. This relates to the earlier claims that customers expect so little that they’re often silent when they’re disappointed. Businesses need to acknowledge this and encourage customers to be more vocal to overcome this.

“‘If you don’t look after people, they won’t look after your customers,’ said Charlie. ‘And when they do, if you say thank you and reward them, they’ll do it again and again.’”

This reiterates the assertion that businesses must treat their staff right to offer high-quality customer service. Charlie encourages the Area Manager to not only recognize his staff but also reward them for actualizing the business’s vision. The standards of service that the book depicts are extreme, but it suggests that they are more attainable with willing and enthusiastic staff. Workers are not a means to an end, but rather individuals with needs and wants as well.

“The Area Manager was too impressed with what was happening outside the car to reply. But he wasn’t surprised to learn that team members who looked after customers well were the ones to receive raises and promotions.”

This reinforces the lesson about staff care with a visual demonstration, something the book often does. Whenever the protagonist visits a new business, he witnesses something exemplary before learning a lesson on how to accomplish that level of service. In this case, he sees the attendants at a gas station quickly cleaning his car, greeting him personally, and refilling his gas. This echoes how he was greeted and offered coffee at Varley’s and how he was offered a valet service and specialized offers at Sally’s. In each case, the staff members who wow him the most are incentivized properly.

“DELIVER PLUS ONE […] Deliver the Vision Plus One Percent.”

The third secret to creating Raving Fans focuses on the individual worker and making their goals sustainable and achievable. The third message is inscribed beneath the second secret on the Area Manager’s bracelet, meaning that it relates to understanding what the customer wants. Once one has discerned this, the next step is to deliver it. Once again, this seems like an obvious instruction, but what’s key is learning how to deliver it, to what degree, and where to go from there.

“To start with, limit the number of areas where you want to make a difference. First, it allows you to be consistent. Second, you’ll be much further ahead doing a bang-up job on one thing rather than introducing a whole string of customer service goals all at once. You’ll never bring it off. It just can’t be done that way.”

This returns to and literalizes the idea of a vision or a “window” within which a business can work. Andrew from the gas station uses an anecdote to illustrate this, explaining that when he first started advertising window washes with every refill, he told his staff to focus solely on the windshield and to do it perfectly. Only when they were exceeding expectations in one specific area did he extend his service to cleaning each window, as the customers had grown to expect a perfectly cleaned windshield, not a broader service with more middling results. Andrew thus concludes that recognizing the importance of customer service doesn’t require trying to satisfy every need; it entails being the best at specific things. Anything else is unrealistic and will ultimately disappoint the customer.

“Regardless of what you promise, it’s consistency that’s important. […] At the core of every great customer service organization is a package of systems and a training program to inculcate those systems into the soul of that company. That’s what guarantees consistency.”

Part of delivering the vision is delivering it consistently. Andrew spends a significant amount of time underscoring this concept and discussing how to achieve it. While the goal is to build customer expectations and satisfy them to the degree that they become Raving Fans, inconsistent service can easily puncture their elation. The Area Manager must therefore have systems and procedures in place, including well-trained and confident staff, to ensure that every customer experience is the same. This removes uncertainty and anxiety from the commercial process and breeds customer loyalty.

“[O]ur research shows friendly people talk about topics not directly connected with the business transaction at hand and so we train team members to do just that.”

This relates to the relationship between businesses and customers. Like interpersonal relationships, diverse, sincere conversations and friendly interactions are essential to developing a strong bond. Training staff to converse with customers on a myriad of topics—thus creating the feeling of a normal conversation rather than a business transaction—makes customers feel more welcome and familiar with one’s business. This also encourages customers to be more open and to vocalize everything they want, which many customers currently feel isn’t worth the effort.

“The biggest problem I have in delivering my vision is knowing what to do next. Either I try to do too much at once and get frustrated or I sit immobilized because of the size of the job ahead. The rule of one percent reminds me that all I have to do is to improve by one percent. That I can do.”

The text acknowledges that the lessons it has framed as crucial can nevertheless feel like an overwhelming list of tasks. The final aspect of the third lesson, The Rule of One Percent, closes the narrative on an encouraging note with instruction on how to make the process of improving service sustainable. Instead of trying to make everything perfect at once, establishing a baseline of quality service and improving bit by bit from there helps staff feel more motivated and capable of working toward a goal.