Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service

Blanchard and Bowles make extensive use of humor throughout Raving Fans in an effort to make their customer service advice easier and more entertaining to read. The bulk of the humor comes from Charlie and his interactions with the world around him. His first appearance is abrupt and jarring, as he suddenly materializes in the Area Manager’s office amid a minor crisis. When he introduces himself to the Area Manager as his fairy godmother, the Area Manager’s first question is how he holds that position despite being a man, which is a comedically practical detail to focus on when confronted with a supernatural entity. Charlie waves this away by saying he got in under a gender balance quota—a remark that involves a humorous juxtaposition of the mundane (bureaucracy) and the extraordinary (the existence of fairy godmothers).

The most recurring joke, however, is Charlie’s love of golf; he is preoccupied with it to the point that other characters comment on it. The humor acts to personalize what readers might otherwise perceive as dry subject matter, but it was written in 1993 and for a specific audience. Businessmen’s love of golf is something of a cliché, and in the case of gender balance quotas and inclusive measures being used as the butt of a joke, some may find the humor ineffective and dated.

Mood is the feeling a work produces in its readers. Blanchard and Bowles set a casual, lighthearted mood throughout Raving Fans. Professional advice is a topic that could be viewed as unengaging or boring, so Raving Fans uses a narrative structure with characters who interact, clash, bond, and joke with each other to make the topic more relatable and appealing. The novel begins with a sharp description of the Area Manager’s panic to set this standard, and then it moves through moments of humor, confusion, dazzlement, frustration, satisfaction, and more. This ensures that the novel has emotional ups and downs rather than one-note pacing and mood, which could put off readers.

Point of view is the perspective from which a work is told. Professional development books may employ a first- or third-person point of view depending on whether they incorporate elements of memoir; generally speaking, however, they use an objective and instructive voice. By contrast, Blanchard and Bowles write their book in a third-person limited style that follows the point of view of the Area Manager, a character who serves as an audience surrogate. Third-person limited is a point of view that uses a narrator who can access only one character’s perspective and internal thoughts. This perspective is an effective way to slowly reveal information to the protagonist and thus the audience. Blanchard and Bowles use this to hide and then gradually reveal the secrets of creating Raving Fans that form the narrative structure of the book.