Service Success!

Nine out of every ten new jobs created each year are in the service sector. Although service jobs are at the heart of today’s economy, accounting for three-quarters of our GNP, there has not been, until now, a system that enables managers to accurately measure and improve service quality, productivity, and profitability. While manufacturing processes lend themselves to statistical measurement, the intangibles of quality service are much harder to quantify. In this book, Dan Kaplan – the man who dramatically transformed the money-losing Hertz Equipment Rental Corporation into the industry leader with an enviable profit margin – reveals the battle-tested methodologies he used in forging one of the recognized business success stories in the service field. Turnarounds in industry rarely come as 450-foot home runs, Kaplan explains. What is needed instead are 1,000 singles – the kind of steady incremental progress toward a goal that is responsible for most wins, in baseball and in business. In Service Success! Kaplan shows how, by deliberately employing a policy of “small wins,” leaders can bring people along with them as they challenge and move beyond the status quo, seeking always to make tomorrow better than today.