Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK WAS TRULY CO-CREATED with the help of a lot of great people. Here are just a few of them:
Fellow business author Carol Roth, for whom I am a contributing blogger on CarolRoth.com, went far above and beyond the call of duty to help make this book happen. She was more than generous in offering her support, the resources of her blog community, and even her cousin (airline manager Jeff Greenman, mentioned in Chapter 1), as well as writing this book’s foreword. I owe her great blogs for at least the next decade.
Carolyn Healey, publisher of leading customer support portal site SupportIndustry.com as well as customer service site RecognizeService Excellence.com, has been my partner in crime for many years. Much of the idea for this book came from her survey research on critical customer scenarios and effective training approaches, and our joint webinars have been a valuable testing ground for sharing my ideas with thousands of customer support professionals.
Of all the people I have the pleasure of presenting for, I have to single out Todd Lewis, Veronica Puailoa, and the entire team at Citrix GoToAssist for regularly providing me with a great public platform in front of service-industry leaders worldwide. They are visionaries, and I feel honored to partner with them.
Bob Nirkind, my editor at AMACOM Books, has been a phenomenal cheerleader for this project since its inception and a delight to work with. It was his idea to crowdsource many of the examples in this book using social media. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with the entire team at AMACOM on our fourth book project together. And a special thanks to my longtime literary agent, Diana Finch, who first planted the seed for this project, for a great working relationship.
Numerous people contributed their expertise and/or examples of challenging customer situations, including Lieutenant Chauncey Bennett III of the New York State University Police, retired Cornell University police officer Janice Pack, communications-skills author John Kador, colleague and speaker extraordinaire Julie Kowalski, psychologist Dr. Nancy Davis, FBI chaplain Dennis Hayes, Gina Schreck of SynapseConnecting, Professor Jeremy Cooperstock of McGill University, Sara Schoonover of TicketKick, Janet Christy of Leverage and Development LLC, Karlene Sinclair-Robinson of KSR Solutions LLC, Jim Josselyn of the Academy of Music and Drama, Stacy Robin of The Degania Group, and Ryan Crichett of RMC TECH Mobile Repair. Thank you all for being part of this project.
My wife, Colleen, has always been my editor, my sounding board, and the person I am madly in love with. You are the light of my life. Thank you for being you.
Finally, I would like to tip my hat to the organizations I have worked for in my own career in customer service and support, and the thousands of people I speak to every year. The things I have learned from you over the years have been a precious gift, and this book is a small attempt to return the favor. Enjoy!