Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service is a business guidance text by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. First published in 1998, Raving Fans is written in the parabolic style Blanchard first used in his previous publication, the best-selling book The One Minute Manager.

In this text, the authors use their extensive history in business to offer lessons on how to improve customer service. Satisfied customers aren’t enough, according to the authors; customers’ expectations must be exceeded to the point where they become “Raving Fans” of one’s business. The text uses a cast of characters, dialogue, and a narrative structure to teach the three secrets of creating Raving Fans, exploring not only The Importance of Excellent Customer Service but also The Relationship Between Businesses and Customers and the process of Empowering and Engaging Employees.

This study guide refers to the 2011 Thorson’s edition.

Summary

Raving Fans follows two characters: the Area Manager, who is a stand-in for the book’s general audience, and Charlie, a “fairy godmother” whose specialty is customer service. As the Area Manager anxiously contemplates how to improve his team’s customer service, Charlie takes him under his wing and explains that customer service is so universally bad that people expect to be mistreated. He says that for a company to succeed, it needs to break this paradigm. He lays out the central tenet of the book: Satisfied customers aren’t enough. Instead, they need to be so happy with the service they receive that they become “Raving Fans.”

To demonstrate the three secrets to creating Raving Fans, Charlie brings the Area Manager to a range of businesses that have successfully created Raving Fans. The first of these is a department store called Varley’s. The Area Manager is impressed by the level of personalized service he receives from the staff there, including a white carnation pinned to his lapel and one staff member leaving the store to purchase him a book that they don’t have in stock. Charlie introduces the Area Manager to Leo Varley, the owner of the store. Leo explains that the service is part of his vision for his business. He gives the Area Manager a bracelet with a shield on it that says, “DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT” (34). This is the first of the three secrets of creating Raving Fans: The manager must develop a vision of perfection for their business centered on the customer. To do so, they must envision the specifics of how they want their business to operate and work toward that vision.

Charlie then reminds the Area Manager that he had some grocery shopping to do, so they head to a store called Sally’s Market. The Area Manager is astounded by the service at the market, which includes a valet, a personalized description of offers and specials, and a reorganized shopping list that helps him navigate the store in the most efficient way. After shopping, Charlie introduces the Area Manager to the store’s owner, Sally. She explains that her business was on the brink of ruin when she met Charlie. Learning the rules to get Raving Fans turned her life around. Abiding by the first secret, she established exactly what she wanted her company to be, and this helped her retain customers. The Area Manager leaves with a better understanding of the first rule.

After this, the Area Manager goes home for the day. A few days later, Charlie sets up a golf game with him; however, on the way, they detour to a manufacturing plant. Here, the Area Manager is introduced to Bill, the plant’s manager. Bill shares the second secret of creating Raving Fans: “Discover what the customer wants” (54). He and Charlie explain that knowing what customers want is crucial and requires balance, as a business owner needs to mesh their own vision with the desires of the customers. Occasionally, staying true to one’s vision means being unable to satisfy every customer, so establishing firm limitations on what a business’s vision is helps one decide how best to help the customer.

After contemplating the first two lessons and trying to enact them at work, the Area Manager calls Charlie to ask about the third. Charlie calls him a taxi driven by a man named Dennis, who discusses everything he has independently done to improve his own experience at work and make his customers happier.

Once the Area Manager arrives, Charlie teleports them both across the country to a gas station. The service at the station is incredible and prompt. Charlie brings the Area Manager inside to meet the owner, Andrew. He shares the final secret of creating Raving Fans: “Deliver Plus One” (90). This is a contraction of, “Deliver the vision, plus one percent” (91). This means that customer service should always be deliverable and thus be built on consistency. Beyond that, to ensure service doesn’t plateau, anyone in customer service should try daily to improve their service by 1%.

Equipped with all three of these rules, the Area Manager tackles his own company’s customer service experience, leading to a marked improvement in customer satisfaction and a massive boost to his career. All the business owners he has interacted with congratulate him on creating Raving Fans, and the president of the company implies that he is in line to be the new vice president.