Lessons from the Dead: Breathing Life into Customer Service

by John McQueen, Nikki McQueen

Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking for that competitive edge, or a long-time business on a quest to improve performance, Lessons from the Dead provides you with practical, real-life examples and “how to” advice on providing your customers with exceptional service driving both profitability and brand loyalty. From the stockroom to the boardroom, Lessons from the Dead is designed for anyone who interacts with customers. Through their sharing of stories and actionable steps, written in a simple conversational style, John & Nikki provide solutions for making your business standout from the competition. Through the application of the SOAR! PrincipleTM and CustomerMeTM mentality, you’ll learn proven techniques to astound your customers and keep them coming back again and again. You’ll also learn how to prevent turning your WOW into an OWW. The do’s and don’ts of customer service is key to developing profitable, life-long relationships. With “below par” service becoming the norm today, Lessons from the Dead will give you the tools needed to stand head and shoulders above the rest. Technology and innovative concepts drive fascination, but the human touch is what still drives customer satisfaction. No disrespect intended but anyone can write a business book based on Disney or the Ritz Carlton where people want to spend their money. You have just picked up this little gem that will tell you how John and Nikki grew their business and created raving fans with their customer base providing one of the things people don’t want...funerals. The principles shared in this book will help you, your team, and your company to take flight and soar to new heights through the application of proven techniques that bolster customer service. Although many of the techniques and examples shared are based on their business, they also provide examples of other companies that truly understand how to serve customers right.

197 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 19, 2019

Reviews

[Josh McQueen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Lessons From The Dead: Breathing Life into Customer Service,” frames simple, yet often overlooked, ideas about implementing customer service practices into businesses from the perspective of funeral home owners. The authors of this book, John and Nikki McQueen, co-owned Anderson McQueen funeral homes in St. Petersburg Florida and grew their business into the largest family owned funeral home in the state before they sold it to a national consolidator.

John and Nikki walk through their experiences implementing customer service techniques into a notoriously hard industry, the funeral industry. The duo pick apart various customer service WOWs and OWWs that occurred not just in their business, but also various other fields. They’re able to show the contrast of customer service techniques implemented properly and the positive effect that going the extra mile can have on a business versus negative customer service performance and the impact that can have on a businesses’ sales and reputation.

John and Nikki also introduce memorable framework to help the reader better understand and remember the lessons. Specifically, their SOAR! Principle:

• S = Sincere greetings & goodbyes.
• O = Own the guest experience.
• A = Appearance Matters.
• R = Remember the WOW!

This principle helps them to constantly reframe their mind towards the guest’s needs.

John and Nikki are effective at adding a human aspect to customer service ideas. They present customer service from the viewpoint of their own lives, in a way people can relate to.

This book, although effective, can benefit from reformatting. The ideas are all there, but with some reorganization of graphs, Photos, and some cutting down of long example excerpts, this book may become an even more effective communicator of its argument.

One specific example that could be done better was something I actually liked. John and Nikki interwove photographs of specific people in customer service that they believe delivered the WOW! I think it was a great way to recognize people and really added to the human aspect, but I think these photos would work better at the end of the chapter. Implement a few pages that the reader can choose to flip through and see the faces of those who went above and beyond a customer service.

The final chapter also feels a bit disjointed, just because as the book is winding down, the authors mentioned an opportunity for the reader to reach out to them and work alongside them if need be. Afterwards, the authors, go back into other stories and advice. This final chapter will be more effective if it focused on the final stories and advice, and then there was a final section after the book had ended that discussed reaching out and working alongside the authors.

Overall, this book gives great advice about customer service and implementing it, especially in fields where it may be considered hard to implement customer service. It is definitely targeted towards business owners, with specific sections of the book being given for the reader to write their own plans for implementing the SOAR! Principles into their business. Business owners and leaders can likely benefit from reading this.