Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In showing how loyalty-based management leads to the creation of value, this book reveals the secrets of Bain and Company's strategy for retaining loyal customers, employees and investors. It also demonstrates the economic effect of customer, shareholder and employee loyalty.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. vii)
• 1. Loyalty and Value (p. 1)
• 2. The Economics of Customer Loyalty (p. 33)
• 3. The Right Customers (p. 63)
• 4. The Right Employees (p. 91)
• 5. Productivity (p. 117)
• 6. The Right Investors (p. 153)
• 7. In Search of Failure (p. 185)
• 8. The Right Measures (p. 217)
• 9. Transforming the Value Proposition (p. 255)
• 10. Partnerships for Change (p. 279)
• 11. Getting Started: The Path Toward Zero Defections (p. 301)
• Notes (p. 311)
• Index (p. 315)
• About the Author (p. 323)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Reichheld, a director of Bain & Co., a strategy consulting firm in Boston, takes an old-fashioned concept‘loyalty‘and shows its relevance to customer retention and long-term profit growth. His position seems obvious, but its import has been lost amid the rapid turnover in the current business climate. He notes that major companies replace half their customers in five years, half their employees in four and a half and their investors in less than one. To counteract this trend, he recommends loyalty-based management, in which businesses not only make a conscious effort to retain customers but also develop strategies for attracting the kind who are likely to remain loyal. Reichheld also posits a "cause-and-effect relationship" between employee and customer loyalty. Writing with Teal, a senior editor at Bain & Co., he makes his point with examples from State Farm, Toyota/Lexus and others that have improved their bottom lines and insured long-term growth by developing loyalty. Illustrations. 50,000 first printing; $80,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Arguing strongly for the value of employee, customer, and investor loyalty to success, Reichheld makes a point similar to Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline, 1990)--that employees who understand their contribution and value to the whole of the organization's processes are far happier and more productive than the disenfranchised employee. Reichheld's recommendations for closely aligning incentive systems with the behaviors that add the most value mandate reviews of all work measures. He wisely cites human nature in the design of incentives to promote employee and customer loyalty and faults current cost accounting/profitability reporting structures as clearly detrimental to understanding the true nature of customer relationships and their value. However, the difficulty of restructuring legacy information systems is glossed over by Reichheld, as it was by Senge. Rewriting core information systems is not trivial because it affects every information system, costing much more than can be easily understood by investors. The author's call for strategic alliances based on loyalty with customers, employees, and investors represents a valuable new paradigm. This work is recommended for public, professional, and academic collections, upper-division undergraduate and up. N. J. Johnson Metropolitan State University

Booklist Review

Much has been written recently lamenting the loss of loyalty in all aspects of society. This loss seems magnified in the corporate world, where job change is often the only ticket for getting ahead and where companies regularly abandon communities and downsize longtime workers out of jobs. In White-Collar Blues, Charles Heckscher last year surveyed the state of middle-management loyalty and offered solutions for rebuilding loyalties. Now Reichheld, director at a strategy consulting firm with its own "loyalty practice," analyzes not only employee but also customer and investor loyalty and demonstrates the measurable results that strong loyalties have on corporate profits. Reichheld notes that traditional accounting systems do not show the "loyalty effect" and offers gauges that do. To make his case, he uses such companies as Lexus, John Deere, and Leo Burnett--the "loyalty royalty" --as examples. (Reviewed Feb. 1, 1996)0875844480David Rouse

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Frederick F. Reichheld is a director of Bain and Company, a leading strategy consulting firm.