A step-by-step guide to designing and implementing an amazing customer service culture In today's competitive business environment, keeping customers happy is the key to long-term success. But some businesses provide much better customer service than others. It's not always clear what works and what doesn't, and implementing new customer service practices midstream can be a difficult, chaotic task. Business leaders who want to transform their business culture into one of customer service excellence need reliable, proven guidance. Unleashing Excellence gives you practical tools and step-by-step guidance tailored to your company's individual customer service needs. It shows you how to navigate your teams through every step of the implementation process to achieve true customer service excellence. The book covers the training and education of your group, how to measure the quality of your service, how to build a culture of personal accountability, and how to recognize excellence and reward it. Fully revised to include updated information on the latest tools and best practices, as well as the stories and lessons learned from those organizations that have used the process described in the book. Offers proven best practices for designing and implementing an excellent customer service culture Simple format divides content into nine "leadership actions" that guide you through a step-by-step process Shows you how to build a common customer service vision for your entire organization Customer service is vital to the survival of your business. If you want to move your organization's customer service practices from good to great, Unleashing Excellence is the key.

"Cover" -- "Praise" -- "Title Page" -- "Copyright Page" -- "Acknowledgments" -- "About the Authors" -- "Table of Contents" -- "Foreword" -- "The Iowa Model Revised" -- "Overview" -- "Chapter 1_Identifying Triggering Issues/Opportunities" -- "Chapter 2_State the Question or Purpose" -- "Chapter 3_Is This Topic a Priority?" -- "Chapter 4_Form a Team" -- "Chapter 5_Assemble, Appraise, and Synthesize Body of Evidence" -- "Chapter 6_Is There Sufficient Evidence?" -- "Chapter 7_Design and Pilot the Practice Change" -- "Chapter 8_Implementation" -- "Chapter 9_Evaluation" -- "Chapter 10_Is Change Appropriate for Adoption in Practice?" -- "Chapter 11_Integrate and Sustain the Practice Change" -- "Chapter 12_Disseminate Results" -- "References" -- "Appendix A_The Iowa Model Revised: Evidence-Based Practice to Promote Excellence in Health Care" -- "Appendix B_Implementation Strategies for Evidence-Based Practice" -- "Appendix C_UI Hospitals and Clinics Evidence-Based Practice Publications Reporting Use of the Iowa Model" -- "Appendix D_Select Evidence-Based Practice Process Models" -- "Appendix E_Glossary" -- "Index

This Action Guide is a tool to accompany Live Your Excellence: Bring Your Best Self to School Every Day by Jimmy Casas. A practical book to help all educators rediscover themselves in order to bring their best self to school every day, Live Your Excellence begins with the premise that by cultivating a mindset that centers on investing in students, colleagues, and-most of all-themselves, educators can shift schools away from a culture that runs on compliance, blame, and fear to a culture based on investment and caring. Jimmy shares inspiration, stories, and strategies to help overcome the negative undercurrents that exist in school cultures today and explains how educators of all stripes can embrace an investment-based approach to everything they do, from collaborative leadership, to working with challenging students, to feelings of inadequacy. His insights into navigating the complexities of working in schools is an invaluable resource for all educators who desire-more than anything-to rediscover their own excellence and make a difference. This Action Guide is just that: a road map to taking action steps based on the ideas found in Live Your Excellence. This Action Guide is intended to take the contents from Live Your Excellence and organize them into such a way that provokes discussion, reflection, and--most of all--action. It is written in a way that allows participants to read and understand critical concepts while also applying these in the classrooms and schools in which they serve.

It is argued that, without neglecting efficiency or profits, human well-being should be the first priority of every business. Business Ethics in Action defends the need to orient business to people. Drawing on the author's extensive experience in teaching business ethics at one of Europe's leading business schools, this textbook overcomes common approaches in which business ethics is presented exclusively as a tool for solving ethical dilemmas by applying principled theories. Business Ethics focuses on both principles and virtues, although emphasizing virtues as the key for human flourishing. Through illustrative case studies and interesting pedagogy, this book will be accessible and practical, aiding students in applying the foundations and principles of business ethics to real world situations.

The substance and impact of state-level reforms related to student standards are presented by: (1) providing information on the currrent state of educational reforms aimed at raising student standards; (2) summarizing research designed to identify linkages between higher standards and student outcomes; (3) exploring the strength of relationships between higher standards and student outcomes; (4) examining trends among indicators associated with higher student standards; and (5) discussing data and methods available to those concerned with the relationship of higher educational standards to student outcomes. The first of four chapters briefly describes the range of state initiatives designed to achieve higher student standards and the problems associated with assessing their impacts, as well as the data available for examining student outcomes. Chapter 2 discusses the great variety of reform activities that have occurred at the state level between 1983 and 1990 and places them in a historical context. Chapter 3 looks at research on trends in student outcomes and linkages to school reform such as student course-taking patterns, the proportion of school time devoted to academic subjects, student achievement, and high school completion rates. The last chapter discusses issues associated with studying the impact of state reforms and suggests some analytical strategies that might be used to describe linkages between reforms and student outcomes. Three appendixes provide the following information: (1) minimum high school graduation requirements for standard diplomas: 1980 and 1990; (2) an overview of researching reform and student outcomes using selected databases; and (3) standard error tables. (53 references) (MLF)

The editors have collected original papers dealing with the impact of commissions on educational policy and reform. This book is a combination of the perspectives of practitioners directly involved with writing or reacting to commission reports, and scholars analyzing the significance and impact of educational policy. Chapters are written by some of the country's leading authorities on education. This book will prove to be a valuable resource for educators, administrators, political scientists, sociologists, and others interested in the state of education. Includes a foreword by Paul E. Peterson of Harvard University.