From Dr. Tony Carter, a leading authority in business management, comes a book to give your company the winning edge. Customer Advisory Boards: A Strategic Tool for Customer Relationship Building examines the customer advisory boardone of the most effective competitive tools for building and maintaining customer satisfaction. This business guide shows how to create and make use of an effective customer advisory board, and how doing so can give your company a marketing advantage and improve vital aspects of business, including customer responsiveness, trust-building, and customer satisfaction. This book is vital for anyone who has customers and wants their loyalty. To view an excerpt online, find the book in our QuickSearch catalog at www.HaworthPress.com.

Learn why customer advisory boards are so successful—and how to create one for any business! From a leading authority in business management comes a book to give your company the winning edge. Customer Advisory Boards: A Strategic Tool for Customer Relationship Building examines the customer advisory board (CAB)—one of the most effective competitive tools for building and maintaining customer satisfaction. This business guide shows how to create and make use of an effective CAB, and how doing so can give your company a marketing advantage and improve vital aspects of business, including customer responsiveness, trust-building, and customer satisfaction. Customer Advisory Boards focuses on bringing companies and customers closer together utilizing input and advice from a CAB. This book shows how to use three types of customer bases—existing customers, potential customers, or former buyers—to form three different types of advisory boards: corporate strategy boards to plan future investments, product planning boards to create new product, and launch success boards to improve existing product. Using the information in this book, your company can transform from being customer focused to customer driven. Customary advisory boards benefit your company by: improving sales contact and dialogue dynamics of the company enabling the company to see itself through the customers’ eyes sharing ideas and suggestions to improve a company’s programs and services to its customers showing that the company values its customers’ opinions and wants to improve for them providing access to expertise and experience from a wide range of necessary disciplines without legal liability Customer advisory boards also benefit the board members by: giving them opportunities to offer practical advice that can affect a company allowing them to establish personal and professional contacts from each other rewarding them with company perks and products giving them a sense of belonging and empowerment With case studies, appendices, notes, references, and surveys, Dr. Tony Carter has created an illuminating, educational research tool for company owners and managers. Whether applied to a corporation, a medical or religious institution, or a not-for-profit organization, Customer Advisory Boards will help increase customer loyalty and satisfaction.

21 privately-owned company owners share stories of how they leveraged advisory boards to help them build valuable, sustainable companies.

“A journey into a powerful idea . . . the more people you involve as creators and contributors, the greater your innovation capacity.” —Polly LaBarre, New York Times-bestselling coauthor of Mavericks at Work Organizations need to offer customers breakthrough products, services, and solutions to effectively compete in today’s innovation-hungry economy. The challenge is customers often don’t know precisely what they want. As Henry Ford is reputed to have said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” To surprise and awe your customers, Chip Bell advises developing co-creation partnerships with them. Co-creation partnerships are about fulfilling customers’ hopes and aspirations, not just their needs and expectations. Co-creation partnerships require (1) curiosity that uncovers insight, (2) grounding that promotes clear focus, (3) discovery that fosters risk-taking, (4) trust that safeguards partnership purity, and (5) passion that inspires energized generosity. Using examples from organizations like McDonald’s, DHL, Marriott, Lockheed Martin, Discover Financial, Ultimate Software, and many more, Bell shows how co-creation partnerships enable you to tap into the treasure trove of ideas, ingenuity, and genius-in-the-raw within every customer. “Innovation through partnership is the blueprint for business growth in the future. Inside Your Customer’s Imagination provides the instruction and inspiration to make it a success.”—Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times-bestselling author “Chip Bell’s unique perspective, lively illustrations, and practical advice result in one terrific resource for anyone eager to tap a customer’s ingenuity for creating breakthrough results.” —Jeanne Bliss, founder and CEO, CustomerBliss; and cofounder, Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)

Shekhar Tripathi’s car gets slammed by an SUV while it is parked in front of his apartment building, leaving the car inoperative. He is already in grief, not having recovered from his wife’s death three months ago. At the same time, his business, Westland Tourism, is dwindling rapidly. He feels lonely. How could someone take all the important things away from him at once? The next morning, he is forced to take a taxi for the first time in five years. The driver tells him a horrific story, which convinces Shekhar that not all of his life is done. After this journey, Shekhar is convinced to take another taxi ride. Accompanied by taxi drivers, Shekhar begins his quest for survival.

The history of one of the most secretive segments of America’s intelligence community. Above the politics and ideological battles of Washington, DC, is a committee that meets behind locked doors and leaves its paper trail in classified files. The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is one of the most secretive and potentially influential segments of the US intelligence community. Established in 1956, the PIAB advises the president about intelligence collection, analysis, and estimates, and about the legality of foreign intelligence activities. Privileged and Confidential is the first and only study of the PIAB. Foreign policy veterans Kenneth Michael Absher, Michael C. Desch, and Roman Popadiuk trace the board’s history from Eisenhower through Obama and evaluate its effectiveness under each president. Created to be an independent panel of nonpartisan experts, the PIAB has become increasingly susceptible to politics in recent years and has lost some of its influence. The authors, however, clearly demonstrate the board’s potential to offer a unique and valuable perspective on intelligence issues. Privileged and Confidential not only illuminates a little-known element of US intelligence operations but also offers suggestions for enhancing a critical executive function.

"If you haven't had the good fortune to be coached by a strong leader or product coach, this book can help fill that gap and set you on the path to success." - Marty Cagan How do you know that you are making a product or service that your customers want? How do you ensure that you are improving it over time? How do you guarantee that your team is creating value for your customers in a way that creates value for your business? In this book, you'll learn a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that will help you answer each of these questions, giving you the confidence to act while also preparing you to be wrong. You'll learn to balance action with doubt so that you can get started without being blindsided by what you don't get right. If you want to discover products that customers love-that also deliver business results-this book is for you.