Lip Service by Hal Becker is a very bold attempt by the author. It is way out of the common books you read, and the uncommon always have a point between being greatly appreciated or getting discarded by the audience. You can almost feel Hals attorney or editor cancelled out a lot of words and pages from the book.
Background
Hal Becker, an award-winning salesperson, a sales trainer and eventually a business owner took a minute out to look at all the services and the mess ups the big companies and their small-time employees make. He collected information about them and knew the right way around. He knows exactly where the employee messed up.
The 50 Stories
Lip Service has 50 unique stories about the worst customer service examples in America. Each story has a different character where Hal is an everyday person, an impatient New Yorker and sometimes someone who seemed to play along with the staff.
This puts the reader in the shoes of everyone and tells you what you could have done in a situation like that and it makes you laugh uncontrollably. Some references though not supposed to, make the company obvious because you have gone through it too! Otherwise, they are hard to crack. The different way a salesperson looks at the other, is what makes you go on reading.
10 Interviews
At the end of the book, there are 10 interviews with some big giants. In these interviews, Hal shows the reason why they are earning big and what differences they have in their customer services as compared to the stories you’ve read so far.
He tells that customer service is not what the lips say, its about what the company provides. What a company does is customer service, what it says, is Lip Service.
Conclusion
The unique point of Lip Service is that it almost holds an idea you can imply next time you have some problem with the customer services. It gives you your way around the normal approach. It is a really fast read and though it lacks the comedy punch, it could really be a good laugh if you can relate.
Lip Service by Hal Becker
book review by Pervaiz “P.K.” Karim
CalcuttaKid.com