Best Face Forward

Description

"Companies face increasingly demanding customers and a lack of skilled workers to serve them. At the same time, networked "smart" technologies - from Web sites in retailing to kiosks in shopping - are enabling managers to recruit machines into "front-office" roles that both drive down the costs of consumer interactions and deliver more satisfying customer experiences." "In Best Face Forward, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Bernard J. Jaworski argue that this unprecedented industrialization of front-office services - akin to what transpired in agriculture and manufacturing a century ago - is sparking a revolution in services that goes well beyond efficiencies gained by automation, off-shoring, and outsourcing." "Based on extensive research inside both start-up and established businesses across many industries, Best Face Forward proposes ways that companies can radically reengineer their front-office operations to deploy three types of service interfaces - people-dominant, machine-dominant, and hybrids of the two." "This book shows how new roles for technology and people will radically reshape business and competition - and ultimately create a "people-rich" workplace that benefits customers, employees, and shareholders."--Jacket.

First Sentence

IN THIS BOOK, we argue that where competition is overwhelmingly intense and where products and services become commodities overnight, the only lasting competitive advantage will derive from superior interface capability-enabled by a reconfigured front office that takes advantage of the capabilities of both machines and people.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces With CustomersHardcoverHarvard Business School Press2005-01-20
• Best face forwardHarvard Business School Press2005-01-01