Meeting and exceeding customer expectations is one of the most talked about, yet least understood aspects of business today.

In his new book, Customer Mania! Ken Blanchard shows how the world's largest restaurant company, Yum! Brands Inc.—owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants—revitalized their company to become the customer-centric organization they wanted to be.

By studying the experience of Yum!, any company, large or small, can learn how to create a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture that turns customers into raving fans and employees into customer maniacs!

Four years ago while speaking about customer service to an annual meeting of KFC (originally Kentucky Fried Chicken) Ken Blanchard met David Novak, the future CEO of Yum! Brands Inc.—KFC's parent company. David shared his plans about making KFC—along with sister companies Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W All American Food Restaurants more customer centric.

During the next four years, Ken Blanchard, together with colleagues Fred Finch and Jim Ballard, documented Yum!'s journey toward this vision. They found that the path was built on a foundation of four key principles. These four principles, and Yum!'s experience in implementing them, became the main themes in the book Customer Mania!

1. Setting Your Sights on the Right Target. The first step towards "customer mania" is creating an agreed-upon, compelling vision with three important elements. The aim is to be the Provider of Choice (turning customers into raving fans), the Employer of Choice (developing employees into customer maniacs), and the Investment of Choice (making your cash register go ka-ching!). Your company's profits grow when you take care of customers and create a motivating environment for your people!

2. Treating Customers the Right Way. You want to create a "customer mania" culture. You realize that satisfying customers is not enough—you want them to be raving fans. When "customer mania" is alive and well, customers not only want to come back, they want to become a part of your sales force. As raving fans, they want to brag about you. Determine the kind of experience you want your customers to have as they interact with every part of your company.

3. Treating Employees the Right Way. It takes excited and passionate people to create raving fans and a "customer mania" culture. You cannot treat your people poorly and expect them to take care of your customers. Empowering your people and permitting them to act as owners is essential. At the end of the day, when your people leave your premises, so does your business. Use strategies such as smart hiring, training, managing performance, and creating a recognition culture to develop your most important asset—your people.

4. Building the Right Kind of Leadership. The right kind of leaders realize that leadership is not about them. They realize that leaders are only as good as the people they lead. While they play a major role in setting the direction and take responsibility for developing a compelling vision, their goal is to quickly invert the organizational pyramid and move to the bottom of the hierarchy, acting as cheerleader, supporter, and encourager. Leadership is not all about them; it is about serving the vision and the people who will make it come alive. They realize that you cannot do it all yourself, so they empower people to make decisions and then support them all the way!

In the final chapter of Customer Mania!, authors Ken Blanchard, Fred Finch and Jim Ballard describe two ways to approach business—the Yum! door or the dumb door. Using the dumb door means operating without a compelling vision, in a fragmented manner with corresponding mixed results. Using the Yum! door means creating an aligned organization that is focused on customers, is an energizing place to work for employees, and is heading toward someplace special. It means "balancing concern for people with concern for results, and making sure that the first drives the second." If you want to get passion from people, make them number one.

Which direction do you want to go? At The Ken Blanchard Companies®, we suggest stepping through the Yum! door and starting the journey toward building a customer-focused company. Remember, it's never too late. If a complicated, massive organization such as Yum! Brands Inc. can create a customer-focused company the right way, so can you!

Would you like to learn more about creating "customer mania" in your organization? Then join Ken Blanchard live for a free online seminar to learn how any company, large or small, can develop a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture.


Customer Mania: Creating a Customer-Focused Company
December 7, 2004
9:00 - 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time (US and Canada)
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time

Whatever the business, organizations are realizing that they must deliver world-class service in order to build and maintain customer loyalty. In the book Customer Mania!, you'll learn how Yum! Brands Inc.—owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants—learned that the key to customer service was creating a people-oriented, performance-driven, customer-first organization.

Raving Fans is a brilliantly simple book and training program that teaches you how to define a service vision, learn what a customer really wants, institute effective systems, and make stunning customer service a competitive advantage.