The Welcomer Edge

Unlocking the Secrets to Repeat Business

By: Richard R. Shapiro

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

The Welcomer Edge provides practical recommendations and strategies so that any company - regardless of industry or size - can maximize the quality of its customer service and the quantity of its loyal customers.

The principles outlined in The Welcomer Edge are universal for all sales and service environments. It describes four distinct categories of service professionals - the people that will make any customer service/sales function or department a success.

Understanding that each category has definitive service personalities will help a business at its most critical moment: the encounter that brings two people together to make the sale or further increase brand loyalty.

At the heart of this book is the "Welcomer", a special category of friendly, engaging people who are innately intuitive and perceive customers as people first. Identifying and recruiting welcomers - as part of a company's team - is the key to success. Author Richard Shapiro, the founder and president of The Center For Client Retention, provides real-life examples and anecdotes to help transform this concept into action.

The bottom line is that The Welcomer Edge shows how sales and customer associates can have a powerful impact on revenues because they determine the outcome of the all-important first impression, and this translates into whether or not a business will achieve its most critical goal - repeat business.

The Welcomer Edge will give any company or organization the competitive edge.

©2012 Richard R. Shapiro (P)2012 Richard. R. Shapiro

I had to quit this book after 3 hours

Any additional comments?

This book is pretty boring ... the first three hours basically involve the author ranting about bad customer service situations he's been in: bad service at the bank, bad service in a restaurant, bad service at the florist, bad service everywhere. I kept waiting for him to get to the point, but after 3 hours of anecdotes I gave up.

Scott Brick is a PHENOMENAL narrator, and I've enjoyed everything he's done. However, they keep interjecting a female reader every few paragraphs. She has a silly-sweet voice that seems more appropriate to a children's book. The constant switching between Brick's commanding voice and her child-like voice was very disconcerting and made this narration difficult to stomach.

People seem to like this book on Amazon, so maybe the last half is killer ... but I didn't enjoy this at all. Categorizing your employees as "welcomers, robots, disinterested, etc." seems simplistic and not terribly useful. You might as well call your employees "good, bad, and ugly" ... that would, at least, be more catchy.

A fresh approach to some very important topics

I greatly enjoyed this fresh approach to the important topics of making an impression and building an emotional bridge to the customer. Rich Shapiro has written a sharp, well-organized, concise and pithy book on an important subject--bravo!

Scott Brick's performance is excellent as well, and the production values are lovely.

A little pompous

Would you ever listen to anything by Richard R. Shapiro again?

possibly

How could the performance have been better?

Scott Brick made it a little too dramatic. It needed to be a little more 'instructional' and a guide rather than a dramatic read.

Any additional comments?

After I got past Chapter 1 it was more of the same. It was a little too 'preachy' for me. I do agree with Mr Shapiro that being a 'welcomer' is all about common sense. I got what I needed (personally) from the beginning of the book.