Driven to Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the Mercedes-Benz Way

A Wall Street Journal bestseller

Why are Mercedes-Benz customers so loyal and passionate?  Because the people at Mercedes-Benz are Driven to Delight

In his previous bestsellers--The Starbucks Experience, The New Gold Standard, and Prescription for Excellence--Joseph Michelli revealed customer experience practices and strategies of beloved businesses. Now, in this timely new book, he shares the greatest customer-driven insights behind one of the most iconic brand names in the world: Mercedes-Benz USA.

DRIVEN TO DELIGHT reveals:

• How Mercedes-Benz USA launched a multi-year program to elevate their customer experience--even though their product was already “best in class.”
• How they activated people, improved processes, and deployed technology to emotionally engage customers.
• How the Mercedes-Benz approach can jump-start any customer-driven business—by accelerating your commitment to the customer experience.

Filled with exclusive front-seat insights from Mercedes-Benz employees, eye-opening testimonials from passionate Mercedes-Benz fans, and solid nuts-and-bolts advice for creating your own consumer-aligned road map, Driven to Delight will help you retool your strategies, reignite your customers, and refuel your team for the long haul.

Mercedes-Benz. The name alone conjures images of luxury, innovation, quality, and performance. But in today’s market, you need more than a world-class product to outpace the competition--which is why the executives at Mercedes-Benz USA set a course to create a customer experience in keeping with their legendary cars.

This is the story of how an organization became Driven to Delight.  It reveals the action plan Mercedes-Benz USA used to catapult the company to first place rankings in national customer satisfaction studies while at the same time growing sales and profits. With unprecedented access to company personnel, customer experience expert Joseph Michelli charts the journey the company took and identifies the all-important keys to driving delight in any customer-based organization. You’ll learn how to:

• Create a compelling vision for exceptional customer experiences
• Identify the ever changing wants, needs, and desires of your customer segments
• Map out your key customer journeys and high value contact points
• Effectively evaluate customer perceptions throughout their journey with you
• Resolve customer needs swiftly and constantly improve your delivery processes
• Link rewards and recognition to customer experience excellence throughout your organization

These proven techniques are part of the Mercedes-Benz USA “Driven to Delight” culture which sets a new gold standard in customer service, employee engagement, and peak performance. You’ll find step-by-step strategies that can be customized to fit your business model and customer needs. You’ll discover invaluable tools like Vision Mapping, Customer Journey Wheels, Customer-Centric Strategy and Resource Planning Processes --plus 20 Key Questions you can use to diagnose your progress and steer your company in the right direction.

Along the way, you’ll get a rare first-hand comprehensive view of a world-class company in action. You’ll see how a “best or nothing” organization became customer obsessed, mile after mile, year after year. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to ramp up your own customer experience, rev up your customer commitment, and take your customers on a journey that’s bound to delight--the Mercedes-Benz way.

Joseph A. Michelli is an internationally sought-after speaker, author, and organizational consultant. His books include The Starbucks Experience, The New Gold Standard, The Zappos Experience, Leading the Starbucks Way, and Prescription for Excellence, which hit #1 on The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller lists.

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., is an internationally sought-after speaker and business consultant whose clients include Bridgestone Firestone, Nokia, The Hartford Insurance Group, and UCLA Health System. The author of the bestselling The Starbucks Experience, he has appeared on The Glenn Beck Show and CNBC’s On the Money.

"A powerful and inspiring look 'inside the tent' of Mercedes-Benz that will help you learn how large companies make big changes in short timespans." --Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist of Canva and author of The Art of the Start 2.0 "I can't remember having read a more compelling example of how great luxury brands aren't just made but are nurtured. Driven to Delight offers essential lessons on the direct and undeniable relationship between how much you value and respect your customers and how they reward you for that consideration." --Mike Jackson, Chairman, CEO, and President, AutoNation "Joseph Michelli's latest book is a masterful roadmap for transforming the relationship between leaders, employees, and the customers they serve." --Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Are You Fully Charged? "The revolution in customer care that MBUSA is currently undertaking is rivaled only by the revolution that Mercedes began with the invention of the automobile. Dr. Michelli's book provides the most comprehensive look at how MBUSA is undertaking and succeeding at this transformative initiative." --Alex Gellert, CEO, Merkley & Partners "Kudos to Steve Cannon and Joseph Michelli. Steve is the rare CEO who is brutally honest--in a public forum-- about his own iconic organization's growing pains. Joseph's ability to present a compelling case study is unparalleled. If Driven to Delight can't convince you of the bottom line benefits of balancing service and technology to differentiate from your competition, your days are numbered." --Doug Lipp, international business consultant and bestselling author of Disney U "Once again Joseph Michelli gives us a glimpse into one of the worlds' great brands and customer experiences. Joseph helps us understand how Mercedes Benz leadership transformed and elevated sales and service experiences. Additionally, he takes the reader on a journey to examine their own organization and determine how to apply these principles and lessons in their own business. This is an important read for leaders who want to grow their businesses, by improving customers' lives." --Jeanne Bliss, President, CustomerBliss, and bestselling author of Chief Customer Officer 2.0 and I Love You More Than My Dog "Mercedes Benz's story demonstrates the leadership and commitment that's required to transform customer experience within a large organization. The book does a great job of capturing how the company engaged all of its employees and partners on a journey to deliver upon its brand promise, which required much more than just designing great cars." --Bruce Temkin, CCXP, Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner, Temkin Group "Most business leaders will tell you how important it is to delight their customers--who wouldn't? But most don't. This is the story of Steve Cannon's journey to take Mercedes Benz from 'good to best'--the diagnosis, the plan, the process design, the management and measurement, but most importantly, the leadership that is making 31,600 people, 99.5 percent of whom don't work for him, WANT to deliver it." --Andrew Robertson, President and CEO, BBDO Worldwide, Inc.

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