Today's customers are a hard bunch to crack. Time-strapped, screen-addicted, value-savvy, and socially engaged, their expectations are tougher than ever for a business to keep up with. They are empowered like never before and expect businesses to respect that sense of empowermentùlashing out at those that don't. Take heart: Old-fashioned customer service, fully retooled for today's blistering pace and digitally connected reality, is what you need to build the kind loyal customer base that allows you to surviveùand thrive. And High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service spells out surefire strategies for success in a clear, entertaining, and practical way. Discover: ò Six major customer trends and what they mean for your business ò Eight unbreakable rules for social media customer service ò How to effectively address online complainers and saboteurs on Yelp, Twitter, TripAdvisor, and other forums for user generated content ò The rising power of self-serviceùand how to design it properly ò How to build a company culture that breeds stellar customer service High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service reveals inside secrets of wildly successful customer service initiatives, from Internet startups to venerable brands, and shows how companies of every stripe can turn casual customers into fervent supporters who will spread the word far and wideùonline and off.

CATEGORY SILVER WINNER: Axiom Awards 2021 - Human Resources/Employee Training Category Despite global economic conditions, companies are always looking to attract and retain the best talent. Unfortunately, almost 30% of US job seekers leave a new job within the first 30 days. Why? Many new recruiters rely too heavily on high-tech tools to attract candidates and may not have learned the fundamental relationship-building skills that help recruiters ensure that clients and candidates are a good match. High-Tech High-Touch Recruiting provides recruiters with an end-to-end process for recruiting the highest caliber talent who, after they are hired, will become engaged employees. While emphasizing the overall importance of building "high-touch" relationship-building skills, the book outlines how these can be blended successfully with "high-tech" tools such as AI-powered software applications to identify a large pool of qualified job candidates. Once you've identified candidates, the author cautions against the sole use of text and email communication and suggests that recruiters conduct a general interview in order to better ascertain whether a candidate is the best fit for the role. High-Tech High-Touch Recruiting comes with online resources including sample offer letters, recruiting scripts, job requisitions, interview scorecard, a listing of characteristics of best hires and guidelines for a 9-step telephone interview process.

In High Tech and High Touch, James E. Coverdill and William Finlay invite readers into the dynamic world of headhunters, personnel professionals who acquire talent for businesses and other organizations on a contingent-fee basis. In a high-tech world where social media platforms have simplified direct contact between employers and job seekers, Coverdill and Finlay acknowledge, it is relatively easy to find large numbers of apparently qualified candidates. However, the authors demonstrate that headhunters serve a valuable purpose in bringing high-touch search into the labor market: they help parties on both sides of the transaction to define their needs and articulate what they have to offer. As well as providing valuable information for sociologists and economists, High Tech and High Touch demonstrates how headhunters approach practical issues such as identifying and attracting candidates; how they solicit, secure, and evaluate search assignments from client companies; and how they strive to broker interactions between candidates and clients to maximize the likelihood that the right people land in the right jobs.

Technology advances are making tech more . . . human. This changes everything you thought you knew about innovation and strategy. In their groundbreaking book, Human + Machine, Accenture technology leaders Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson showed how leading organizations use the power of human-machine collaboration to transform their processes and their bottom lines. Now, as new AI powered technologies like the metaverse, natural language processing, and digital twins begin to rapidly impact both life and work, those companies and other pioneers across industries are tipping the balance even more strikingly toward the human side with technology-led strategy that is reshaping the very nature of innovation. In Radically Human, Daugherty and Wilson show this profound shift, fast-forwarded by the pandemic, toward more human—and more humane—technology. Artificial intelligence is becoming less artificial and more intelligent. Instead of data-hungry approaches to AI, innovators are pursuing data-efficient approaches that enable machines to learn as humans do. Instead of replacing workers with machines, they're unleashing human expertise to create human-centered AI. In place of lumbering legacy IT systems, they're building cloud-first IT architectures able to continuously adapt to a world of billions of connected devices. And they're pursuing strategies that will take their place alongside classic, winning business formulas like disruptive innovation. These against-the-grain approaches to the basic building blocks of business—Intelligence, Data, Expertise, Architecture, and Strategy (IDEAS)—are transforming competition. Industrial giants and startups alike are drawing on this radically human IDEAS framework to create new business models, optimize post-pandemic approaches to work and talent, rebuild trust with their stakeholders, and show the way toward a sustainable future. With compelling insights and fresh examples from a variety of industries, Radically Human will forever change the way you think about, practice, and win with innovation.

"There's branding and there's high-tech branding and the differences are enormous. The authors do a great job in isolating the many important principles of branding in an increasingly high-technology world." Al Ries Chairman, Ries & Ries Co-author, The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding "The internet and e-commerce have inspired phenomenal changes in the business world, but at least one thing has remained constant: the importance of building a strong brand." Ed Zander President, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Building a strong consumer brand has always been a monumental task. But, never more so than today, with the explosion of technology, innovation and communication. Paul Temporal has taken a pragmatic and credible approach to suggesting how this effort can be tackled, through his reiteration of basic branding principles, to his reliving case studies of companies which point the way forward. Along the way, he reminds us that branding is all about building a long-lasting and meaningful relationship with consumers." Aaron Boey Vice-President, Marketing Philips Consumer Electronics, Asia-Pacific & Middle-East "Paul Temporal and KC Lee offer us a book full of thought-provoking views and case studies relevant to Internet-Age companies. Insightful and informative, this book challenges you to think through every element of your online branding and customer experience. It is a useful read for any executive who is in charge of brand strategy development and management." Jay Sibel Vice-President, Communications and High Technology Practice A.T. Kearney "In the hi-tech age, building and sustaining great brands are even more critical than ever. The strength of the brand is the only differentiator in a world of connected and knowledgeable customers." Steve Ballmer President, Microsoft

From John Naisbitt, the preeminent social forecaster of our time and the author of the #1 "New York Times bestseller Megatrends, a remarkable examination of the role technology plays in our accelerated search for meaning. With American culture now being increasingly broadcast through technology--from TV and movies to music to the Internet and electronic games--we are living in what John Naisbitt calls the Technologically Intoxicated Zone. This zone is a confusing and distracted state where we both fear and worship technology, where we see technologies as toys and quick-fixes, and where we become obsessed with what is "real" and what is "fake"--from the violent games children play to genetically-engineered animals to whether one can claim to have scaled Everest if supplemental oxygen was used. It is technology's saturation of American society--with its fabulous innovations and its devastating consequences--that John Naisbitt and his coauthors Nana Naisbitt and Douglas Philips explore in this important and timely book. By conciously examining our relationship with technology as consumers of products, media, and emerging genetic technologies, we can learn to become aware of the impact technology will have on our daily lives, our children, our religiosity, our arts, and our humanness. High Tech/High Touch is a cautionary tale that shows us how to make the most of technology's benefits while minimizing its detrimental effects on our culture. In a compelling tour of our technological immersion as we work and play and search for a spiritual path, Naisbitt tackles complex questions: Does technology free us from constraints of the physical world, or does it tie us down to ourmachines? Does it save us time in our day-to-day lives, or does it merely create a void we feel compelled to fill with even more tasks and responsibilities? What about advances in biotechnology? Recent developments in genetic engineering now raise the possibility of a future that will someday be free of the birth defects, disabilities, and diseases that mark our lives today. But in an age where such things are possible, what is natural and what is artificial? And when people can be created in the laboratory as easily as in the womb, what, then, does it truly mean to be human? Moving from the information and machine technologies of computers, the Internet, and telecommunications to the genetic technologies that are transforming biological science and art, High Tech/High Touch reveals the emerging power we have over our destinies--and the need for a moral compass to guide us. An ideal book to usher in a century in which these issues will become even more timely, High Tech/High Touch deftly explores the world we are creating and the world that is to come.

High Tech, High Touch illustrates technical solutions that really work, inspired by effective customer service strategies used by businesses. These are unique technology solutions—based on digital libraries, portals, e-mail notifications, and database interfaces to the web—to solve everyday public library problems.

Social change has placed new demands on the practice of medicine, altering almost every aspect of patient care relationships. Just as medicine was encouraged to embrace the biological sciences some 100 years ago, recent directives indicate the importance of the social sciences in understanding biomedical practice. Humanistic challenges call for changes in curative and technological imperatives. In this book, social scientists contribute to such challenges by using social evidence to indicate appropriate new goals for health care in a changing environment. This book was designed to stimulate and challenge all those concerned with the human interactions that constitute medical practice. To encompass a wide range of topics, the authors include researchers; practicing physicians from the specialties of family, general, geriatric, pediatric, and oncological medicine; social and behavioral scientists; and public health representatives. Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, they explore the ethical, economic, and social aspects of patient care. These essays draw on past studies of the patient-doctor relationship and generate new and important questions. They address social behavior in patient care as a way to approach theoretical issues pertinent to the social and medical sciences. The authors also use social variables to study patient care and suggest new areas of sociomedical inquiry and new approaches to medical practice, education, and research. Its cross-disciplinary approach and jargon-free writing make this book an important and accessible tool for physician, scholar, and student.

Distance Learning is for leaders, practitioners, and decision makers in the fields of distance learning, e-learning, telecommunications, and related areas. It is a professional journal with applicable information for those involved with providing instruction to all kinds of learners, of all ages, using telecommunications technologies of all types. Stories are written by practitioners for practitioners with the intent of providing usable information and ideas. Articles are accepted from authors--new and experienced--with interesting and important information about the effective practice of distance teaching and learning. Distance Learning is published quarterly. Each issue includes eight to ten articles and three to four columns, including the highly regarded "And Finally..." column covering recent important issues in the field and written by Distance Learning editor, Michael Simonson. Articles are written by practitioners from various countries and locations, nationally and internationally.

"Selling is identifying and satisfying customer needs profitably. Profitable for you, profitable for them." Diane Sutter, President and CEO of Shooting Star Broadcasting , owner of KTAB-TV, Abilene, Texas This is the definition of sales used throughout Ed Shane's comprehensive and timely textbook Selling Electronic Media. This new definition reflects the customer-orientation of today's marketing environment as well as the product-orientation of selling. Today's selling is a win/win proposition, a win for the seller and a win for the customer. Using interviews with industry leaders and reports of their selling experiences, Selling Electronic Media shares insight and practical advice in the basics of selling: · prospecting · qualifying · needs analysis · presentations · answering objections · closing · relationship management Focusing on the merging and converging of electronic media and the need for branding of media at all levels, this highly readable book offers complete coverage of advertising sales for radio, television and cable, plus the new and emerging mass communication technologies, primarily those generated by the Internet. Selling Electronic Media is enhanced with review highlights and discussion points and illustrated throughout with visuals used by media outlets to market commercials and their audience reach. Students pursuing sales and marketing careers in electronic media and professionals wishing to reinforce their understanding of the merging and converging media environment will find what they need in the pages of this book.