Bring up the subject of customer service phone calls and the blood pressure of everyone within earshot rises exponentially. Otherwise calm, rational, and intelligent people go into extended rants about an industry that seems to grow more inhuman and unhelpful with every phone call we make. And Americans make more than 43 billion customer service calls each year. Whether it's the interminable hold times, the outsourced agents who can't speak English, or the multitude of buttons to press and automated voices to listen to before reaching someone with a measurable pulse -- who hasn't felt exasperated at the abuse, neglect, and wasted time we experience when all we want is help, and maybe a little human kindness? Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us is journalist Emily Yellin's engaging, funny, and far-reaching exploration of the multibillion-dollar customer service industry and its surprising inner-workings. Yellin reveals the real human beings and often surreal corporate policies lurking behind its aggravating façade. After reading this first-ever investigation of the customer service world, you'll never view your call-center encounters in quite the same way. Since customer service has a role in just about every industry on earth, Yellin travels the country and the world, meeting a wide range of customer service reps, corporate decision makers, industry watchers, and Internet-based consumer activists. She spends time at outsourced call centers for Office Depot in Argentina and Microsoft in Egypt. She gets to know the Mormon wives who answer JetBlue's customer service calls from their homes in Salt Lake City, and listens in on calls from around the globe at a FedEx customer service center in Memphis. She meets with the creators of the yearly Customer Rage Study, customer experience specialists at Credit Suisse in Zurich, the founder and CEO of FedEx, and the CEO of the rising Internet retailer Zappos.com. Yellin finds out which country complains about service the most (Sweden), interviews an actress who provides the voice for automated answering systems at many big corporations, and talks to the people who run a website (GetHuman.com that posts codes for bypassing automated voices and getting to an actual human being at more than five hundred major companies. Yellin weaves her vast reporting into an entertaining narrative that sheds light on the complex forces that create our infuriating experiences. She chronicles how the Internet and global competition are forcing businesses to take their customers' needs more seriously and offers hope from people inside and outside the globalized corporate world fighting to make customer service better for us all. Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us cuts through corporate jargon and consumer distress to provide an eye-opening and animated account of the way companies treat their customers, how customers treat the people who serve them, and how technology, globalization, class, race, gender, and culture influence these interactions. Frustrated customers, smart executives, and dedicated customer service reps alike will find this lively examination of the crossroads of world commerce -- the point where businesses and their customers meet -- illuminating and essential.

Ever been left spluttering over some fatuous fib trying to pass itself off as information, even as fact? Of course you have. We all have. It's bullshit, and as Laura Penny sees it, we're drowning in the stuff. Your Call Is Important to Us is Penny's brilliant take on the "all-you-can-eat buffet of phoniness" that is our lives today. "We live in an era of unprecedented bullshit production," Penny says. While bullshit is not new, more money, more media, and more people at mics have led to a bullshit pandemic. Today, we are so used to exaggeration and obfuscation we rarely notice them any more.Thank goodness we have Penny as our witty, smart-aleck guide through the phoniness of advertising and public relations, the claptrap of big pharma, the gobbledygook of the media, and the poppycock of the service industry. Along the way, Penny takes direct aim at the major culprits and the insidious ways they distort reality. As scathing as Michael Moore, as incisive as Naomi Klein, and as funny as Al Franken, Penny's take on the bullshit factor in modern life is a page-turner. Penny has a cheeky riff on that revealing question: "If my call is so important," she asks, "why doesn't anyone answer the damn phone?"

Journalist Emily Yellin pens a lively narrative exploring the very human stories behind the often-inhuman face of call-center customer service. Whether it’s the interminable hold times, the multitude of buttons to press, or the automated voices before reaching someone with a measurable pulse—who hasn’t felt exasperated at the abuse, neglect, and wasted time when all we want is help, and maybe a little human kindness? Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us is journalist Emily Yellin’s highly entertaining and far-reaching exploration of the multibillion-dollar customer service industry and its surprising inner-workings. Since customer service has a role in just about every industry on earth, Yellin travels the country and the world, meeting a wide range of customer service reps, corporate decision makers, industry watchers, and Internet-based consumer activists. She shows the myriad forces that converge to create these aggravating experiences and the people inside and outside the globalized corporate world crusading to make customer service better for us all. For the first time, Yellin gets reveals the heart behind the never-seen faces of call-center customer service—and why customer service doesn’t have to be this bad.

Learn how to cultivate the most incredible customer experiences on earth through this essential guide by Colin Cowie, distinguished purveyor of unforgettable “wow” events for the world’s most demanding clients. If you’re searching for ways to ensure your customers walk away from your company with a smile on their face and a plan to return, you found it. And any business organization can adapt the tools and techniques in this book. Colin Cowie, one of the world’s most sought-after event planners, shares the hard-won and hard-nosed advice he has learned through entertaining and engaging stories and examples. He gives readers the indisputable blueprint for creating a customer-service culture that anyone can tailor to their own needs, whether you’re a shopkeeper, corporate marketing director, or budding event planner. Upon coming to the United States from South Africa with $400 in his pocket, Colin built his highly successful catering and event-planning business from the ground up to become event planner to the most respected tastemakers and personalities in the world—including Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Seacrest, and Kim Kardashian, to name a few. In this book, you will: Learn how to formulate your own vision, mission statements, and guiding principles, and effectively communicate them to your team. Learn how you can align your vision with your essential mission statement. Discover the core values, including service and accountability, that fuel Colin’s customer-care ethos, and how you can apply those values to your own business. Have a renewed understanding of how vitally important it is that you take good care of the people who work for you so they, in turn, can care for your customers. Become armed to inspire and empower your team. Be guided to create your own “bible” of scripts, protocols, and procedures that will streamline customer-care situations while making every customer feel like their individual desires are being taken care of. Learn how to use every complaint as an opportunity, as well as why you should be more afraid of a client who doesn’t complain when something goes wrong versus one who does.

Creativity is all around us. Not in art galleries. But on the train, at work, in the street outside, and in schools, hospitals and restaurants. Creative vision exists wherever people are. In this entertaining collection of real-life stories, Dave Trott applies his crystal clear lens to define what genuine creative vision looks like. It is problem solving, clarity of thought, seeing what others do not see, and removing complexity to make things as simple as you can. The timeless lessons revealed here can be applied in advertising, business and throughout everyday life. By seeing things differently, you can think differently, and change the world around you. Dave Trott shows you how.

Decipher the wacky worldview of the famous radio DJs (and bestselling authors) as they take on relationships, family, physical fitness, religion, and life. Zany radio hosts Rick & Bubba rocketed onto the New York Times bestseller list with their first book, Rick & Bubba’s Expert Guide to God, Country, Family, and Anything Else We Can Think Of. Now Rick & Bubba are back, and this time the world truly isn’t safe. In The Rick & Bubba Code, Rick and Bubba tackle subjects ranging from the South, politics, and romance to manhood, in-laws, and political correctness. Now cow is sacred. No hold is barred. Laugh along with the “sexiest fat men alive” as they uncover the mysteries of the universe.

In every walk of life, from relationships, to work, to politics, sport and the news, our everyday use of English harbours duplicities of meaning. We say 'I'm sorry' when we mean 'absolute nonsense', and write 'Yours faithfully' when we're thinking 'Sod you!' Jealousy, rage, love, affection – we're equally good at disguising them all. Leaves on the Line compiles this secret language – this 'double English' – in a hilarious and forthright volume exposing the doublespeak of the British language. For the first time, everyday terms which we casually deploy to loved ones and total strangers, and have been thrown at us from the radio or TV will be 'glossed' (yes, we really mean 'stripped') to reveal the unadorned, raw truth below. The book will be over 200 hilarious phrases of common doublespeak and will be essential reading for everyone from puzzled foreigners to young people to whom the dark art of linguistic dissembling are not yet second nature. The book includes phrases and the truths behind them, such as: Transport: 'This service is delayed because of leaves on the track...' Social: 'I'm not being racist but...' Weather: 'Nice weather we're having...' Sport: 'We're taking each game as it comes...' Relationships: 'I've never met anyone like you before...' Polititcs: 'Spending on health has increased in real terms, year on year, since we were elected...'

Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus, climate change remains one of the most controversial issues of our time. Focusing on the rhetoric that surrounds the issue of climate change, this groundbreaking book analyses why the debate continues to rage and examines how we should argue when winning the argument really matters. Going beyond routine condemnations of the wildest statements made by religious fundamentalists or spokespeople for fossil fuel interests, the book explains the mutually exacerbating problems that permit many of us greet catastrophic predictions with an equivocal shrug. It argues that the argumentative situation around climate change makes a certain kind of skepticism – "fair-minded skepticism" – not only possible but likely. The book also strikes a hopeful note, reminding us that people do change their minds in response to effective argumentation that appeals to deeply shared values. Offering new insight into an ongoing academic discussion about the nature of argument and how it can be undertaken more effectively and ethically, as well as a new perspective on the rhetoric of science and technology, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of climate change, environmental humanities, rhetoric, environmental communication, sociology and science and technology studies.

An atheist does not believe in God. An agnostic is uncertain about the existence of a God. The scientific community agrees that the Universe was formed with the "Big Bang" and that it is impossible to determine where, how or why this took place. Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, founder of the Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, coined the term "Ignostic" to describe one who believes that it is futile to try to determine what preceded this event and who did it. Therefore one should live without reference to "God." as a supernatural being. Furthermore, you can do God's work and not believe in God. This book is not intended to challenge those who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. . My suggestion is NOT to read this guidebook until you have studied some science and are perplexed, uncertain or skeptical about the Universe. and its origin. The evolution through the millenniums of the tribe that in time became the Jews and their religion is told. Rationalizations to explain the Holocaust and the differences between Authoritative and Humanistic religions are examined. A list of the atrocities that Religions have perpetrated is summarized. And the need for one to have faith is emphasized. A list of the major organizations for Cultural, Secular and Humanistic Judaism are comprised as well as other source material is given. Book II of "Serious Narishkite" (foolishness) is also included. Our Jewish Religion is a treasure trove of delight based on a four thousand year history. Our collective culture includes architecture, art, ceremonies, customs, holidays, languages, literature, music, rituals, traditions, as well as the altruistic moral code and ethical teachings that Judaism advocates and embraces. Do not deprive yourself and future generations of our heritage, our Y'rusha!.

This book is concerned with how people come together to achieve a productive purpose. Human survival has always depended upon our ability to form and sustain social organisations. People have a deep need to be creative and to belong. By creating positive organisations we can fulfil these needs and build a worthwhile society. Such organisations do not occur by chance; a positive organisation is created by the hard work of leaders and members and influenced by the way the organisation is designed, especially its systems. All this needs to be based on an understanding of sound, general principles of behaviour. This book outlines that work; how to build a positive organisation in terms of general principles and practical examples. Understanding and applying this work requires discipline (not dogma) and creativity. The authors show the significant positive results that can be achieved and detail a range of case studies. Unlike some books which are based on goals, objectives or visions this book concentrates on how this can be achieved. The authors observed and engaged with what good leaders and members actually do and have endeavoured to distil the essence of productive relationships based on core, human values. This work has been applied in businesses, social service agencies, hospitals, city governments, national governments, armies, churches, public utilities, indigenous communities, schools and other unique organisations. It is intended to help leaders create more humane and productive organisations that can both meet their objectives and improve the human condition. It does so by presenting a coherent theory exemplified by numerous cases and practical experience. As more than one leader has commented, 'this stuff actually works'. The CD supplied with the book contains 11 case studies which look at the application of systems leadership techniques in a range of organisational contexts.