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Product Details
Free Press, August 2010
Trade Paperback, 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1416546901
ISBN-13: 9781416546900
Description
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. Because of the fast-moving nature of the industry, the paperback will be revised and updated throughout, including a fresh Introduction.
For the first time, Yellin gets at the heart of the human stories behind the often inhuman face of call-center customer ?service—and why customer service doesn’t have to be this bad.
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"If you've ever been frustrated by automated customer service lines, rude telephone service representatives or agents who can't speak intelligible English, this book is for you. Yellin dives into the often dysfunctional world of customer service, interviewing exasperated consumers, displeased CEOs and infuriated customer service reps. Readers will likely look at the industry differently and with more empathy."
-- Publishers Weekly
"For small business owners, Yellin's prodigiously researched book is a useful cautionary tale."
-- Fortune Small Business Magazine
"Ms. Yellin, a Memphis-based journalist, mixes polls and studies with excerpts from published reports and her own insightful reporting from call centers and related businesses in the U.S. and overseas... [she] is an illuminating guide whose conclusions are sound"
-- Wall Street Journal
"After death, taxes and inclement weather, it's one of life's most inescapable downers: the customer-service call. Getting help can be an automated hell, an eternity of Muzak, code punching and security questions. Which is why the title of Emily Yellin's customer-friendly romp through this unfriendly world rings so true: 'Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us.'"
-- Newsweek
"According to the author, [customer service is] a barometer of how we communicate and how we treat each other not only nationally but globally and across all sorts of barriers."
-- Memphis Flyer
"Yellin divulges the woes of mistreated consumers, striking a chord not only with adults who have fantasized about destroying stubborn fax machines and voice recognition systems, but also those who take their revenge on companies by posting injustices on the Web. Yellin doesn't just dwell on complaints, however. She also looks at our nature to complain, what we complain about and how we do so. She adeptly covers the history of technology and its role in consumerism and customer service."
-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
BToBOnline, October 4, 2011
...great way to start a campaign.” The coup de campagne was a personalized dimensional mailing containing the book “Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us” by Emily Yellin (Free Press, 2009) about customer service and call-center issues. ...
Destination CRM, August 2, 2010
...CRM Evolution '10 — Day 1: Emily Yellin, author of Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us, shares some customer service interactions of her own, and reveals the secret of the karmic footprint. Page 1 NEW ...
Huffington Post, December 11, 2009
...s customer service phone number and what do you get--when your call finally gets through? Robotic automated-response prompts. ... Emily Yellin can relate. Her own exasperating experience in trying to schedule a repair to a furnace under ...
CNN Money, May 20, 2009
...don't care. So why has this multibillion-dollar industry gotten so bad, and will it ever get better? Emily Yellin tackles the question in her new book, 'Your Call Is (Not That) Important To Us' (Free Press, March 2009), providing an ...
Pahrump Valley Times, May 14, 2009
...over with your pressing little problem, and you wonder: What happened to customer service? In her new book, 'Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us,' author Emily Yellin takes a look at the evolution of customer relations and what is done ...
WMC-TV, April 3, 2009
...Consumers receive poor customer service just about everywhere - in stores and restaurants and over the phone. But Emily Yellin is now sharing her personal view on how to avoid it with her new book, 'Your Call is Not That Important to Us.' ...
Washington Post, March 21, 2009
...YOUR CALL IS (NOT THAT) IMPORTANT TO US Customer Service and What It Reveals About Our World and Our Lives By Emily Yellin Free Press. 291 pp. $26 Neither the title ...
Interactive Investor International, March 19, 2009
...many have no compunction about taking their frustration out on those at the other end of the phone. Emily Yellin, author of an upcoming book with the tongue-in-cheek title 'Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us,' sees room for improvement ...
Emily Yellin's Books
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Our Mothers' WarA stunning portrait of the women of the greatest generation, from housewives to military women, and what they saw, felt, and experienced during WWII.Read More
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