The Relationship Economy: Building Stronger Customer Connections in the Digital Age

An earnest, if curmudgeonly, guide to building a customer-centric business arrives from DiJulius, president of customer service consulting firm DiJulius Group. The ability to build an instant connection with customers is critical, he reminds readers, and yet most business leaders are unprepared; the art of customer connection is rarely taught formally. As such, in order to build these relationships, one must be sincere, good at listening, empathetic, and “obsessively curious,” not to mention genuinely fond of people. DiJulius discusses how the business world got to its current customer-unfriendly state, and why so many employees lack empathy; he directs business managers to start with their workforce and figure out how to give customers what they want: “recognition and a personalized experience.” His description of the relationship economy in action is clear and his advice helpful, but readers may find the tone unnecessarily judgmental; he bemoans a society which is “relationship disadvantaged,” whose members are disinterested in each other or in communicating, and in which “trust is an endangered value.” Readers sympathetic to or capable of overlooking DiJulius’s crotchety worldview will appreciate his well-informed perspective on delivering quality customer service. (Oct.)