Customer loyalty is essential to the long term financial success of your business, but with more choice then ever before, customers today have high expectations of the products and services they use. To continue to meet - and even to exceed - these high expectations, you need a top notch customer services system in place, and Customer Care Excellence will enable you to achieve just that. In clear, practical language, this book takes you through how you can develop and sustain a customer-service focus within your company. Emphasizing both strategic and practical aspects of customer care, Customer Care Excellence explains how gaining customer commitment and motivating employees to deliver an excellent service at all your company's touch points can ensure successful results and satisfied customers. This fully revised and updated edition includes new material examining the impact of social networking on customer behaviour and the emotional connection customers have with the brand, explaining how you can create a memorable customer experience. Author Sarah Cook takes you through the practical steps necessary to create a culture of customer focus and, crucially, shows how employee engagement leads to customer engagement.

Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery must race against the clock to prevent an unthinkable catastrophe in this “frightening” (Publishers Weekly) novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author hailed as “the master of the medical thriller” (The New York Times). Experts do not question whether a bio-terrorism event will occur in the United States, only when. . . . New York City cab driver Yuri Davydov is an angry, disillusioned Russian émigré poised to lash out at the adoptive nation he believes has denied him the American Dream. A former technician for the vast Soviet biological weapons system, Yuri possesses the technical knowledge to carry out his vengeance on a horrific scale, especially after teaming up with a pair of far-right survivalists who share his abhorrence of the United States government. Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery are confronted with two seemingly disparate cases in their work as forensic pathologists in the city’s medical examiner’s office. They hardly suspect that the deaths could be related, but soon they begin to connect the dots, and the question then becomes whether or not they will solve the puzzle before Yuri and his comrades unleash the ultimate terror: a modern bioweapon.

This stimulating Very Short Introduction to music invites us to really think about music and the values and qualities we ascribe to it. The world teems with different kinds of music-traditional, folk, classical, jazz, rock, pop-and each type of music tends to come with its own way of thinking. Drawing on a wealth of accessible examples ranging from Beethoven to Chinese zither music, Nicholas Cook attempts to provide a framework for thinking about all music. By examining the personal, social, and cultural values that music embodies, the book reveals the shortcomings of traditional conceptions of music, and sketches a more inclusive approach emphasizing the role of performers and listeners. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A “superb, suspense-packed” (Detroit News) novel about one man’s attempt to combat the greed and corruption of a massive pharmaceutical company, from the #1 bestselling author “master of the medical thriller” (The New York Times) “A storyteller of the most daring imagination . . . chillingly entertaining and thought-provoking.”—Associated Press When young dancer Jennifer Schonberg became pregnant by accident, her feelings were mixed. For her husband, Adam, a third-year medical student already in financial straits, the loss of Jennifer’s income and the cost of the coming child meant he must drop out of medical school, so he takes a job as a salesperson for the giant, powerful drug firm Arolen Pharmaceuticals. Jennifer felt she would get the best care at the Julian Clinic as her pregnancy progressed, and it seemed a happy coincidence that the Julian Clinic was owned by Arolen. But soon Adam’s curiosity was aroused: Why did the computer print-outs on his doctor customers reveal so much personal information? And why did so many of them give up private practice for the mysterious Julian Clinic after returning from one of Arolen’s lavish Caribbean cruises? Alarm bells start ringing when Jennifer’s doctor, just back from a cruise, joined the clinic and started prescribing Arolen drugs which he had previously rejected. As Adam slowly begins to suspect the terrifying truth about the connection between the Julian Clinic and Arolen—and about the hideous evil perpetrated on the wife he loved by the doctor she helplessly trusted—he must fight to save his family and the soul of medicine itself. . . .

Young healthy people have been dying after successful surgery. The doctors suspect foul play--are the deaths intentional--is a clever serial killer at work?

First published in 1997. This work aims to assemble, within a concise volume, a wide-ranging guide to the places and events that have featured in twentieth-century world history. The book also sets out to provide the background information on the places behind the headlines. Thus, conflicts over territory or disputed boundary claims have been at the origin of many modern wars. Hence this volume provides both teacher and student with concise and informative entries on the many hundreds of places of major historical significance.

A “cautionary tale” (Chicago Tribune) about bacterial poisoning and corporate malevolence from the #1 bestselling author of Coma, “the master of the literary thriller” (The New York Times) “Searing . . . shocking . . . packs plenty of punches.”—Associated Press Newly divorced Dr. Kim Reggis takes his daughter, Becky, to her favorite fast-food restaurant on a special night out. The quintessential American meal of burgers and fries leads to tragedy: Over the following week Becky becomes gravely ill from E. coli bacterial poisoning. Already beaten down by the indignities of a major hospital merger and the subsequent loss of his departmental chairmanship, Kim collides head-on with cost-cutting rules that restrict his daughter’s treatment. As Becky’s condition worsens, the surgeon is driven over the edge by his inability to alter the inexorable progression. When the administration revokes his hospital privileges, Kim is forced out into the cold. Half crazed by grief, Kim launches himself on an inquiry to learn how and why his daughter got sick. The trail of deadly evidence of shoddy meat-industry practices and complicity stretches from the slaughterhouse to the industry hierarchy to the USDA. Aided in his quest by his ex-wife, Tracy, and a young, idealistic USDA inspector, Kim ultimately learns the shocking truth—but the price may be his life and the lives of those he loves.

A mysterious transmission from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean sends a team of oceanographers and divers on a perilous quest in search of a discovery that could transform modern science and the future of humankind. Original.

From the opening decades of the republic when political parties sponsored newspapers to current governmental practices that actively subsidize the collection and dissemination of the news, the press and the government have been far from independent. Unlike those earlier days, however, the news is no longer produced by a diverse range of individual outlets but is instead the result of a collective institution that exercises collective power. In explaining how the news media of today operate as an intermediary political institution, akin to the party system and interest group system, Cook demonstrates how the differing media strategies used by governmental agencies and branches respond to the constitutional and structural weaknesses inherent in a separation-of-powers system. Cook examines the news media's capacity to perform the political tasks that they have inherited and points the way to a debate on policy solutions in order to hold the news media accountable without treading upon the freedom of the press.