Best Face Forward:  Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces with Customers, by Jeffrey F. Rayport and Bernard J. Jaworski.  Boston:  Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

Now more than ever, success is based on how well firms manage interactions with customers.  Short on appropriately skilled labor and flush with new intelligent technologies, visionary managers are not just outsourcing or sending work offshore for greater efficiency; they are recruiting machines into the workforce for greater effectiveness.

The fruit of many years’ research and client work, the book argues that now more than ever, success is based on how well firms manage interactions with customers. Short on appropriately skilled labor and flush with new intelligent technologies, visionary managers are not just outsourcing or sending work offshore for greater efficiency; they are recruiting machines into the workforce for greater effectiveness. Technology is taking over "front office" roles in customer interaction and relationship management – sparking a revolution in how firms serve customers and compete with rivals.

Bernie and Jeffrey argue that as this "front-office automation" revolution unfolds, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on deploying the right mix of interfaces with customers – human, automated, and hybrids of both – to surpass current levels of performance and service. Far from dehumanizing the workforce, Bernie and Jeffrey illustrate how this revolution will create a "people-rich" workplace--one that combines the unique capabilities of humans and machines to create a better world for all of us.

Best Face Forward is broken down into an Introduction and 8 chapters:

• Introduction: an overview of the themes in the Book
• Interfaces As the New Frontier of Competitive Advantage (Chapter 1)
• The Interface Imperative (Chapter 2)
• The Front-Office Revolution (Chapter 3)
• What People Do Best (Chapter 4)
• What Machines Do Best (Chapter 5)
• Putting the Amalgam of People and Machines to Work (Chapter 6)
• Managing Interface Systems (Chapter 7)
• The Interface Audit (Chapter 8)

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Review a syllabus for Best Face Forward