Joseph Michelli – The New Gold Standard book review

In a nutshell (304 pages), this is a blend of non-fiction/educational and advertising. That said, there is a lot more to the book than how awesome the Ritz-Carleton is. The book is primarily about the history of the service they offer today. What lessons they learned along the way and how they got through different strategies.

What I got out of it

It’s one thing to read a book about how to build and run an outstanding service business. It’s another thing to see how the lessons were learned, warts and all. Rather than a general lesson about foreseeing a customer's needs you get a case study in what to look for, how to build a system for the future, and what happens when you perform well or poorly.

What was difficult

The book is about the Ritz-Carlton. They make that clear from the cover of the book onward. That said, it can get a bit tiring hearing about how awesome they are. Also, it’s easy to offer unlimited customer service when you can charge such a high premium that you almost feel like you have to offer extras to justify the price. The Ritz earned this ability, but not everyone can command these high rates.

Recommendation

If you work in the service sector, with consumers or even if you sell to businesses, you can learn valuable lessons from this book. I would just recommend that you make a quick read of it. There’s really no need or benefit to slowly digest every word of the book.