Uncommon Service by Frances Frei & Anne Morriss Summary

Uncommon Service presents a systematic framework for transforming customer service into a competitive advantage. Authors Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that companies must design their entire business model around service excellence by making four strategic trade-offs: defining customer priorities, funding excellence through pricing/cost adjustments, empowering employees, and shaping customer behavior.

This book is essential for business leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs seeking to build customer-centric organizations. It offers actionable strategies for industries like retail, healthcare, and finance, where service quality directly impacts profitability and brand loyalty.

The framework requires companies to:

1. Define excellence (align with customer priorities like convenience or price)
2. Fund excellence (via pricing, cost reduction, or customer participation)
3. Empower employees (through recruitment, training, and culture)
4. Shape customer behavior (encourage respect, self-service, or tech adoption)

The book outlines four funding mechanisms:

• Charge premium prices (e.g., Commerce Bank’s extended hours in exchange for lower interest rates)
• Reduce costs while improving service (e.g., Progressive Insurance’s claims vans)
• Leverage customer labor (e.g., Ochsner Health’s self-scheduling portal)
• Align service improvements with cost savings (e.g., Intuit’s developer-led support)

Culture is critical for empowering employees to deliver excellence. Frei emphasizes intentional design of recruitment, training, and job structures to align staff with service goals. Examples include fostering transparency at Riot Games and operational rigor at Uber.

Companies must excel in attributes customers value most while intentionally underperforming in less critical areas. For example, Southwest Airlines prioritized affordability over assigned seating, while Ochsner Health improved satisfaction by letting patients self-schedule.

Most treat service as a reactive cost center rather than a strategic asset. Frei critiques inconsistent investment in employee training, failure to align pricing with service priorities, and neglecting to design systems that incentivize ideal customer behavior.

The book stresses designing roles and workflows that enable employees to thrive. Examples include Intuit’s engineers handling support calls to gain direct feedback and Riot Games’ cultural reforms to reduce workplace toxicity.

Service-heavy sectors like healthcare (Ochsner Health), finance (Commerce Bank), insurance (Progressive), and tech (Uber) successfully applied these principles to improve profitability and customer retention.

Unlike tactical guides, Frei’s work provides a holistic operational model. It complements classics like The Service Profit Chain by linking culture and strategy, and contrasts with Delivering Happiness by emphasizing systemic design over anecdotal inspiration.

Notable insights include:

• “You can’t be good at everything… decide what you’ll be bad at.”
• “Service excellence is a design problem, not a people problem.”
• “Customers will pay for excellence, but only in the form they value.”

In an era of rising customer expectations and AI-driven service, Frei’s framework helps companies sustainably scale personalization. Its focus on systemic design aligns with trends like self-service platforms and employee experience optimization.