Chip Bell

The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service

Value-added has been the service solution for many service exemplars—take what customers expect and add a little more. But value-added extras have gotten a lot more expensive. Tough economic times call for a new approach: value-unique service. The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service is your instruction manual and inspirational guide to making service an experience that causes your customers to swoon, smile, and sing your praises! It is your spark plug for bringing energy and igniting your customers’ experiences.

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Chip Bell lavishes us with far more than nine-and-a-half ways to make any customer encounter unique. This book is full of fun stories that will inspire you to add your own special touch to service.
−Daniel H. Pink, author of To Sell is Human,Drive, and A Whole New Mind
Full of true stories that will inspire you to delight your customers; this little book has a lot of heart
−Ken Blanchard, coauthor of the bestselling The One Minute Manager® and Trust Works!
Chip Bell’s words light up the pages of this wonderful book, and his ideas will light up your business!
−B.J. Gallagher, author of The Power of Positive DOING and the international bestselling A Peacock in the Land of Penguins
If you want innovative service to be a way of life in your business, make sure this quick and thoroughly enjoyable read gets in the hands of every brand ambassador.
−Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, bestselling authors of Nanovation and Guts!
I run a company that teaches Fortune 100 CEOs how to improve their customer service. I always leave my clients with two books—Nice Companies Finish First (which is the one I wrote) and any book by Chip Bell
−Peter Shankman Founder, Shankman|Honig
A wonderfully well written book that’s easy to read with great stories and 9 ½ actionable ideas to create extraordinary customer experiences.
−Dr. Tony Alessandra, Hall-of-Fame Keynote Speaker and author of The Platinum Rule®
Yet again, Chip Bell has given us a practical and powerful call to service leadership which, as he so convincingly articulates, may start from the enlightened top but is always delivered by the empowered frontline
−Betsy Sanders, former Nordstrom VP and general manager and bestselling author of Fabled Service
Chip Bell has delivered a small book with big ideas that require YOU to take action. Use this book if you want to forge results.
−Chris Brogan, publisher, Owner Magazine.
Beloved companies enable people to bring the best version of themselves to work. Chip is the “Pied-Piper” of employee joy - helping leaders enable behaviors that make this possible.
−Jeanne Bliss, bestselling author of I Love You More Than My Dog; Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad.
Take the quantum leap now and make this book your ‘owners guide’ to taking customer experience to the highest level.
−James Mapes, bestselling author of Quantum Leap Thinking
Does your team have the guts to be remarkable? In The 9 1/2 principles of Innovative Service, customer service guru Chip Bell shows you how to escape boring and become an organization worth talking about. Buy it, read it, share it. Your customers will thank you!
−Lisa McLeod, bestselling author of Selling with Noble Purpose.
When I think of exceptional customer service, I think of Zappos, Nordstorm...and Chip Bell!
−Steve Curtin, bestselling author of Delight Your Customers
Disclosure: I am a gigantic Chip Bell fan. This remarkable book about remarkable customer service exemplifies why. It is chock full of memorable nuggets that you’ll be able to put to use right away. This simple and wise book is Chip Bell at his best!
−Bill Treasurer, author of the bestselling books Leaders Open Doors and Courage Goes to Work

Feature Articles

Innovative Service
Publication: HR.com
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How Leaders Grow Innovation
Publication: T+D
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in the Media

Biz Book Review: The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service
Chip Bell tells stories from real life organizations to help you implement these principles in your business. 9 ½ Principles – You’ve heard of value-add? That is so last decade. Today it’s Value-Unique, everything else is vanilla.
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Too Early for Jazz
If innovative service were a musical genre it would have the passion of a tango and the connection of a square dance. It would be performed in the key of joy. It would be as inclusive as a sing-along, animated at a happy cadence. It would not be jazz.
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Value Added Trumps Value Unique
Value-added literally means taking what the customer expects and adding more. [...] At some point, the additions exceed what is cost-effective. The solution: innovative service (value-unique)!
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Why Cirque du Soleil is Your New Challenge
Welcome to the new kid on the service exemplar block. Cirque du Soleil. And, their formula for success is not just an over-the-top attitude of great service. It is total sensory emersion.
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Call Center 2024 Style
What if we could look forward as easily we can look back? What would the contact center of the future be like? Let’s imagine the contact center ten years from now.
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Just Surprise Me
It is time to bring back the trust and authority the frontline needs to be both generous and ingenious.
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Leadership Echo
What is the sound of your leadership if it is only heard as an echo through your employees?
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Your next innovation will be determined by customer expectations
Chip Bell joins Jim Blasingame to emphasize the imperative that your business must have an innovative mindset and that your next innovation will be determined by your customer expectations.
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Back-to-School Season Equals a 72 Billion Dollar Chance For Retailers To Ramp Up Customer Service
While retail giants like Walmart, Target, Apple, and L.L. Bean are already offering special discounts and promotions, international customer service expert Chip Bell says in today’s marketplace, gaining and retaining customers requires more than new items in stock or deep discounts.
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America’s most-hated social media company is…
Chip Bell, the founder of business consulting firm Chip Bell Group and author of “The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service,” says social media companies are “engineered for online responses rather than using a traditional call-center approach.”
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The Ultimate Guide To Customer Loyalty
Today’s customers are much smarter buyers than their parents were. However, there are four key loyalty drivers we find fit most customers most of the time about most services.
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Dealing with Difficult Customers Online
Chip Bell joins Jim Blasingame to discuss how to deal with difficult online customers, including how to deal with negative online reviews.
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Effortless: The Big Kahuna of Customer Experience
“Easy to do business with” was more important than smart people, empowered people, friendly people, accuracy, reliability, great service recovery, knows me and my needs, and even a 10% discount!
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Cloud and Hosting Providers Need Innovative and “Value Unique” Services to Survive
Chip Bell is a bestselling author and the keynote speaker forHostingCon 2014. He says most organizations focus on value added services, in other words adding a services to an existing base. Companies basically take what base level services a customer expects then add more.
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Why Canadians are more satisfied than you Customer service in America is mediocre — and getting worse
Chip Bell, the founder of business consulting firm Chip Bell Group and author of “The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service,” says that you should lead with a statement like “I need your help” and continue with complimentary statements that will motivate employees to give good service like “you sound like you really know your stuff.”
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Providing Value-Unique Innovative Service
To humanize the way your business delivers innovative service you need to find ways to connect with customers as people.
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Innovative Leaders - Chip Bell Podcast
In this episode, you’ll learn about: The principle of innovative service and the role of leaders in innovative service.
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Revive That Old-Fashioned Extra: Excellent Customer Service
Value-added service has become all too pricey for small businesses. Yet, everyone knows how important it is to exceed customer expectations. Instead of adding more services, why not try adopt something of value that's unique -- making your business service unexpectedly delightful?
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Increase Customer Loyalty by Providing Innovative Service - Chip Bell
Chip Bell, Leader of the Chip Bell Group and Author of "The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service" shares the lessons of decades of experience helping businesses succeed with proven customer service strategies.
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Free Prizes Create Priceless Memories
Providing a special gift can turn an okay service experience into one with a surprise. And, the gifts that make customers smile are the ones that are simple, unexpected and seem to fit the situation.
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Valentine's Day Lesson: Be Generous to Your Customers
Chip Bell joins Jim Blasingame to reveal why having a generous heart when serving customers is a long-term advantage.
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Forget Customer Satisfaction. Think Customer Surprise
According to customer loyalty consultant and bestselling author Chip R. Bell, who wrote the book The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service, the secret to delivering great customer service is to give your customers a surprise--something they didn't expect.
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Trend Watch: Connecting Online And In-Store To Boost Valentine’s Day Sales
“On Valentine’s Day, you want your employees to push customer engagement towards making the customer feel loved,” Bell said. “The opposite will not be a negative experience, but an indifferent experience.
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5 Ways to Court the Customer as Your Valentine
Renowned customer service expert and author Chip Bell says that one byproduct of innovative customer service is not just keeping a customer but changing their feelings about the organization from pleased to thrilled.
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Attracting Loyalty from Today's Retail Customers
Have mobile payments lived up to the hype? How can retailers compete with Amazon? Are customer engagement strategies measuring up? These and other questions are asked and answered in the Retail TouchPoints 2014 Outlook Guide.
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9 Principles of Innovative Guest Experiences
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Follow these rules to connect with holiday shoppers
Chip Bell joins Jim Blasingame to remind us that the best way to get and keep customers, especially during the holidays, is to be honest and be kind in your marketing and delivery of service.
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Expert Chip Bell Reveals Secrets to Getting Really Great Customer Service During the Holidays
Bell, a customer loyalty consultant, renowned keynote speaker and author of several national bestselling books on customer loyalty, offers proven tips for getting really great customer service in spite of the hustle and bustle.
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9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service – Chip Bell on Marketing Made Simple TV
In business today, companies who deliver exemplary service win. That’s why you need to watch Chip’s show.
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Customer service gets even worse
There are ways that consumers can get better service—even at the most annoying companies. “Start with the attitude you want to receive from them,” says Chip Bell, the founder of business consulting firm Chip Bell Group and author of “The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service”
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Chip Bell Interview as seen on Quality Digest Live
When you read this book, you're going to find it's a fun read, a quick read, a lot of good information...common sense, stuff, too.
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Book Review: The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service, by @ChipRBell
Well worth the investment of your reading time. Filled with skills and tips to raise the bar of your customer service to new heights.
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A Gift That Keeps Giving: Review of Chip R. Bell’s “The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service”
9 1/2 Principles provides the basis for a great experience, with a short story for each and inspirational quotes from leaders across industries. All are great reminders what it takes to innovate in service.
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Principles of Innovative Service: How to Make Them Work for You
Every once in a while a new book comes across my desk for review that’s an absolute delight to read: The 9-1/2 Principles of Innovative Service by Chip R. Bell is one such book.
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Make Each Customer Experience Unique
Chip Bell joins Jim Blasingame to explain that small businesses have the unique ability to make each experience special for their customers and that employees should be empowered to offer excellent customer service.
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The Streets are Rough
Chip’s latest book, The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service, uses stories, anecdotes, and quotes to inspire and instruct.
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Where Does Innovative Service Begin?
This book is readable, piercing in its intensity, and positive.
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Innovative Service Gifts
The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service is an ideal gift for anyone who’s interested in improving their service skills. It provides an engaging instruction manual and inspirational guide for creating a service experience that causes your customers to fall in love with your company and spread word-of-mouth praise.
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Book Review - The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service
If you are looking to transform your service delivery, this book will definitely give you some great ideas to implement for yourself!
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Innovative Service Includes Random Acts of Neighbor
In a world of competition and repetition, Chip’s thinking stands out like a beacon of hope across a dark sea.
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Innovative Service Lessons At Church
Chip Bell says: “Boldly summon customers on a journey to collective joy much like a child welcoming a close friend to a tree house filled with secrets.”
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Customer Service Keynote Speaker

The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service

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