What Marketers Can Learn from the Tin Man

Customer contact personnel (CCP) play a significant role in the success of any industrial or consumer service organization. A key task of CCP is to be attentive, respectful, empathic, and civil toward customers. Many service organizations, however, seemingly overlook this critical, yet low‐cost, approach for enhancing customer satisfaction and favorable word‐of‐mouth promotion. Using The Wizard of Oz as an allegory, discusses the importance of CCP displaying appropriate behavior toward customers and offers a process for fostering such behavior within an organization.