Lynda adopts a fresh and provoking approach to the analysis of what constitutes good customer service practice. For example, she distinguishes between customer service and customer valuation. Customer service is saying - OK, you come to us and we will treat you well. Customer valuation means going out to meet the customer half way. Customer service suggests you visit us and we will serve you, whereas customer valuation says we have an ongoing relationship with you, not just greeting you with a smile when you cross our threshold. Some organisations that Lynda has been involved with, the management - when things fail - have an attitude of ' what is the minimum we can do ' rather than ' what is the maximum we should offer '. An example are airlines. Once you are on a plane they probably treat you well, however, when things go wrong they are absolutely terrible. For example, if the weather is bad, an airline will throw up its hands and say 'it's not our fault'. They effectively kill the customer relationship by their attitude. If a surgeon operates and the wound gets infected the surgeon doesn't say 'I'm just in the cutting game - bugs are not my business'. Of course, no one expects the airlines to look after the weather but, with CRM, they should be continuing their service to you in terms of re-routing, information and so on. Same could be said about some of the UK's rail companies.

LKT extends the boundary of customer service to include managing of customer relationships when service fails. "Too often", says Lynda, "organisations have a tendency to fix things but none-the-less continue going in the wrong direction". She uses the example of a ship that is steaming north with a de-moralised crew. All the lights keep going out, the boilers aren't working properly, there isn't sufficient heating and the food is terrible. The owners of the ship appoint a new captain who is very efficient and fixes all the problems so the lights work and the boilers don't stop every thirty minutes. But they're still steaming north when the right direction is south.

Lynda travels the total terrain of customer relationship management - winning back lost loyalty and recovering reputation. As she states, "you cannot consummate customer relationships without maximum motivation and magic morale. You can not gain or give those without loads of loyalty and liberal leadership. CRM is motivation plus leadership."