Acknowledgments

We hope the readers of this book will find it useful, both as customers and as people who think about customers.

No book is an island, and we are grateful to the community of contributors that helped produce it. First, we thank our agent, Jim Levine, who saw its promise, and Jill Totenberg, who supported our early vision. Our editor, Karen Murphy, has guided us from proposal to final form, and we are grateful. Noel Weyrich and Bruce Tucker ably helped us develop the shape and voice of the text, as well as encouraged us to hone and focus our ideas. We thank them each for their thoughtful and constructive guidance.

Much of the most relevant academic research on the warmth and competence model comes from Nicolas Kervyn, who was a postdoctoral visitor and collaborator, and from other members of Susan’s Fiske Lab at Princeton. Research on its implications for companies and brands was assisted by Chris’s colleagues at Fidelum Partners, including Candice Bennett, Bill Bule, Rick Carpenter, Donald Crawford, Leanne Fesenmeyer, Kennan Kosenko, Steve McMahon, Ashley Phillips, Michael Sinclair, and Erica Seidel.

And we would especially like to thank the experts from various companies and brands, who gave generously of their time for interviews with Chris. These included John Beadle, Greg Brown, Steve Cannon, Tim Cost, Bob Dekoy, Mike Faherty, Kelly Faddis, Joe Hage, Dave Harper, Linda Jenkinson, Peter Kaye, Grace Kim, Michael Kolleth, Sundar Kumarasamy, Tom Laforge, Ed Martin, Pedro Massa, Andrew Parkinson, Andrew Rondepierre, Fred Rost, Stan Sthanunathan, and Russell Weiner.

In addition, we received valuable input, suggestions, and contributions from many enthusiastic supporters, including Jill Avery, Angela Cason, Barry Gesserman, Ilan Geva, Peter Glick, Noreena Hertz, Ken Kozielski, Michael Lowenstein, Victoria Porter, Sean Otto, Gary Schanzer, and Frank Strunk, for which we are extremely grateful. In particular, Ed Wallace, with his work on business relationships, was the catalyst that inspired Chris to pursue the path that led him to Susan, and ultimately to this book. We offer our sincere thanks to each of you.

Finally, we are grateful to our respective families, who encouraged us and tolerated the disruption while we met our accelerated production schedule. They are competent and warm beyond belief, and we are sustained by their continued love and support.