training of customer ambassadors who serve the guest first and the company second and.a values-driven recruitment system that emphasizes integrity and duty over talent and skills.The key ingredients of this Taj-style customer centricity include: It was instead a manifestation of the Taj Group’s deeply rooted customer-centric culture that, the authors argue, other companies can emulate, both in extreme circumstances and during periods of normalcy. Deshpandé, of Harvard Business School, and Raina, of the HBS India Research Center in Mumbai, demonstrate that this behavior was not merely a crisis response.
They placed the safety of guests over their own well-being, thereby risking-and, in some cases, sacrificing-their lives. When terrorists attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, employees of the Taj Mumbai hotel displayed uncommon valor.
