Shep Hyken's Blog, page 153

Amazing Business Radio: Skip Cohen

Backing Your Upset Customer Off the Ledge


Shep Hyken Interviews Skip Cohen on How to Handle Angry Customers   

How well do you deal with angry and complaining customers?

 

 

 

 

Shep Hyken talks with Skip Cohen about the best ways to solve problems and deal with unhappy customers.

Top Takeaways:

When you empathize with an unhappy customer, this immediately lets them know that you are there to help and they feel valued. Tell them you understand their frustration and let them know that you would feel the same way if you were in their shoes. Then, let them know the problem stops here, that you are here to resolve it.
Three keys to offering a great customer service experience:

Fast response times – How fast is fast enough? As soon as you come into contact with the customer you should respond. So, as soon as you see that email or as soon as you listen to the voicemail, that is when you get back to them.
Have the solution – Be equipped to solve the problems and resolve the complaints you are getting.
Listen – When you listen to the customer and really hear them out, you get a clearer picture of where they are at and exactly what they need.


Don’t be afraid to hear what is wrong with your company. It’s in the complaints that you are given the great opportunity for change and innovation.

About:

Skip Cohen is co-host of the webcast Mind Your Own Business and is the founder of SkipCohenUniversity, considered one of the fastest growing educational sites in professional photography. He is the co-author of six books on photography.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, “New York Times” best-selling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

“Let the customer know, ‘The buck stops here! I’m here to solve your problem.” – Skip Cohen

 

       

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

How should I handle unhappy customers?
How quickly should I respond to my customers?
What should I do when a customer complains?  
How do I resolve customer complaints?
How do I handle angry customers?
How do I handle complaining customers?

The post Amazing Business Radio: Skip Cohen appeared first on Shep Hyken.

5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 12, 2018

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

Why Customer Service is a Double-Edged Sword and How to Keep it From Killing Your Brand by Lisa Callahan

(MartTech Exec) “It’s tough to be in a customer-facing position these days. Any wrong move you make can be broadcast to the world in a click. But I think we should embrace the flip side and remember that every satisfied customer is also a building block to our success ” — Lana K. Moore, Executive Editor at MarTechExec

My Comment: Here is an article filled with a lot of great information and lots of examples from recognized brands that are relevant to all businesses (B2B and B2C). In addition, it includes a great infographic with the history of customer service, from walk-in service (before phones) to where we are today in the digital world.

Five Ways to Deliver Excellent Customer Service by Steven MacDonald

(SuperOffice) Here are five ways to stand out from the crowd and deliver excellent customer service.

My Comment: SuperOffice has been sharing some great content, and this article is no exception. Here are five ways to deliver a great service experience. For each one, they share an example. These “stories” have been around a while, and you may even recognize one or two of them, but they really make the point.

Time to Show Your Customers Some Love by Rhonda Abrams

(USA Today) It’s nearly Valentine’s Day — so it’s definitely time to show your small business customers some love.

My Comment: Valentine’s Day is later this week, so this jumped out as a perfect article to include in the weekly Top Five roundup. Here’s the question: “How do you attract and court that special someone — in this case, a potentially long-term loyal customer?” You don’t have to have a romantic relationship with your customer to show them “a little love.”

Three Innovations and a Challenge by Josh Linkner

(Josh Linkner) As the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, bold new creations will pave the way for breakthrough success while disrupting the laggards who cling to the past. We all see the obvious examples of innovators such as Apple, Netflix, and Uber. But I love finding and learning from those lesser-known stories of business artists who deploy their imagination to fuel progress.

My Comment: Josh Linkner, innovation guru, has a weekly blog. This past week he shared three really cool technologies that are being used to create better and unique customer experiences. The future is now!

From Surveys to Transformation: Take Your Customer Experience to the Next Level by Paul Warner

(CMSWire) Most brands recognize that customer-listening programs add value to their overall experience. However, almost all struggle to move beyond the basics of satisfaction scores and net promoter scores (NPS).

My Comment: Asking customers for feedback is a waste of time unless you do something with that feedback. That is the focus of this article. As the author points out, “The key is to give new value to the voice of the customer.”

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Blog: Customer Service Training Ideas to Help Build Brand Advocacy

This week we feature an article by Kristin Eriksen who shares great customer service training tips and ideas that will help your company build brand advocacy. Remember customer service training is not something you di, it’s something you do. – Shep Hyken

What is the most important thing you can do to improve relationships with your customers? The answer is as obvious as it is overlooked: improve customer service. Excellent customer service is the intangible that sets you and your company apart from others.

What is brand advocacy?

Brand advocacy simply means that people who love your brand will continue to support your company and promote your services or products to new customers organically.

Customers service training ideas for better brand advocacy

Integrating a brand advocacy strategy into your customer service training will allow you to receive support not only from customers but from your own employees too. Leveraging employee advocacy is like killing two birds with one stone. Not only will it solve your content reach and trust issues, you’ll also get the best customer service team in the world – a group of loyal and highly-engaged employees.

The people over at Deputy compiled a list of customer service training tips and ideas that will help your company build brand advocacy:

Communication is key

If you are not a great communicator, you will probably not go far in customer service. While product knowledge may be vital to providing good customer service, the ability to communicate with customers is just as important.

  Some key communication skills include:

Listening – The better you listen, the better you are at communication.
Empathy – Being able to look at a situation through the eyes of a customer is an extremely valuable skill that can enable you to provide the highest degree of service.
Show respect – Don’t multitask while communicating. Make sure what you’ve said is professional and respectful. Make eye contact and use people’s names.
Positive body language – A person slouching their way through the store, with a sour or surly facial expression doesn’t look approachable. Use positive body language and engage with customers.

Set goals

Setting the right goals shows you understand the needs of your customers and what your team can do to better support them. An obvious reason for setting customer service goals is that it allows the entire team to focus and work towards one common objective.

Here are several things that need to be kept in mind when setting goals and objectives for your customer service:

Be specific: The goals set should be specific and strictly defined so that success can be easily determined.
Choose advocacy goals that align with your overall business objectives: if the team perceives that their performance has a direct positive impact on the company as a whole, they will certainly be more motivated to work more diligently.
Measurable goals: goal tracking software is one way to view and keep track of your goals. It makes it easy for employees to set and keep a record of their goals and it reminds them when they haven’t updated their goals for a given period.
Review often: Rather than having one big goal for the year, separate your goal time frames into quarters or months. Monthly check-ins can help refine goals and drive progress.

Provide necessary tools

Employees are only as productive as the available tools allow them to be. It is vital that your business has the right infrastructure such as communication and scheduling software that will help your employees be productive.

Train your sales team using the right technology. Some key sales technology to consider are:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software – this allows you to track and manage your customers as they move through the sales funnel.
Web Conference Software – This tool allows you to give product demos, connect with people anywhere, record conversations, and share screens.
Employee Scheduling Software – From training and scheduling to keeping employees motivated and ensuring they’re doing their jobs correctly, employee scheduling software can help automate tedious tasks.
Employee Advocacy Platform – this tool gives your employees a simple way to share curated, pre-approved content across their social networks.

Ask for feedback

Your advocates won’t take action unless you engage them. When you actively solicit feedback, it empowers your employees and sends a clear signal that you’re willing to work on you, too. To help your employees succeed, you need to understand what they deal with on a daily basis. Asking the right questions will give you valuable insights for improving sales and building brand advocacy.

Ask your sales team the following questions that will not only result in your team performing better, but will also help you become a better manager:

What is the biggest obstacle to adding new customers? – the answers to this question can reveal operational issues, such as a lengthy procedure for setting up new accounts or order processing problems within your company.
What is working and what isn’t? – open-ended questions like this will quickly identify chronic complainers as well as uncover significant problems.
What do you need from me to make the next week better than the last? – Every rep needs something a little different from the coaching process, and asking this question is a quick way to hone in on exactly what assistance your rep needs to grow.

The benefits of focusing on brand advocacy in your customer service training:

Having happy customers starts with having great customer service, and having great customer service starts with effective training. Customer expectations are higher than ever and word of mouth travels fast! In fact, a happy customer tells about nine people about their experience.

Overall, A well-trained and motivated team benefits your bottom line in terms of more sales and also improves team morale, branding message, employee churn, and business dynamics. Encourage your employees to become advocates, and your entire company could reap the financial rewards.

Kristin Eriksen is a creative and results-driven content specialist at Deputy. Deputy is the ultimate employee management tool, simplifying scheduling, timesheets, tasks and workplace communication, helping businesses transform operations and empower employees to work the way they want.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article:  Business Lessons From NAMM 2018 And The Music Industry

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Treat Your Current Customers Better than Your New Customers

It drives me a little crazy when I receive an advertisement in the mail from my cable TV or phone company offering me an incentive to sign up with them. First, I’m already a customer and can’t understand why they can’t figure that out. Second, why is the price they are offering a new customer lower than what I’m currently paying?

This concept, offering a new customer a better deal than an existing customer, is nothing new. (I’ve even written about this before.) And it’s not just cable companies that do this. The strategy is simple. A company wants to acquire new customers and is willing to cut its rates to do so. But, how do you think a customer, such as myself, feels when we see the deal, then calls the company to ask for the same deal, and is told that it’s just for new customers? Isn’t my loyalty worth something? I would think my loyalty would be an incentive to give me a better deal, versus giving a better deal to a customer they have never done business with before. But, apparently, that’s not the case with some of these companies.

Then, there are companies that take the opposite approach. One of those companies is Naya Traveler. They are a boutique tour operator, specializing in high-end, immersive trips to culturally rich destinations, and they offer a $500 discount to any new customer that signs up for a tour. But, if you’re an existing customer, the discount is $1,000. That’s twice the discount for a new customer. It’s obvious that Naya Traveler values their existing customers.

So, maybe you want to offer new customers an incentive to do business with you. And, maybe it’s an incentive in the form of a discount – something that existing customers don’t receive. I understand the strategy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something else for your existing customers. A cable company may offer a lower rate to new customers for the first year. That same company can offer their existing customers a bonus, perhaps a free month of cable or a free upgrade to a premium channel. This is just something that shows “a little love” to their existing customers.

So, when advertising and promoting to new customers, consider the message you are sending to existing customers. All customers should be treated equally as far as customer service is concerned. All should be made to feel special. But, when it comes to the deal, you might consider treating your existing customers, the ones that have shown you their loyalty, a little better.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXVIII, Shep Hyken)

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Amazing Business Radio: Murph Krajewski

Hitting the Reset Button on Omni-channel Customer Service
Shep Hyken Interviews Murph Krajewski, VP of Marketing at Sharpen           
Are you where your customers want you to be?

 

 

 

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Shep Hyken sits down with Murph Krajewski, discussing the importance of knowing what channels your customers want you to be on.

Top Takeaways:

Omni-channels today are more of a mindset than a definable term. It’s about being wherever a prospective customer is. Omni can be synonymous with multi, meaning there are multiple ways customers can connect with a company.
It is crucial for a company to be on as many channels as possible in order to be easily accessible by its customers.
The big difference between marketing and customer service is that marketing is looking to give messages, whereas customer service needs to be ready to receive messages. It’s a company’s responsibility to know how their customers want to reach them.
A practical thing that companies can do when it comes to channels, is to stop thinking about channels. Reject the assumption that omni-channel is a list of features. It is simply a concept.
Let the customer define what the perfect experience is. It doesn’t matter how you think your customers want to reach you. It’s what they want that matters.
Find technology that fits what you need rather than trying to mold your company to a certain technology.

About:

Murph Krajewski is VP of Marketing at Sharpen, a cloud-based contact center platform. He has been in the contact center industry for nearly 20 years, in a variety of roles. These days, Murph is focused on creating better experiences for contact center agents.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, “New York Times” best-selling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

“Your customers want to feel comfortable and known. Support them in a way that makes them feel both.” – Murph Krajewski

 

       

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

Where are my customers looking to get help from me?
How are my customers trying to contact me for customer service and support?
How can I know what channels my customers are on?
How can I know what channels my company needs to be on?

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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 5, 2018

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

How Retailers Can Use Customer Experience to Compete with Amazon by Marissa Bosché

(Apptentive) In this post, we outline a few key ways that retailers can step their customer experience game up to keep their customers happy, engaged, and loyal.

My Comment: How does a company compete against Amazon – or any disrupting competitor of any kind? Understand them and then know where you can be different enough to make a difference. This article dives into several ways that a retailer can compete against Amazon, yet most of the ideas work for any type of business under intense competition from a disrupter.

New Study: 62% of Companies Ignore Customer Service Emails by Steven MacDonald

(SuperOffice) Today we’re excited to release our new study: The 2018 Customer Service Benchmark report, which is a study of how 1,000 companies handle customer support. The report, which is 25 pages of customer support insight, took several months to complete, and is now available.

My Comment: SuperOffice came out with their Customer Service Benchmark Study with many interesting findings, one of which is that 62% of companies ignore customer service emails. (Yikes!) Here is a short infographic for some of the findings. If you’re intrigued, click on the link to get a full report. It’s free, but you’ll have to share your email address. Well worth it.

10 Ways to Improve Your Customer Service and Increase Sales Performance by Hassan Mansoor

(CustomerThink) Customer service is the golden key to any successful business – if you don’t have it, act fast and make it a priority. Customer service has evolved over the past years; instead of just one-on-one private interaction in person or via phone call, it is now evolved around social media as well.

My Comment: I’m a fan of the concept of selling with service. No doubt there is a connection between sales and service. The sales person than can out service their competitor wins. Here are ten points that are relevant for any company that wants to sell in way that creates customer loyalty.

B2C Influence on B2B Customer Expectations by Shannon Gronemeyer

(CX Café) There are obvious differences in the way B2C and B2B companies engage, interact with, and serve their respective customer bases.  Traditionally, this was appropriately based on significant differences in expectations from those customer groups.  However, recent research is indicating that this expectation gap is evaporating at an alarming rate.

My Comment: For years I’ve been preaching that our customers are getting smarter about customer service. They don’t just compare you to direct competitors, but to companies outside of the industry. Is it reasonable for a customer of a manufacturer getting ready to place a million dollar order to compare the experience they had when buying a $50 pair of shoes? The short answer is… YES!

The breakdown: Disjointed internal operations lead to disjointed customer experiences by Lauren Drexler

(Retail Customer Experience)  From your customer’s perspective, your business should run like a well-oiled machine. Too frequently, however, disjointed internal teams, tools and processes lead to negative customer experiences. My own experience over the holidays demonstrates how things can go awry — and how to make them right.

My Comment: One of the strongest ways to deliver a great service experience is to have it start on the inside with employees. Treat employees the way you want customers treated, if not even better. However, the system you have also plays a part in the overall customer experience. If it’s broken, the customer will feel it. As the title of the article points out, a disjointed internal operations lead to disjointed customer experiences.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Blog: What Can We Learn from Southwest’s Customer Service?

This week we feature an article by Misa Chien who shares great lessons we can learn from the Southwest Airlines customer culture. This also reminds us that customer service doesn’t just happen on the front line. It happens throughout the entire company. It must be part of the company’s culture. – Shep Hyken

What comes to mind when you think of a bachelorette party? Many of us view these pre-wedding parties as the last hurrah, a fling before the ring. Presents, games, and alcohol are often part of the festivities. But would customer service ever make the highlight reel of such an event?

For one bride-to-be, it certainly did. Thanks to a few meaningful acts of kindness by Southwest Airlines, her flight to her bachelorette party became a memory worth treasuring.

In a recent Southwest customer review article, the bride-to-be shared that she and her five friends took the airline when flying from Baltimore to Charleston for a bachelorette party getaway. The first thing she noticed upon entering the aircraft? The smiles.

The conversations and interactions the bride-to-be and her friends experienced with the flight attendants were equally cheerful.

“We all sat together in the back two rows and the two flight attendants taking care of the back greeted us professionally but were equally as excited for us,” she wrote. “They even announced over the speaker that I was on the plane and for everyone to wish me luck in my marriage.”

After the flight landed, the flight attendants and captain gave the bride-to-be and her friends a special surprise. As the group made their way off the plane, the flight crew waved toward the bride-to-be with a bottle of champagne in celebration of her upcoming wedding.

The bride ended her review on Southwest’s page by writing, “I don’t think people give enough good reviews only bad reviews, and I wanted to acknowledge these people and that it meant a lot to me and my group. Great Customer Service and I will definitely book all future trips (especially group trips) with Southwest!”

Her review represents a positive experience that has since gained national attention. And it all started with a commitment to great customer service.

So what can we learn about the customer culture at Southwest?
1) Good customer service starts with a smile.

This tip may have been the first thing you learned in any interaction with a customer or coworker, but a positive experience begins with the basics. Just like the bride-to-be on her Southwest flight, many customers will notice smiles and other welcoming nonverbal signals before a word is even uttered.

2) Share in customers’ excitement.

People generally like happy people. Sharing in the joy and excitement of a customer’s life event or other big news shows camaraderie and helps the employee relate to the customer. That said, aim not to come off as nosy—respect a customer’s boundaries, and if they want to share great news with you, they will!

3) Customer service is a continual effort.

Providing a memorable customer service experience is rarely just a one-and-done occurrence. Customers are impressed when an employee remembers something about them not just once but twice, or even more. The prolonged attention given to customers is recognizable, and will likely stick in their minds.

4) Customer surveys have power.

You can bet that the flight attendants likely felt encouraged by the positive feedback they received after their flight with the bachelorette party. Customer surveys not only allow customers to share their experiences but can also empower and motivate employees to do their best. To explore the top 15 survey tools on the market, click here.  

Misa Chien is the co-founder of Praiseworthy, a customer service blog helping small businesses improve their customer service. With resources ranging from how to get Google reviews for your business, to subscribing to get free weekly customer service quotes, the Praiseworthy blog has amassed over 5,000 customer service evangelist subscribers from around the world.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article:  Would You Rather Clean A Toilet Or Contact Customer Service?

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The Customer Service Gap

I’ve written about the customer service gap before. The first version referred to the gap between you and your competitors. You want the gap to be wide. It means you are putting yourself further ahead of your competition and picking up market share.

The second version of the gap focused on narrowing the distance between you and your customers. The closer you are to your customers, and the more you are meeting their needs, the narrower the gap is between you and your customer. This also puts your competition further away from your customers.

Now comes the third version of the gap, which is the difference between how good a company thinks their service is versus what their customers actually believe they receive.

A number of years ago, I read an interesting report from Bain and Company that found 80% of companies say they deliver superior customer service, yet only 8% of customers agree. That is a surprising, almost staggering, statistic. Is there that big of a disconnect? Is the gap really this big?

There are other studies that have similar findings, although not quite as severe as the numbers from Bain and Company. Even if that number was cut in half, it would still be a problem. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a gap. In a truly customer-focused organization, you might even see the gap reversed. In other words, the customer perceives the service they receive from a company is even better than that company’s leadership believes it to be. Maybe that’s because that company won’t settle for anything other than the best, and is always striving to deliver a superior level of service, never settling for mediocrity, never resting on their laurels.

So, what can you do to avoid or eliminate this gap? Here are just a few ideas:

Survey your customers. This one is obvious. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. You can use several different survey questions and techniques but just consider this one suggestion. Keep the surveys short. You stand a greater chance of the survey being returned if they are short and take less than a minute or two to fill out.
Ask the customer directly, at the time they are finishing their interaction with you. This is a form of an “exit interview.” Again, keep it short and you’ll get more customers willing to respond.
Have leadership mystery shop your company. Don’t hire mystery shoppers, but have the executives actually pick up the phone and call their own companies. Find out how easy it is to get to the right person, how long they are required to hold while waiting for customer service, and more. In other words, have them play a simple version of “Undercover Boss.”

So, don’t fall victim to the customer service gap. What you hope your customers will perceive as good customer service, and how they perceive it, are two different things. Narrow the gap so that what you want your customers to experience is in fact what they experience.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXVIII, Shep Hyken)

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Amazing Business Radio: Jeffrey Shaw

How Speaking Your Customer’s Lingo Makes You Irresistible


Shep Hyken Interviews Jeffrey Shaw, the LINGO Guy

What if you could speak your ideal customer’s language?

 

 

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Shep Hyken sits down with Jeffrey Shaw to discuss his new book LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Language and Make Your Business Irresistible.

Top Takeaways:

Go deep and horizontal in your area of expertise. The new “niche” is an expansive business model. Decide who you want your customers to be, and then build a brand around them. Once you nail that down, you can then go horizontal because there will be multiple audiences who want what you’re offering.
Lingo, by definition, is the language of a community. When it comes to your business, who is your community? Once you figure that out, you can decide what language you are going to speak. Lingo is also understanding what isn’t said, the unspoken. When a business speaks to that, the customer feels like the company really understands them.
Rather than build a business you want and try to cram customers into it, build a business with your ideal customers in mind.
When you think of your customers as a community rather than just a data base, that changes the way you see them. That causes you to care for them.
Understand that each of your customers, though they all may have some things in common, are unique individuals and want to be treated that way.
Realize that customers no longer want you to define their experience for them. They want to create their own. You’re setting the stage, but allowing them to make it what they want it to be.
Every customer is a valued one, whether they buy frequently or once, or whether they spend a lot of money or a little. We don’t have to buy into the 80/20 rule that says only 20 percent of customers make up 80 percent of sales. If you are marketing to your ideal customers, this number should not exist.
The process to developing the secret language of your ideal customer:

Perspective – Understand how they see the world.
Familiarity – Create comfort in your environments, in everything the customer does to interact with your business.
Style – Customers resonate with style and whether or not it matches their own. You want to emulate the style of your ideal customer so that it draws them in.
Pricing Psychology – This should attract your ideal customer, not scare them away. Pricing creates the right perception for what you offer.
Words – If your words aren’t chosen carefully to draw a specific kind of customer, you end up getting whoever comes along.



About:

Jeffrey Shaw is the author of LINGO, a book focused on helping businesses stand out, attract their ideal customer, and create brand loyalty that supersedes price. He is also a portrait photographer whose work has been featured in People Magazine and on The Oprah Show.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, “New York Times” best-selling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

“Defining your area of expertise is imperative today. If you don’t, you can quickly become irrelevant.” – Jeffrey Shaw

 

       

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

How do I market to a specific client base?
How can I make my customers feel unique?
How can I better understand what my customers want?
How do you define your ideal customer?

The post Amazing Business Radio: Jeffrey Shaw appeared first on Shep Hyken.

5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of January 29, 2018

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

Customer Service Report 2018 by Olga Kolodynska, Justyna Polaczyk, Malgorzata Buksinska and Lukasz Labedzki

(LiveChat) The report contains key customer service findings from 2017 and trends for 2018. Its main goal is to bring knowledge to business owners and customer service decision makers. If you want to stay in the game, you should keep up with the latest trends.

My Comment: My friends at LiveChat have put out a 2018 customer service report. Plenty of interesting information here. Of note is that customer satisfaction has dropped by almost three percent and small businesses are struggling to keep up. At the end, there is a good summary of tips to improve a company’s customer service.

Bridging the social media and business enterprise gap: Interview Special by Tim Sandle

(Digital Journal) The company Conversocial is bridging the gap between the rapidly-shifting world of social and mobile channels and the world and needs of the large enterprise contact center. The aim is to modernize customer services.

My Comment: Here is a great interview with Joshua March, the CEO and co-founder of Conversocial, and the author of the upcoming book “Message Me.” One quote that stood out in the interview: “Companies need to focus on making service easier, not more delightful, by reducing the amount of work required of customers to get their issues resolved.” Be easier to do business with, and you win.

The Ultimate Customer Experience Primer by Nate Brown

(CX Accelerator) There are more and more business leaders being called upon to guide Customer Experience (CX) initiatives. It’s no longer an optional function of the organization, but has risen over the past decade to become one of the most critical and strategic aspects of the company.

My Comment: Nate Brown of CX Accelerator has written an excellent and detailed report on three “CX Disciplines” that include voice-of-the-customer, experience engineering, and the employee experience. You’ll find many great ideas, strategies, and tips to take your customer experience to a higher level. Great resource!

We accidentally took a yogurt from Amazon’s new grocery store without paying, but Amazon told us to keep it by Deirdre Bosa & Sara Salinas

(CNBC) Amazon’s newly automated grocery store boasts “Just Walk Out” technology that automatically charges shoppers for the items in their bags – CNBC made it out with a freebie on the store’s first official day.

My Comment: Amazon is always pushing the envelope to create better and better customer experiences. One of their big projects is Amazon Go, the store where you shop and just walk out without having to stand in line to check out. That’s right. There is no cashier or check-out line. You just walk out. Here is a fun article that describes the concept and what happens when someone walks out without paying for an item, which apparently is a rarity.

How To Make A Customer by David Beaumont

(CXService 360) Make a customer??? What does that mean? If you take a look around, every product or service that you consume has been made. Someone or something had to assemble the item in order for you to use it, eat it, look at it, etc. So, how does this work with the customer?

My Comment: The title of this article intrigued me: “How to Make a Customer.” A different title that would also work would be: “How to Make a Customer Come Back.” Here are a few simple, yet effective, tips on how you develop your customers to want to do business with you.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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