5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 20, 2017
Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online 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.
7 Impressive Tactics to Build Customer Loyalty and Create Your Own ‘Super Users’ by Anton Kraly
(Performance Marketer) There are so many customer loyalty building tactics out there. Unfortunately, most are terribly outdated or just noise cluttering the effective tactics. We busted through that noise found seven powerful tactics you can start using now to take your loyal customers to ‘super user’ status!
My Comment: This short article includes a list of six ways to drive customer loyalty. I have two favorites. Number one on the list is about solving a customer’s problems. Isn’t that what they want? (Rhetorical question!) And, number seven is about contributing to the community. Customers love to know a business is involved in charity or community effort. It can create an emotional connection.
Customer Experience Excellence Centre Analysis by Nunwood
(KPMG) For seven years the Excellence Centre has been comprehensively researching the UK and US markets through the Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) programme.
My Comment: This is a comprehensive 36 page report, loaded with ideas, stats and examples about customer experience “moments” that matter. Pay attention to their six pillars of customer experience, especially the one on personalization. That’s a major trend that can give a company a big competitive edge. You’ll have to download this report, but it is well worth it.
Here’s The Number One Reason You’re Letting Yourself Get Away With Providing Bad Customer Service by Bob Phibbs
(Retail Doctor) Bad customer service could best be summed up by Lily Tomlin’s character Ernestine, “We’re the phone company; we don’t have to care.”
My Comment: I’m always intrigued by the different definitions people have for customer service. This article by Bob Phibbs begins with a good one: Customer service is the ability to make one person feel, for just a few minutes, like they are the most important person in the world. From there he gives some great examples of good and bad service with three big takeaways at the end.
21 Ways to Increase Motivation and Engagement with Contact Center Employees by Michael Becker
(Sharpen) According to Quantum Workplace, customer service employees are among the least engaged at work, falling behind human resources, sales, marketing, engineering, R&D, operations, finance and IT, in that order.
My Comment: Our friends at Sharpen keep putting out great content. The title of this article indicates that it is focused on contact centers, which it is. But, even if you aren’t in a contact center, this is definitely worth taking the time to read. There are plenty of good ideas that are applicable to almost any job.
Customer Success: Nearly everything you need to know by Eric Johnson
(Typeform) Customer success is a vehicle for helping customers succeed with your product, beyond expectations. How? By helping users adopt your product, by being there when your customers need you, and by reaching out with solutions people didn’t even know they needed.
And that fits right into your business goal: to proactively impact customer lifetime value by increasing retention and driving growth.
My Comment: “Customer Success” is a phrase that has become popular in the last two or three years. Helping customers be more successful with your products and services is important to getting them to become repeat customers (and hopefully loyal customers). This is a BIG article with a lot of great information.
BONUS
10 Customer Experience Influencers You Really Should Follow by Adam Ramshaw
(Genroe) There is no shortage of data on the interwebs but much of it is not worth reading. The trick is to find the information written by the people that add value and challenge your thinking. Then listen to what they say and hone your ideas against them.
My comment: One of the ways I keep growing professionally is through lots of reading, and much of what I read comes from following experts and influencers in the customer service and experience world. Adam Ramshaw of Genroe in Australia has done us all a great service and put together a list of the top ten experts that you should follow. These are the people who have the information you need to know. (And, I’m honored and humbled to be included on the list. Thank you Adam and Genroe!)
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
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