5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of March 16, 2015

Top Customer Service and Business Articles

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.

Making Customer Experience (CE) Preventive and Delightful by John Goodman

(Salesforce) There are four actions that will help you to enhance the CE, prevent problems and maximize the bottom line.

My Comment: This article has some great ideas to help prevent problems and delight customers. Love the first step, which is to eliminate anything that would be a bad customer experience. That starts with the customer journey map. Why don’t more companies do this! Everything from having a good system in place, to hiring and training the right people will lead to making the customer’s experience with you easy and “delightful.”

An Excellent Customer Experience Program Starts With an Excellent Survey by James M. Loy

(Loyalty360) Surveys are essential customer engagement tools. A good survey will offer valuable insights that can help brands hone in on what customers really need, want, and expect. Marketers rely on them to build brand loyalty and create meaningful customer experiences. The problem, however, is that too often surveys are ineffective. Any marketer that has ever attempted to use a survey that was too long, poorly constructed, misdirected, or outdated knows these pitfalls.

My Comment: The old adage in business goes something like this: You can’t manage what you can’t measure.  This is especially true in customer service and experience. How do you know if you’re being effective? Are complaints down? Or accolades up? Are there more repeat customers? Are they buying more each time they do business with you? How do you know unless you measure? This article makes the case and shares some ideas on how to create a survey to measure customer service.

The Reputation Economy: Are You Ready? by Daniel Burrus

(LinkedIn) You probably grew up getting lectures from your mom about the value of a good reputation. Well, as usual, Mom was right—and maybe more than she knew. Reputation is about to become a capital asset, and it’s going to be digital. I’m talking about the rise of the reputation economy.

My Comment: Your brand is your reputation. And that reputation is defined by your customers, not you! Today’s best marketing may be to simply manage the customer experience for a positive outcome. Do that well and your customers talk about you – to their friends, colleagues, family members, and thanks to social media, to the world. Every good reputation management strategy has a good customer service and experience strategy supporting it.

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Customer Loyalty & Advocacy by Jim Williams

(Marketing Land) How can you turn your loyal customers into advocates? Columnist Jim Williams discusses best practices for advocate marketing.

My Comment: Customer loyalty means customers come back. Advocacy means they recommend. I refer to the customer advocates as evangelists. These are the coveted customers that will sing your praises to their colleagues, friends and family members.

Five Signs of Customer-Centric Leaders by Tal Shnall

(LinkedIn) Great leadership can transform your organization into a customer-centric company and it’s not complicated. But it’s requires consistent leadership attitudes and behaviors that serves both your external customers as well as your internal customers. It’s a win-win!

My Comment: The term “customer-centric” is becoming very popular, and rightfully so. Creating the customer-centric organization starts at the top with leadership. But it takes more than leadership defining the vision. It can’t be just lip-service. The leaders of an organization must make the vision come to life. The five signs in this article are a great start. If you’re in any type of leadership or management position, this article is for you.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional 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