5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of March 11, 2019

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.

5 Ways AI can Revolutionize Customer Experience by Vandita Grover

(MarTech Advisor) Customer Experience (CX) is a competitive differentiator and driving force for a business’ success. For marketers, it is important to explore powerful opportunities that can drive improved customer engagement and interactions.

My Comment: If you’ve ever asked the question, “How AI can impact the customer experience?” then this article will give you the five best answers. Good basic information with excellent examples of how AI is changing the way we do business.

Five Negotiation Strategies When Traditional Customer Service Fails by Chris Westfall

(Forbes) When engaging in a difficult dialogue, it’s easy to see the adversarial relationship between two parties. There’s the company’s viewpoint and the customer’s viewpoint. But what about a counterpoint?

My Comment: What do you do when a customer’s complaint gets escalated to a level beyond support or a social thrashing on a social media channel. Here are five ways strategies to help you go from rants and threats to a resolution.

Keep the Customer Satisfied: 4 Tried and True Service Guidelines by Susan Steinbrecher

(Inc.) An outstanding product or service is not enough to attract — and maintain loyalty.

My Comment: What if the word HELP was an acronym, where H meant Hear the customer out, E stood for Empathy, L meant Leading the customer to a resolution and P was about Providing the right course of action. That’s what Susan Steinbrecher came up within this short article about how to resolve customer complaints and problems.

Spark Customer Experience Innovation With These Three Strategies by Denise Lee Yohn

(Forbes) Even if you know that innovation in CX is the primary way to compete and win today, you might not know how to get started.  Here are three strategies to spark CX innovation.

My Comment: This short article focuses on CX innovation. One of the powerful ideas the author shares is about CX training for the entire organization. Spot on! I believe that CX, like customer service, isn’t a department. It’s a philosophy to be embraced by everyone in an organization. It’s in the culture of a company.

Happiness at Work: Workplace as a Source of Happy Life by Gennady Shkliarevsky

(International Policy Digest) Until relatively recently happiness was not an important factor in our corporate culture. The main concerns of business owners, managers and economists were generally about profits, supply and demand, efficiency, productivity and such. Happiness rarely, if at all, entered into consideration as a category operational in a business environment.

My Comment: Happy employees are engaged employees. At least that’s a common belief, and I won’t argue with it. This article goes into detail about the importance of workplace happiness. What’s happening on the inside of an organization is felt on the outside by the customers. Taking care of employees – as in making them happy at work – is crucial to the success of customer service and experience strategy.

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