Top 5 Customer Service & CX Articles for the Week of December 27, 2021

Each week I read many 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.

Expert Shares Tips for Managing Online Reviews by Mike Manges

(10 Missions Media) Before Yelp and Google, if you had a bad experience at a business, you might mention it in passing to your family or friends, promise never to return to the place that mistreated you and then move on with your life. Or maybe you had a private word with the owner or manager.

My Comment: I’m often asked about how to handle negative online reviews. The short answer is to always respond quickly, acknowledge the problem, apologize and suggest moving to “Direct Message” or phone to discuss the resolution. This article has a few other ideas worth considering. And I love the closing line: “Don’t let somebody else tell your company’s story.”

Five Tips For Creating A Successful AI-Driven Customer Winback Strategy by Raviteja Sidda

(CustomerThink) While some churn is inevitable, companies can minimize the churn rate by creating an effective winback strategy to drive loyalty, revenue and cost-effectiveness and leverage this as an opportunity to enhance their product and services.

My Comment: The stats say it’s less expensive to keep customers than to get new ones. But, what happens when the customers leave? This article makes the case that winning your customers back is also less expensive.

Embrace Customer Complaints To Up Your Customer Experience to Excellent by Ken Sterling

(Inc. Magazine) “Embrace customer complaints” is probably a cringe-worthy idea to some of you. The thought of negative feedback may trigger something inside of you that frankly, makes you want to crumble up all the papers on your desk or just throw your laptop against the wall. Wait, please, help is on the way.

My Comment: Don’t be afraid of customer complaints. Embrace them! Here’s an excellent article that will help you turn customer complaints into opportunities. The author focuses on data and survey results, which are great for finding out how happy (or not) your customer is.

7 Key Tips for Designing Voice-User Interfaces by Nick Babich

(Entrepreneur) Voice-user interfaces (VUIs) allow users to interact with machines using voice alone. They use speech recognition and natural-language processing to enable users to complete some tasks. VUIs have been a part of sci-fi movies for a long time, but recent progress in this field has made those interfaces a daily reality.

My Comment: In Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL, the computer could talk in a human-like fashion, yet it still sounded like a computer. Today the verbal communication between customers and computers is becoming indistinguishable from human-to-human conversations. Here’s an article with some design tips, but will also give you some insight into how powerful interactive AI is going to be.

4 Ways AI Can Improve the Customer Service Agent Experience by Puneet Mehta

(destinationCRM) Customers are more abusive than before, taking out frustrations on delayed flights, lost packages, or late meals on agents at staggering rates. It’s gotten so bad that call centers have been described as free “psychological counseling centers” for distraught customers.

My Comment: And speaking of AI, here’s how AI can help customer support agents versus interacting with customers. Several great strategies are mentioned here, from something as simple as helping to eliminate repetitive tasks to real-time coaching to help manage the interaction between the agent and the customer.

BONUS

9 Must Read Books for Marketers to Start 2022 by Drew Neisser

(Renegade) Here are 9 marketing books that I recommend for you and your marketing friends.

My Comment: I’m honored that my most recent book, I’ll Be Back, made Drew Neisser’s list of top marketing books for 2021. (Thank you, Drew!) If you want to get and keep customers, this list has plenty of good suggestions for you to consider. As many of us are taking some time off the last few days of the year, perhaps this is the perfect time to pick up a new book and get ready to take on the New Year.