Top 5 Customer Service & CX Articles for Week of July 1, 2024

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 comments about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

CX Makeover: 11 Ways to Improve Customer Experience by Ken McMahon

(Nextiva) Employees interact with customers every day and are a valuable source of CX knowledge. Regularly collect feedback from staff through surveys, meetings, or suggestion boxes to identify customer pain points and opportunities for improvement.

My Comment: We start this week’s Top Five roundup with a list of eleven ways to improve customer experience. As with many of these types of lists, you’ll agree with most of the ideas, but don’t skim over them. Take a close read and see what ideas they spark.

Eliminate Inconveniences For Your Customers With These 5 Tips by Brittany Hodak

(Brittany Hodak) When it comes to creating an exceptional customer experience, businesses often focus on the big gestures – impressive loyalty programs, flashy gifts, and over-the-top service at one or two big moments. While these things are important, there’s an often overlooked component that can make a massive difference. Now more than ever, it’s critical to eliminate inconveniences for your customers.

My Comment: Brittany Hodak continues to publish excellent content. In this short article, she covers five ways companies inconvenience their customers and what to do about it. If you’re guilty of any one (or more) of these, it might be time to consider changing your process. How you’ve “always done it” may not meet the modern customer’s expectations.

Take This Radical Approach to Customer Retention to Boost Employee Morale — And Your Profit by Christine Park

(Entrepreneur) Customer retention has never been more important to an organization’s bottom line, but achieving it means doubling down on the connection between employees and customers. Here’s why it works, and how to get there.

My Comment: The title of this article suggests that its ideas are radical. I wouldn’t call them radical as much as they are necessary. First, making customer success everyone’s responsibility is about a culture that is customer-focused. (I love that!) Second, supercharging customer touchpoints is looking at every customer interaction and maximizing the opportunity to create an experience that makes customers say, “I’ll be back.” And third, focus on the EX (Employee Experience) as much as your CX.

How Convenience Stores are Elevating Customer Experience in 2024 by Dan Gingiss

(Dan Gingiss) With competition growing from grocery chains, dollar stores, and other retailers, magnified by an emphasis on brick-and-mortar customer experience post-pandemic, “convenience store customers have evolved and are looking for retailers to meet their new, heightened expectations,” according to the National Association of Convenience Stores.

My Comment: While this may seem like an article about convenience stores, a more open-minded view would be to view this article by Dan Gingiss, a fellow CX expert, as giving us an inside look at how an industry we’re all familiar with is reinventing itself. The convenience store industry has a few brands worth knowing about and emulating their attention to customer experience.

The Secret Sauce That Drives Costco’s Customer Loyalty by Roger Dooley

(Forbes) How many retail stores are there where customers willingly pay an annual fee just to shop there? Not many, but Costco is one of the few. And, its customers are loyal. According to UBS analyst Michael Lasser, Costco has the most loyal customers of any retailer. I’ll explain some of the factors that drive that loyalty.

My Comment: Who has the most loyal customers of any retailer? According to the author, the answer is Costco, with a 92.9% membership renewal rate. Here’s an opportunity to get a glimpse inside a company that has found ways to drive incredible loyalty in good and bad times. While we can’t all be Costco, there are lessons to learn that can help any type of business.

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.