Top 5 Customer Service Articles For the Week of December 21, 2020

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.

How to Provide the Best Possible Customer Experience? by GISuser

(GISuser) If you don’t have a well-planned customer service strategy, you are highly likely to lose business. According to Channels, after just one negative experience, 51% of customers will never do business with that company again.

My Comment: But, are you doing a good job in those (and other areas) of the customer experience?

COVID-19 has significantly accelerated service transformation by Vala Afshar

(ZDNet) The COVID-19 pandemic led to breakneck speed shift to digital-first customer engagement and remote work, prompting service and support organizations to reconsider the future of their people, process, and technology.

My Comment: Vala Afshar is back with more information on the Salesforce 2020 State of Service report. In this article, he discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of certain aspects of customer service. I’ve written a number of articles with similar findings. The pandemic pushed up our use of technology by at least three to five years. Now you have the research from more than 7,000 people surveyed to back that up.

Learn 4 Tips From Leading Brand Stitch Fix to Build a Program to Improve Your Customer Experience by Ellen Christenberry

(Business2Community) Stitch Fix listens to its customers and adapts to our modern digital lifestyles. And it seems to be working: Stitch Fix increases their client base by 17% each year and currently serves more than 3.5 million customers.

My Comment: Time to learn from another hot brand. This time it’s Stich Fix, showing us four ways we can improve the customer experience. It always impresses me when successful companies are doing what appears to be common sense. Nothing fancy here. Keep it simple, collect lots of data, personalize the experience, and maintain loyalty… Seems like a formula for success just about every company can use.

Surprise! Airline Customer Service Improved In 2020. Here’s Why. by Christopher Elliott

(Forbes) Airline customer service improved in 2020, rising to its highest level since 1994. That’s right, air travel got better while the world fell apart, at least according to the latest numbers from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a closely-watched barometer for customer service.

My Comment: Did satisfaction ratings in the airline industry really go up? Yes, but the reason why is interesting. It appears that for some airlines being less busy, thanks to COVID-19, meant passengers got through lines quicker and didn’t feel like the planes and airports were overly crowded. That resulted in an overall better experience. So, I wonder… How many companies (outside of the airline industry) have created such a crowded experience that it negatively impacts the experience?

10 Holiday Sales & Marketing Tips for Small Businesses to Finish 2020 Strong by Gaetano DiNardi

(Small Business Trends) Read this guide to find more 2020 shopping statistics, plus the 10 best strategies for boosting sales in this unprecedented holiday season.

My Comment: This is an excellent article for anyone in retail, but if you’re not, you’ll still find something here you can use. And even though the article suggests these tips are for the holiday season, don’t think they can’t be used year round. One of my favorite tips is the idea focused on customer generated content, as in reviews and testimonials. Sometimes your best marketing and advertising comes from your customers.

BONUS

10 Customer Experience Books Worthy of Discussion in 2020 by Dan Gingiss

(Dan Gingiss) One of the featured segments on the Experience This! podcast is called Book Report, where we feature an important customer experience or customer service book and share it in a unique way. Instead of recording an interview with the author, we ask them to summarize the book in less than two minutes and then read their favorite passage.

My Comment: One of my colleagues in the customer experience space is Dan Gingiss. He’s compiled a list of ten books on CX, worth of discussion. I’m honored my latest book hit his list. (Thank you, Dan!) More importantly, if you find yourself looking for that last minute gift for a colleague or boss at work, head over to Amazon and order one or two of these books!

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