Top 5 Customer Service Articles For the Week of May 10, 2021

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.

8 Ways to Win Customer Loyalty With Streamlined Customer Support by Samuel O’Brien

(CustomerThink) How do you, as a business owner, introduce processes and initiatives to streamline your customer support in order to win over your customers? Here are eight different ways to streamline your customer support.

My Comment: We start this week with a great list of ideas on how to create customer loyalty. I like them all. Many are common sense and reminders, yet pay attention to numbers four and five. Number four is to “Act Fast.” Anything less than “fast” is friction. And number five is to “Create Self Help Portals.” Customers are enjoying self-service options, so give them what they want.

15 Unique Ideas For Inspiring Brand Loyalty In 2021 by Expert Panel

(Forbes) In this article, 15 members of the Forbes Agency Council share unique ideas for connecting with customers in a way that builds genuine trust and, in turn, brand loyalty in 2021.

My Comment: The Forbes Agency Council has fifteen experts weighing in on ideas to inspire brand loyalty. There is something here for everyone in any type of business. A quick read that will make for bigger conversations with your team.

Why Empathy is Core to Closing the Customer Experience Gap by Mark Zablan

(Fast Company) As the adoption of digital channels skyrockets, the businesses able to thrive are the ones that understand their customers’ needs and struggles.

My Comment: I love the way this article starts: “The last 12 months have been a crash course in customer experience for business leaders.” Customer expectations have changed (as in increased). The connection they want with the people they do business with is also higher than ever before. That’s where empathy comes in. It was the business word of the year for 2020, and I believe it will be the word of the year in 2021.

Using AI to Track How Customers Feel — In Real Time by Mohamed Zaki, Janet R. McColl-Kennedy, and Andy Neely

(Harvard Business Review) The most common methods of tracking customer sentiments have a big blind spot: They can’t pick up on important emotional responses. As a result, qualitative surveys, like Net Promoter Score, end up missing critically important feedback. Even if they provide a positive score, customers often reveal their true thoughts and feelings in the open-ended comment boxes typically provided at the end of surveys, and AI can help companies make use of this valuable data to better predict customer behavior.

My Comment: So much of AI in the customer experience world is about how to use AI to deliver a better customer support solution. No doubt this article has ideas about creating a better CX, but the real focus here is understanding and interpreting data – and the data you need to understand is about how the customer “feels.”

10 Ways Knowledge Base Can Improve Customer Experience by Sony T

(Techiexpert) Customer satisfaction has a huge impact on one’s business as it has a direct impact on the retention of the exciting client as well as the client that are new. Here are 10 ways Knowledge base software can improve customer experience.

My Comment: Reading an article about knowledge bases may not seem very exciting, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. It is, and here is a list of the different ways that they can be used to enhance customer service and support. So, if you don’t already use a knowledge base to help support your customers, this is the perfect article to help get you started.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. Go to The Customer Focus™ to learn more about our customer service training programs. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken