Top 5 Customer Service Articles For the Week of May 25, 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 calculate your customer retention rate by Bryce Baer

(Zendesk) Churn happens. But a company shouldn’t run from its churn rate. Rather, consider it a key metric to guide and improve customer retention strategy and retention rate

My Comment: With all the ways to measure “customer satisfaction,” such as NPS, CSAT, customer effort, and many more, I’ve always felt the most important measurement is if the customer comes back. I was glad to see this article, which includes the formula to measure customer retention. I do want to remind you that a repeat customer is not a loyal customer. You still want to know why they came back.

7 Effective Ways to Use Video in Email Marketing by Téa Liarokapi

(Business2Community) Email marketing and video are two services that can be combined and provide great results, because one is engaging and the other is cost-effective. What’s more, email marketing is the most affordable way to reach different audiences, as well as one of the easiest to measure.

My Comment: I’m a big believer in using video to enhance the customer experience. Video tutorials can give customers a visual description of what they need. It’s a great way to showcase the best ways to use your product. And, if customer service and CX are marketing strategies, video can help in even more ways than you might think. Take a look at seven ways to use video in email marketing.

How Contact Centers are Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis by Jason Sterns

(Transparent BPO) Now that some time has passed, we decided to scour the web to see what trends are taking place in the industry, how companies are responding to the COVID-19 crisis concerning their customer service contact centers, and what advice they may have for the rest of us. Here are the results of our search.

My Comment: Contact centers need to understand their way of doing business has changed – in some cases dramatically – in the past two months. I was talking with an executive who runs 62 contact centers with 60,000 agents. At the beginning of the pandemic, he had to move every one of those employees to work from home – in less than one week! Yet, the “new normal” in the contact center world is more than just remote workers.

Four Ways To Deliver Better Customer Experience During The Pandemic by Athina Mallis

(WHICH-50) Riccardo Pasto highlighted four key ways brands can deliver better customer experiences through the turbulent times: through empathy, customer value, conducting a CX ecosystem impact analysis, and ongoing communication.

My Comment: I was intrigued by this article, which shares four ideas on how to manage customer service and CX in the midst of a crisis from Riccardo Pasto, head of CX research at Forrester. Empathy, customer value, managing the “ecosystem” and communication; all of these are sound strategies during a crisis like COVID-19, and they will work in good times, as well.

10 Tactics For More Effectively Measuring Your Customer Service ROI by YEC

(Forbes) The members of Young Entrepreneur Council share 10 ways you can make your customer service ROI figures measurable and impactful.

My Comment: Our first article in this week’s Top Five Roundup focused on how to measure customer retention. Our friends at the Young Entrepreneur Council have shared 10 ways to get the most of how you measure customer service ROI. Take a close look at number two, which is about looking at repeat customer behavior. Note from me: There is a difference between repeat customers and loyal customers. Knowing the difference is very important.