50 Best Articles on Customer Service to Help You Provide Exceptional Customer Service Experiences

Hana Mohan

26min read

Customer service is so much more than just providing support to your customers. Today’s companies must look at all the interactions that a customer has with their brand—both online and in-person. It can quickly become complicated when you consider the total customer journey and start to think about the relationship between customer service, success, experience, and care.

Customers genuinely value meaningful interactions. According to a recent report by Microsoft, 96% of consumers worldwide have stated that they consider customer service to be an important factor in their choice of brands. Service has become such a differentiator in recent years that many companies are adopting new corporate structures and customer-facing strategies to remain competitive. It seems like there’s an almost endless supply of customer service articles, blogs, video content, and books to review for new ideas.

To help you expand your knowledge of customer service best practices, we’ve compiled this list of 50 informative articles offering expert customer service tips, industry trends and statistics, and more. The following 50 articles are grouped by category, but otherwise, they’re not ranked or rated in any way:

Customer Service Tips
Customer Service Communication and Teamwork
Social Customer Service
Customer Service Industry Trends & Statistics
Customer Success & Experience

Customer Service Tips

1. The 4 Types of Customer Service and How to Use Them

This article breaks down the four main types of customer service that are common at most companies, including live answering, live chat, email, and interactive voice response (IVR). One of the main challenges that most customer service departments face is how to handle a large volume of customer requests without overwhelming the system. In the article, you can find some ideas for how best to balance these resources.

Three key takeaways from The 4 Types of Customer Service and How to Use Them:

IVR can leverage AI to help prioritize calls
Your customer service can make or break your company’s reputation
Live chat can be the perfect tool for converting leads from an online storefront

2. 8 Tips to Help Improve Customer Service (INFOGRAPHIC)

Quality customer service is all about effective communication. Customers expect companies to use their preferred communication channels and have a consistent approach for managing and responding to customer requests. Having a robust customer feedback process is as vital as ever, and this article highlights eight ways that you can improve customer service through more effective communication.

Three key takeaways from 8 Tips to Help Improve Customer Service:

Understand what communication channels your customers prefer
Track team member workload to provide a narrower service window
Track all feedback, analyze recurring issues, and make support improvements

3. 9 Tips for Providing Excellent Customer Service

The best customer support teams can provide consistent customer service experiences. Because of this, customers know exactly what they are going to receive and keep coming back because of it. To truly impress customers, there are some essential tips that you can follow to add more value to each interaction and give them a reason to return.

Three key takeaways from 9 Tips for Providing Excellent Customer Service:

Make sure that all customer-facing staff know your products or services well
Never let emotions overtake the desire to have a customer walk away happy
Be responsive and timely with your follow-up communications

4. Customer Service Tips for Employees

In most businesses, the majority of revenue will come from a select group of your most dedicated customers. This is one of the most compelling reasons that customer service remains such an important differentiator in many industries. Maintaining a close relationship with customers requires constant attention and a real focus on communication habits that your support team should practice every day. This article shares some valuable tips for how your employees can improve their interactions.

Three key takeaways from Customer Service Tips for Employees:

Knowing the names of your regular customers humanizes the relationships
Take time to educate your customers about the services and value you offer
Don’t make it too difficult for your customers to contact a real human being

5. Online Customer Service Tips You Need to Know

With so much business taking place online these days, all companies need to pay close attention to their web-based presence. Providing quality customer service should be just as important online as it is in-person, and this post shares a few ideas for how to get it right. These tips focus on the impact and motivation to return that a positive interaction can have on customers.

Three key takeaways from Online Customer Service Tips You Need to Know:

Surprise customers with a small gift when they make a large purchase
Make sure your website is very user-friendly
Provide personalized responses to email inquiries within 24 hours

6. 9 Secrets to Having World-Class Customer Service

This post from Entrepreneur is an excellent round-up of expert advice for how to ensure that you achieve world-class customer service. These nine experienced leaders share practical insights for how to turn feedback into actionable steps, hire the right employees, and streamline your customer onboarding. There are a lot of great ideas that you can use to improve your customer service efforts.

Three key takeaways from 9 Secrets to Having World-Class Customer Service:

Value people over profit to exceed expectations
Streamline your client onboarding for better retention
Commit to improving your resolution time for better results

7. Nine Customer Service Best Practices That Will Lead Your Company To Extraordinary Success

In this post from Forbes, customer service consultant Micah Solomon shares the nine customer service essentials. The tips are based on Solomon’s own experiences working with leading organizations, and the advice is practical. You will find important reminders about handling customer issues, responding to requests effectively, and the best way to handle potential arguments with a customer.

Three key takeaways from Nine Customer Service Best Practices:

Do everything you can to try and save a customer you may lose
When a customer leaves an email or phone message, reply that day
Always ask the customer for additional input to clarify a problem

8. How to Deliver Great Customer Service

This post is a great reminder that some of the fundamental aspects of great customer service just don’t change. The main goal of a customer interaction should be to make them feel heard and leave them satisfied with the quality of service. These tips focus on common-sense advice and how to care for your customers while building trust. You'll find recommendations for showing appreciation, finding solutions to problems, and emphasizing long-term relationships.

Three key takeaways from How to Deliver Great Customer Service:

Your employees work hard and deserve to be treated like customers
A culture of customer service should be captured as written core values
Build trust with customers by using their name often

9. Customer Service Tips: 4 Secrets to Offering Exceptional Customer Service

The team at Lemonly helped design this infographic for Salesforce that captures four ways that you can demonstrate exceptional customer service. These tips have a very personal nature and really get to the point of connecting with your customers in a meaningful way. There is also a link provided to a free e-book from Salesforce that includes more tips and details about offering exceptional customer service.

Three key takeaways from Customer Service Tips:

Pay attention to how customers reply to comments in your store or office
Make it very easy for customers to leave feedback and comments at any time
Openly provide the contact information for managers or owners

10. 4 Brilliant Tips for Dealing With Angry Customers

Handling conversations with angry customers can be one of the most challenging aspects of customer-facing work. Even though at times it may feel frustrating, there are actually some practical ways in which you can diffuse an otherwise tense situation. In this post from The Muse, you'll find four great suggestions for handling difficult customers and how even a little thing like using a customer’s name can make a huge difference.

Three key takeaways from 4 Brilliant Tips for Dealing With Angry Customers:

Smile when you talk to help convey friendliness and openness
Listen to the customer’s tone, knowledge, and personality when speaking
Allow a customer to share their frustration without speaking over them

11. 10 Easily Overlooked Customer Service Tips

When companies are hiring new members for their customer service team, they often spend a great deal of time looking at experience. While experience is a must for most positions, when it comes to customer service, soft skills are vital. This post points out a few often-overlooked tips that can help you train your team and ensure that they are providing exceptional service experiences.

Three key takeaways from 10 Easily Overlooked Customer Service Tips:

Greet customers with a genuine smile and off to help them immediately
Call or text a customer after purchase to make a lasting impression
Remember birthdays, anniversaries, and other special events

12. Do You Know How to Improve Your Customer Service?

Sometimes it can be hard to figure out exactly how to improve the quality of your customer service. You may have tried several new things and upgraded many of your systems and processes already. As this post from Salesforce points out, you may not need a new customer service plan. They believe that what you really need is a customer service culture, and they share four essential steps for how you can create it.

Three key takeaways from Do You Know How to Improve Your Customer Service:

Create a service tree that outlines relationships within the company
Develop clear metrics between departments to avoid confusion
Provide plenty of opportunities for employees to be social

13. 5 Worst Side Effects of Bad Customer Service (and How To Avoid Them)

Even a single instance of poor customer service can lead to negative feedback and a great deal of damage to a company’s reputation. If the quality of customer service at an organization continues to deteriorate, it can lead to more significant issues that can become difficult to correct. This post shares five of the biggest problems associated with bad customer service and what to do to repair the damage they can cause.

Three key takeaways from 5 Worst Side Effects of Bad Customer Service:

Respond publicly to negative reviews and make amends when possible
Use inbound marketing techniques to increase customer retention
Address any problems with customer service early and often

Customer Service Communication and Teamwork

14. 5 Communication Tips That Will Boost Customer Trust

Customer service involves more than just solving customer problems; it's really about communicating effectively. To set the right expectations with a customer and build trust, you need to develop communication skills that are effective in all situations. This post, from Business 2 Community, has five great communication tips that will have a positive impact on your customer service engagements.

Three key takeaways from 5 Communication Tips That Will Boost Customer Trust:

Be transparent with your customers at all times
Offer multiple communication channels to your customers
Consider adding a live chat to your website for immediate availability

15. Survey questions 101: over 70 survey question examples + types of surveys and FAQs

Customer surveys are still one of the best ways to collect feedback on your products and services formally. Surveys can help you understand customer motivations and learn about any changes in buying preferences over time. The team at Hotjar has put together this great guide about survey questions, including over 70 example questions and a detailed FAQ. You're sure to find at least a few ideas for your next customer survey.

Three key takeaways from Survey questions 101:

A good survey question gets clear insights and business-critical information
Place survey kiosks in a physical location for customers to interact with
Use closed-ended questions to open a survey as they require little effort

16. 6 Ways Marketing Content Can Support a Customer Service Team

Any customer service team will receive a lot of different questions over time, and it’s normal to hear a question occasionally that is difficult to answer. It’s a major problem, however, if the team is repeatedly stuck by a single problem that keeps coming up. Making sure that your team is aware of solutions involves continuous training. This post from HubSpot explains how marketing content can help your service team.

Three key takeaways from 6 Ways Marketing Content Can Support a Customer Service Team:

Create monthly digests from marketing content for your service team
Develop a cloud-based content library (knowledge base)
Include marketing staff in your service employee onboarding process

17. Make Your Communication Technology Work for Customers

In the era of digital communication, one major challenge that modern companies face is how fragmented the various channels have become. With a mix of email, social media, phone, and chat options, there are countless ways that customers expect to have access to a company. This post from MIT Sloan explains various ways in which technology can help consolidate and capture these communications and knowledge in a meaningful way.

Three key takeaways from Make Your Communication Technology Work for Customers:

Develop a holistic, customer-centric approach to your business
Communication issues can often lead to lost customers
Focus your efforts on collecting useful information from your customers

18. Top 4 Risks for Customer Service Teams

A customer service team can never quite know exactly what they will face on any given day. There could be several difficult issues to address while trying to resolve a constant stream of customer requests. One of the best ways for a team to prepare for these challenges is to be aware of potential risks. As this post from Resolver points out, these risks can cause significant problems for a team if left unresolved.

Three key takeaways from Top 4 Risks for Customer Service Team:

Keep track of upset customers and how your team is supporting them
Track your Net Promoter Score (NPS) and integrate it with your team goals
Take time to provide product training for your customer service reps

19. 27 Customer Service Experts Reveal the Best Ways to Deal with a Difficult Customer

Any company, from a new startup to an established enterprise, can be confronted by an angry customer at any time. Learning to handle customer complaints effectively is a critical component of any capable customer support team. There is no one way to handle difficult customers, and, as our post points out, learning directly from experts is a great way to find useful responses to your unique situations.

Three key takeaways from 27 Customer Service Experts Reveal the Best Ways…:

Remain calm and professional even if they are aggressive
Use the pendulum theory to get on the same side as the customer
Give an angry customer the same respect as a close friend or relative

20. 6 keys to improving your team’s customer service skills

A strong business will already have developed strong and meaningful customer relationships, but there is always room for improvement. Even the best companies know they need to ask themselves what good customer service looks like continuously. As this post from SurveyMonkey shows, you can create a world-class team by developing a constant cycle of feedback, improvement, and measurement.

Three key takeaways from 6 keys to improving your team’s customer service skills:

Help staff understand how to be adaptable and willing to learn new things
Pay attention to key touchpoints in the customer experience
Challenge your representatives to find shared interests with customers

21. 10 Ways to Make Customers Fall in Love with Your Business

Love is a strong word, especially when used to describe the relationship between a customer and a brand. Companies continue to compete for the attention and loyalty of customers, and, as Neil Patel makes clear in this post, there is a lot that you can do to influence your chances of success. Patel includes ten practical ways that you can make improvements to better communicate with customers and help them recognize your value.

Three key takeaways from 10 Ways to Make Customers Fall in Love with Your Business:

Know who your ideal customers are even before you make sales
Manage customer expectations from the very beginning of any engagement
Have your team practice active listening and follow-through

22. 15 Customer Service Psychology Tips to Master. Let’s Go!

@Nextiva

Since you want customers to have a positive experience with each interaction with your brand, it really makes a difference to understand how they think. In this post from Nextiva, you'll find a helpful overview of customer service psychology and how emotional intelligence can make a significant difference in your ability to influence customer behavior.

Three key takeaways from 15 Customer Service Psychology Tips to Master:

Use cognitive bias to your advantage by keeping a positive attitude
Make each customer interaction count by demonstrating that they matter
Clearly identify customer needs so that you can set a reasonable expectation

23. 16 Customer Service Skills That Drive Every Business

A customer service team is only as good as the representatives that work within it. The skills of every employee are crucial to the success of your customer engagement and your ability to provide quality customer service consistently. This post reminds us of 16 critical customer service skills that should be part of every team. There are some great statistics provided that support the importance of training and development.

Three key takeaways from 16 Customer Service Skills That Drive Every Business:

Be consistent by quickly fixing mistakes that are identified by customers
Develop patience by maintaining a positive internal dialogue
Maintain clarity in communications by being concise and straightforward

Social media has become a standard mode of communication for many customer service activities these days. This article, from Jay Baer and hosted on Convince & Convert, is a simple list of five social media customer service stats that are important to know. There is also an embedded presentation from Jay that talks about the speed of customer service on social media channels.

Three key takeaways from The 5 Social Media Customer Service Stats You Must Know:

One-third of customer complaints are never answered
Many customers who complain on social media expect a rapid response
The majority of customers are satisfied with current social media response times

Social media includes many platforms that enable dialogue between people in different formats. They represent an excellent opportunity for customer service teams to use new ways of connecting with their customers. This article, from Search Engine Journal, takes an in-depth look at social media customer service. It provides a useful step-by-step guide to getting the most engagement out of your social media channels.

Three key takeaways from A Complete Guide to Social Media Customer Service:

Analyze your current customer care activity to identify pain points
Don’t set up separate profiles on social media for customer care
Create clear customer service guidelines including each social media platform

8 Tips for Social Media Customer Service [Infographic] — @socialmedia2day

Engaging with customers on social media is typically faster than traditional means like email or phone contact. Because communication can be rapid, it’s essential to have a clear plan for how your team will manage these discussions to avoid confusion or delays. This article and infographic from Social Media Today share eight tips for creating a strong customer service presence on social media.

Three key takeaways from 8 Tips for Social Media Customer Service:

Send customers regular offer and product updates on social media
Personalize responses to keep them from being too generic
Carefully transfer customers to phone or email for more lengthy discussions

It can be easy to get carried away with social media and quickly overwhelm your customer support team. As this article from our SupportBee blog points out, the best approach is to start with the basics and improve from there. Understanding concepts like being proactive, building a loyal customer base, and creating the right tone of voice are fundamental to running a customer service operation that gets results.

Three key takeaways from 4 Basics Of Using Social Media For Customer Support:

Chatbot automation is a great way to satisfy angry customers quickly
Nurture customer relationships by providing service beyond simple support
Use social media monitoring tools to identify potential issues

28. 9 Ways Technology Will Affect the Future of Customer Service

There is no question that technology continues to transform how customer service is managed. This article on HubSpot explains nine critical ways that the future of customer service could continue to evolve. Rather than replace human customer service talent, technology is likely to remain a valuable asset to help customer-facing personnel. Companies may need to assess the technologies in this guide to remain competitive and meet future demands.

Three key takeaways from 9 Ways Technology Will Affect the Future of Customer Service:

Face-to-face video communication will increase
Blockchain technology may change e-commerce customer support
Customer success will become a clear competitive differentiator

The transition from individual communication channels to connected social media feeds has brought about a fundamental shift in how customer support must be managed. Since messages become more public with social media, it’s essential to manage customer expectations effectively and avoid issues. This article from Conversocial is an 11-part guide that discusses all aspects of social customer service and what it might look like in the future.

Three key takeaways from The Definitive Guide to Social Customer Service:

Create two tiers to separate messages by priority
Create a social customer service playbook to provide consistency
Track important metrics to improve your support performance

Social Customer Service: Lessons from 5 of Our Favorite Brands — @mention

While the visible nature of social media can make customer service management tricky, it also provides an excellent opportunity to see the work of other brands. In this article, from Mention, there are five examples from leading brands of social customer support lessons learned. Even the best, most respected brands can be challenged by support issues, and we can learn a lot from how they have responded.

Three key takeaways from Social Customer Service:

A dedicated social media account for support can improve response time
When customers voice an issue direct them to a formal feedback form
Use personalized and creative responses to keep customers engaged

Customer Service Industry Trends & Statistics

31. 10 Reasons Why Good Customer Service Is Your Most Important Metric

Companies have an important choice today to compete for customer satisfaction or profits. There can be a balance between both, but as customers demand more value, there will continue to be a shift. Businesses need to decide how much they can invest in customer service each year as expectations rise. This article from Entrepreneur shares ten reasons why customer service should be your most important business activity.

Three key takeaways from 10 Reasons Why Good Customer Service…:

Existing customers are much more likely to buy from you than new ones
Word-of-mouth advertising is the best form of marketing
Excellent customer service can lead to opportunities for new partnerships

32. The Parts of Customer Service That Should Never Be Automated

Today, automation is a top consideration when it comes to nearly all aspects of business, including customer service. There's no question that improvements to productivity help drive cost benefits while also making your team more effective. Some aspects of customer service benefit from a personalized and human approach, and this article explains why automation is not a great fit in all cases.

Three key takeaways from The Parts of Customer Service That Should Never Be Automated:

Automation cannot provide true emotion or empathy
Sometimes people prefer for a person to help them directly
Use technology to enhance customer and employee engagement

33. The Dubious Management Fad Sweeping Corporate America

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) has gained traction in the customer service industry, and many public companies are even going as far as reporting this score in public securities filings. The NPS is a handy tool for measuring your customer engagement. Still, this article from The Wall Street Journal provides a reminder that it’s not all that matters, and NPS should always be viewed along with other important metrics.

Three key takeaways from The Dubious Management Fad Sweeping Corporate America:

The science behind the NPS may be flawed and needs more data
Results summarized as NPS can easily be manipulated
It has become harder to solicit an NPS survey response through email and phone calls

34. Best and worst brands for customer service in 2019

Seeing how other companies rank in customer service success is a great way to understand how sentiment may be shifting across industries. On the blog of UK-based Which, this article includes the ranking of 100 companies based on survey data from a poll of 4,000 people. Companies were chosen from a wide variety of sectors, and this summary provides some excellent customer service lessons learned.

Three key takeaways from Best and worst brands for customer service in 2019:

Four out of the bottom five companies were utility providers
Banks represented the best sector for customer service in many areas
Airlines received the lowest average score across all sectors

35. What’s Your Customer Effort Score?

According to this article from Gartner, customer effort is the strongest driver of customer loyalty. The goal of any organization should be to reduce customer effort while increasing the number of high-quality interactions and lowering costs. This article describes the various benefits of this approach, along with some practical ways that you can measure customer effort for your business.

Three key takeaways from What’s Your Customer Effort Score?:

Customer Effort Score (CES) is a customer experience survey metric
CES is measured by asking a simple, scored question about ease of service
Companies can use CES and other metrics to identify customer pain points

36. 40 Customer Retention Statistics You Need to Know

Retaining customers is a necessity if you seek to develop a successful business. It can help to review customer retention industry statistics to gain a better understanding of some of the major trends. This article from GetFeedback gives you 40 statistics that show how customer experience is impacting retention and sales going into 2020. There are also links provided to the original sources for further research.

Three key takeaways from 40 Customer Retention Statistics You Need to Know:

77% of customers would recommend a brand to a friend after a positive experience
9 out of 10 customers value when a business knows their account history
Only 1% of customers feel their customer service expectations are always met

37. Customer Clairvoyance: I Never Knew I Always Wanted This

To remain competitive, companies must think about what the marketplace will look like in the future as opposed to what it is like today. This article from Chip Bell, posted on Forbes, introduces the idea of customer clairvoyance and how it can impact your success. In many ways, it’s a call for companies to focus on looking at the future state of customer service when planning their strategies.

Three key takeaways from Customer Clairvoyance: I Never Knew I Always Wanted This:

Used forced connections to combine two different ideas into a new offering
Really think about any new ambitious idea before dismissing it as crazy
Try to look at current issues and opportunities from a fresh perspective

38. Four roads we call customer service

Any reader of Seth Godin’s blog will know that the bite-sized ideas shared here have a great impact. The subject of this post describes four different roads of customer service and how each can have a dramatic impact on customer satisfaction. Seth does a great job of using this metaphor to make the point that each company really chooses its approach to customer service through its actions.

Three key takeaways from Four roads we call customer service:

If you put customers on hold for a long while, you are treating them as a cost
You can make a strong point by openly learning from your customers
Be clear about what your customer service is worth and stick to it

39. Reinventing Customer Service

It can be hard to envision how customer service will change in the future, but there are some innovative approaches that we can examine today. This article from Harvard Business Review shares an interesting approach to customer service team collaboration that is being used at T-Mobile. They were able to get some drastic improvements to employee and customer satisfaction by colocating teams in a unique way.

Three key takeaways from Reinventing Customer Service:

Representatives were colocated and used autonomous problem solving
Teams are evaluated based on group as well as individual performance
T-Mobile managed to improve many key metrics with this approach

40. From touchpoints to journeys: Seeing the world as customers do

Companies often look at touchpoints, the individual interactions that a customer has with a brand, to gain a deeper understanding of customer satisfaction. As this article from McKinsey points out, it’s important not to forget the entire customer journey when looking at individual situations. For a company to truly develop unique and compelling customer experience, they must take a holistic approach and understand the entire end-to-end journey a customer makes.

Three key takeaways from From touchpoints to journeys: Seeing the world as customers do:

Look at the complete customer journey from their perspective
Providing a strong start-to-finish experience can improve many key metrics
You may need to develop a whole new way of managing service operations

Customer Success & Experience

41. 15 Mind-Blowing Stats About Customer Experience Management

The topic of customer experience has quickly become an essential part of many customer service discussions. As a result, more companies are seeking to improve their skills in customer experience management. This article, from Adobe, has 15 recent industry statistics that paint a clear picture of how customer experience is evolving in the marketplace.

Three key takeaways from 15 Mind-Blowing Stats About Customer Experience Management:

A majority of customers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience
Customers who have a poor website experience are 88% less likely to return
Strong omnichannel customer engagement can lead to much greater retention

42. Customer Success: A Brief History

This article from CustomerGauge paints a historical picture of customer success and how our perspective on the topic has evolved. They even take the discussion all the way to the present and the modern rise of customer experience. Customer success has started to differentiate itself from customer experience, and you can read more about the metrics, definitions, and possibilities for the future.

Three key takeaways from Customer Success: A Brief History:

The age of the service economy has dwindled as products become commoditized
NPS, CSAT, and CES have become key metrics in the age of the Voice of the Customer (VoC)
The marketplace is expected to value experience even more in the future

43. 50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience

Customer experience has become such a dominant topic that businesses and industry experts are measuring a ton of data to gain a better understanding of it. Forbes has compiled this list of 50 customer experience statistics, offering a detailed summary of the current environment. Their goal with the article is to clearly show the value that customer experience can bring to the marketplace.

Three key takeaways from 50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience:

84% of companies that improve customer experience report increased revenue
Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than others
Loyal customers are five times more likely to purchase again

44. What is Customer Service Experience? Definition, Examples and Best Improvement Strategies

This article defines customer service experience as the overall impression of a customer based on interactions with customer-facing staff before and after a purchase. Even though you can increase revenue with marketing and sales activity, it’s really your service quality that will dictate your long-term success as a company. You can learn more about why this is so important and read some examples and strategies inside the post.

Three key takeaways from What is Customer Service Experience?:

There are many benefits to focusing on providing an excellent customer service experience
Word of mouth travels faster than any advertisement
Offering an apology for an issue is key to improving customer engagement

45. Introducing customer success 2.0: The new growth engine

Many companies, especially SaaS vendors, have adopted customer-success manager (CSM) roles to increase their customer engagement. While this has been very effective in recent years to increase sales, there is now a need for further transformation. In this article from McKinsey, you’ll learn about a new phase of customer success that has driven companies to focus more on growth in addition to customer churn.

Three key takeaways from Introducing customer success 2.0:

Existing customers account for nearly half of all revenue growth
Now is a good time to reevaluate go-to-market strategies
Create premium offers that integrate intensive customer-success services

46. How Blending Brand And Culture Can Impact The Customer Experience

@Forbes

Before a business can create a meaningful customer experience, they must have a full understanding of their company culture and brand. This article explains how to blend brand and culture in a way that can help build an engaging customer experience. There are a lot of good points made, including how to remain authentic by relying less on scripted responses and allowing your team to convey genuine messages themselves.

Three key takeaways from How Blending Brand And Culture Can Impact The Customer Experience:

Customer messages should make real brand commitments
Create more interpersonal experiences with customers to build connections
Consider fully integrating your marketing and HR functions

47. 10 Steps To Achieve Greater Customer Success

A company can achieve customer success by fully meeting their support needs and leaving them satisfied with their results. The only way to truly embrace the concept of customer success is to make some specific changes to the way your business operates. In this post, from ProProfs, you’ll learn ten steps that you can use to transform your customer support activities and create a truly success-driven culture.

Three key takeaways from 10 Steps To Achieve Greater Customer Success:

The complete customer lifecycle includes a number of different interactions
Don’t use messaging that is too complex or long-winded
Measure employee engagement as a key part of your customer success plan

48. Customer Service 101: A Guide to Providing Stand-Out Support Experiences

Each interaction with a customer is an opportunity to either add value to their lives or leave them with an unresolved need. Your service team is at the center of the customer journey, and this article from Shopify will show you how to make a real difference with each engagement. The guide will explain how to choose the right customer service channels, handle difficult situations, and improve the skills of your team.

Three key takeaways from Customer Service 101:

Effective support will find the root cause of any issue
Writing clear messages should be a top priority for your support team
The worst thing you can do on a customer call is to appear uncaring

49. Poor customer service can impact more than just those who experience it

All companies would like to avoid having a customer that is dissatisfied with their service experience. It is already well known how damaging a negative customer interaction can be to future business. Another interesting aspect of a poor customer service situation is the impact that it can also have on other customers. This article, from Consumer Affairs, explains that a negative response can have a far greater impact than you might think.

Three key takeaways from Poor customer service can impact more than just those who experience it:

Customers that see others being treated poorly are less satisfied
Other customers can be impacted even if a server or manager makes an apology
The posting of negative experiences on social media has heightened their intensity

50. Customer Experience Vs. Customer Service Vs. Customer Care

There are a lot of hot buzzwords these days, and it can be hard to differentiate between customer experience, customer service, and customer care. This article, by Blake Morgan on Forbes, helps clarify their differences and explains how each can be used as part of a customer-centric strategy. It’s a handy reference with practical explanations that can be incorporated into your discussions.

Three key takeaways from Customer Experience Vs. Customer Service Vs. Customer Care:

Customer service is the advice or assistance a company provides customers
Customer care moves beyond customer service to build an emotional connection
Customer experience describes a customer’s total journey with a brand