Top 5 Customer Service & CX Articles for Week of October 23, 2023

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

Constructing Care: How Your Customers Know They Matter by Chip Bell

(Forbes) It sounds like a broken record. “We love customers,” “Customer satisfaction guaranteed,” or “Service is our number one product.” However, the clichéd promises can ring hollow without concrete proof. And caring is the foundation of trust and the preamble to loyalty.

My Comment: Do your customers know you care about them? If you want your customers to come back, demonstrating care may be exactly what’s needed in your customer experience playbook. When customers know you care, you create an emotional connection that fosters trust and loyalty.

4 Tips for Small Businesses to Get More Customer Reviews — and What to Do With the Feedback by Erica Sweeney

(Insider Business) As a small business with a slim marketing budget, Caroline Elston, a cofounder of the Indiana company, told Insider that customer reviews had helped Platterful raise brand awareness and increase sales since it launched in 2021.

My Comment: Almost any business can benefit from reviews. Of course, we would love all reviews to be positive. Consider that most consumers look at reviews before making a purchase. This short article has several tips on how to get reviews, why you want reviews, and more.

The Future of Customer Loyalty by Rajesh Midha

(Fast Company) Customer loyalty is evolving. Mechanically-driven programs are a thing of the past. There is now broad recognition that people are not as engaged through their intellect as they are engaged through their emotions. Creative experiences that foster deeper connections, address customers’ emotions and needs, and highlight the uniqueness of the brand are essential to the future of customer loyalty.

My Comment: For years, I’ve said customer satisfaction is a rating and customer loyalty is an emotion. That’s why I was excited to read the first paragraph of this article, which emphasized the emotional connection you want customers to have with your business or brand. In addition to customers liking your products and the experience, they must trust you. Trust is the difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal customer.

Five Ways AI Can Optimize The Customer Journey by Robyn Rawlings

(Chief Executive) Enter artificial intelligence (AI): one of the most promising innovations of the 21st century. From ChatGPT to Google Bard, AI tools are taking the world by storm and redefining how we think about everything from workplace collaboration to the customer journey. But AI isn’t just a recent phenomenon. Forward-thinking businesses have been leveraging conversational AI tools for years—not only to enhance the customer experience, but also to empower contact center agents with the resources they need to do so.

My Comment: The future of the contact center is happening today! AI has been around for years, but not the way it’s being used in today’s modern contact center. The ability to manage basic questions and issues with an AI-infused bot is becoming the norm. In addition, customer support agents are using AI to help them get the right answers for their customers, making the agents “smarter” and more efficient.

Eight Key Communication Lessons That Can Improve Your Customer Relationships by Forbes Councils Member

(Forbes) When it comes to communicating with customers, every company has their own way of doing things. Whether it’s following the “the customer is always right” rule or following a pre-written script designed to deescalate conflict, each customer service team draws on their past experiences to communicate with customers in the most effective way. But as this is a process that evolves over time, the practices you follow now may not be the same ones you used when you started.

My Comment: I love a good list of ideas, suggestions, and lessons. This article features eight members of the Forbes Young Entrepreneurs Council (YEC), each serving up their favorite strategies and tactics in the area of communications. I especially like lesson number eight, which is that sometimes, no communication is the best communication.

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.