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Top 5 Customer Service Blog Posts of June 2021

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Businesses have begun to resume their operations normally and in many countries, lockdown restrictions are gradually being lifted. The month of June has proven to be blissful as it feels like the pandemic has been controlled to a commendable extent. The improvement and progress of CX during the month also caught my eye.

Analysts and experienced professionals shared their insights regarding the future of CX and how it could be improved further. So, for me, the reads for June were very interesting. I was hooked to my laptop as I could not decide which top 5 CX blog posts of June 2021 I should choose.

These are my top favorite 5 picks; I am attaching the link for each so you can explore all these further. Happy Reading!

The Only Terrible Business; Poor Customer Service

Many companies squander money on product management and brand identity but what they fail to realize is that running a successful business is a multi-faceted job and perfecting the product is just one part of it.

Eivind Jonassen pens down an insightful post explaining how many companies ignore the significance of customer service and therefore fail in delivering a seamless customer experience. A recent study has revealed that in the United States alone, businesses lose around $700 billion in revenue due to substandard customer service.

The paradox is that 80% of companies believe that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of customers believe the same. While a chatbot can help, it has not proven to be a revolutionary weapon in solving the customer service crisis. This significant discrepancy in customer satisfaction and customer perspective has been a major reason for collapsing figures of customer retention.

The consequences imposed by not delivering the expected customer service can be immensely expensive. Attracting new customers can cost 6 to 7 times more than retaining an existing loyal customer. Only a 5% increase in customer loyalty can make existing customers 95% more profitable. These figures reveal how crucial it is for businesses to turn their dissatisfied customers into happy ones by investing wisely in delivering superior customer experiences.

80% of a company’s future sales come from 20% of the existing customers. Today customers covet a more personalized experience; they do not want to communicate with a robot or have a scripted dialogue with a CX representative. Establishing a contact center can significantly improve customer’s dialogue and channel seamless communication.

The Futuristic Approach to Ideal Customer Service- Conversation

Now, this may seem awfully ordinary to say that future of customer service is conversational, but Paul Adams explains in this post, a summarized edition of Blake Morgan’s podcast, business communication will now follow this path. Earlier, experts identified the significance of transforming customer service into conversational but they failed to execute it.

Paul Adams explains his theory well in this post and explicitly discusses the path on which customer service is steering. Adams mentioned how platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, and WeChat have become the preferred channel for people to communicate at. This fundamental change has revolutionized the business world.

Many companies are still stuck on conventional modes of communication like phones and emails. But applications like messenger are more accessible, cost-effective, and they offer customers the convenience of self-service. This makes them more independent and in control of how they communicate with your brand.

Adams proposed his model of future customer support that consists of the following three layers:

  • Human Support – This support is offered when issues are more complicated and a personalized service needs to be offered.
  • Proactive Support – This gravitates around checking up on customers and addressing any concerns or issues before they even arise. This outbound messaging falls under the category of being cautious or one step ahead.
  • Automated Self-Service Support – This option allows customers to reach out to businesses at their convenience. They do not have to wait long hours before they could get in touch with brands and they can communicate easily.

Customer Confidence- A Holy Grail for Customer Service

Annette Franz frequently talks about customer confidence and customer trust. She believes that restoring a customer’s confidence can help companies win at customer service. In her compelling post, she constantly talks about earning customers’ trust, because that is the key to unlocking customer success. If customers trust a brand, they will remain forever loyal to it.

Annette defines confidence as a belief in being able to rely and depend on someone. Loosely translated, confidence stems from trust. She then defines trust as

“a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something”.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that these two sentiments are insanely similar.

She forms a link that a brand’s promise sets customer’s expectations, and these expectations are aligned with trust. So, trust and confidence are restored when brands make a genuine commitment to customers and deliver that promise.

She even adds pointers from her previous posts that streamline to the same concept:

  • Be transparent with all your customers; not just with your shareholders. Customers drive your business not the company owners.
  • Trust is earned only through transparency and integrity
  • Be authentic. Be True. Be real
  • Act with integrity and not only in financial matters but in all dealings pertaining to customers and employees.
  • Always have the best interest of employees and customers at heart, ahead of shareholders
  • Do not compromise your integrity; be fair, be just, and make sure all your practices are reliable and ethically correct.
  • Do not take advantage of customer vulnerabilities or act opportunistically.
  • Make sure that deviations in customer experiences are low, at a minimum. Be predictable and consistent in delivering good and honest customer service.

Create a Better Customer Experience Via Reducing Complexity

Initially, if you begin reading this post, it may seem a little generic. Although, when you start reading about the 10 practical suggestions, how to realize how insightful and wise Ricardo Saltz Gulko is. This detailed, yet accurate post is the perfect guide for any customer service representative. It offers companies the top 10 tips to follow to fashion a seamless customer experience.

And the ideal experience stems from reduced complexity. So, to eradicate complexity, all companies have to do is:

  1. Employ the WSJF Prioritization Model – the Weighted Shortest Job First model from Agile helps in assessing the associated risks, customer and business value, and cost of delay expended on each designed feature.
  2. Integrate KPIs when experimenting with different functionalities – It is always better to play safe with proven empirical results. Attaching a KPI metric with a feature to monitor its progress, adoption, and usage is always smarter and better.
  3. Review Budget – It is important to keep costs and budgets under constant review to ensure no financial imbalance occurs. A regularly revised budget allocation helps in dismissing features that have high costs and low returns.
  4. No Overloading – Overwhelming customers when they are already under stress, like during pandemics, is always a major red flag in customer service. The department exists to make things easier for customers and reducing the infuriating complexity.
  5. Connect Emotionally with Customers – Companies should often collaborate with teams and customers and keep them engaged in the decisions of the company. This makes them feel valued and included.
  6. Prioritize VoC and VoE – Voice of employee and customer are both integral in keeping the brand functional. Incorporating their feedback in designing prototypes can help improve customer service.

These are the top points discussed in the posts; explore the post further to read the rest.

Collaboration is the Secret Weapon to Accelerating CX Transformation

Posts by Forrester are always loaded with information and shrewd vision from highly educated and experienced analysts from around the globe. Their perspectives on improving CX are truly inspiring and highly effective.

This riveting post by Su Doyle also offers compelling insights on how CX transformation can be expedited via collaboration. Su studied several high-functioning companies and teams to see what is that they do differently that earn them a lot of recognition and admiration from customers.

She deduced that such companies implement certain collaboration strategies like:

  • Creating an insights engine – Collaborate with marketing teams and acquire relevant data to monitor even minor changes in customer behaviors. This way you could transform your insights into a competitive advantage by acting accordingly on changing customer behavior.
  • Incorporate CX vision into daily activities – Try to embed CX into everyday behaviors on the frontline service as well as the back office. This way it will become a vital part of the company’s culture and will etch to the brand identity.
  • End Silos – Partner with cross-functional shareholders and keep everyone in the loop. This will result in win-win opportunities for both, customers and the company. This emerges from the foundation of believing in creating a better life for the customers.
  • Customer-Centric Improvement – Team up with operations and Lean Six Sigma teams to optimize the processes and stimulate a continuous improvement loop.
  • Attract New Customers – Let innovation fuel the company’s growth; do not be afraid to incorporate your creativity. Partner with all internal departments and perfect the purchase and customer experience journeys. Let the sales be your Holy grail.

Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed my favorite picks for the top 5 CX blog posts for June 2021. I would love to know which one was your favorite so feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. If you want to get featured, share the link to your posts and I will share it with our audience.

I cannot wait to witness the future of CX because the rate at which it is growing is truly awesome. Let us see what CX has in the store for us next. I will bring some more riveting, juicy CX posts for you next month too. Till then, enjoy reading these.

Best of the Web, CX

Top 5 Customer Experience Blog Posts of September 2020

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Let’s mark tick on another month’s top cx blog posts’ review! We last discussed and evaluated the most interesting customer experiences posts of August 2020. But our September reads were also quite riveting and intriguing. The insights and expert advice shared by professionals on how to offer an impeccable customer experience, especially in times where the world is terror-struck due to the COVID-19 pandemic were useful and informative for me, and I hope for you also.

So, keeping up with the theme of our monthly posts, in this blog post I will appraise the top cx blog posts of September 2020 that caught my eye and compelled me to share them with you. Let’s dig into different articles and if you want to explore them further, I will be attaching a link for your convenience.

1.   The Focal Point of any Business: The Customers

Many businesses believe that it’s the product, or meticulous market research that will help them penetrate the industry and establish a monopoly over the market, but they are wrong. It’s always the customers that should be at the center of concern for the companies. All decisions, policies, and strategies shall revolve around them to serve their needs and offer maximum customer satisfaction. Don’t confuse it with agreeing to every request and demand of the customer, regardless of how unethical or inappropriate it is, but to impose a business plan that serves the purpose of achieving the highest levels of customers’ utility.

To guide you in the right direction, Annette Franz, in her blog post, discusses the eight principles encapsulating the concept of customer centricity and then respective practices to implement them. The gist of those principles was:

Culture

She emphasized that culture shall be drawn in which the core values are operationalized and supportive of the social link between the company and the customer. The culture of customer centricity shall be promoted.

Employee Experience

Employees are on the frontline, who deliver customer experience, and making sure that their experience at the company is pleasurable is very imperative. If they are dissatisfied, they will not be able to exhibit customer-centric behavior.

People Before Products, Profits, and Metrics

The companies that structure their decisions on the customer-centricity concept tend to prioritize customers over everything else. So, let your profits, products, and metrics, all be secondary.

Understanding Customers

You must know what the customers want and desire. You should have the knowledge and data to help you achieve customer understanding.

There is no Golden Rule in Customer Centricity

Just negate the rule: treat others the way you want to be treated and replace it with treat others the way they want to be treated.

Be Accepting

Incorporating customer voice in all that you do is essential to introduce customer-centricity.

2. Being Empathetic is Always the Correct Choice!

Many recent studies have proven through the numerical evidence that if businesses are empathetic towards customers and put them in their shoes, they are likely to earn their loyalty and support. It is no secret that the fear and stress prevalent globally due to COVID-19 has affected the masses. In these difficult times, we have to hold each other’s hands and support one another unconditionally. In his post, Adrian Swinscoe highlights this point and recommends businesses to develop empathy if they intend to offer memorable customer experiences.

After exploring a study classified about various age groups, it was deduced that 63% of Gen Z’ers and 56% of Millennials claimed that their customer issues were resolved more effectively with empathy. So, to construct and empathetic musculature, it is vital to change the strategy, design, use of tech, improvement in process, redefining of leadership, and change in the training of employees.

Attribution of empathy is not a one-day job. It will require commitment and dedication. And Adrian has capitalized on that point but has also presented the unmatched significance of this concept.

3.   Is Effective Customer Experience the Secret Ingredient of Successful Businesses?

A Gartner Trend Report suggested that as opposed to 36% in 2010, almost 80% of the companies have begun to compete based on providing effective customer services. This increase in statistics has shown that companies have changed the rudimentary concepts of running businesses and have made serving-the-customers the fundamental point of concern. It has been calculated that enhancing customer experiences and directing resources and efforts to that department can help increase the revenue by 4% to 8%. A popular report proposed that improving customer services has helped around 84% of businesses to establish a respectable place in the market and earn a decent amount of revenue.

Nithin Rakesh capitalizes on the significance of CX and its deep-rooted impact on the flourishment of business in his blog post. He mentioned that simply offering an impeccable product or service is not enough. The companies have to think outside the box. They must invest time in studying the needs of customers and shift focus from earning profits and launching the perfect product. They must invest in knowing what the customer wants and should then act on it accordingly.

 Nithin also explicitly talks about how to completely transform customer’s dissatisfaction or annoyance into delight. The employees must be trained and empowered so that even if an issue arises with the product or delivery, the damage can be salvaged by offering helpful assistance to customers. It is important to resolve their issues in an optimal way.

Finally, he wrapped up by mentioning that the customers may not remember the product or its price, but a significant customer experience will be memorable.

4. Building a Personalized Relationship with Customers

In this era where businesses primarily compete based on offering a better CX experience, it becomes really difficult to draw a line where the companies should intrude in the lives of customers. This is quite challenging for businesses to fully comprehend. In the race to offer a more personalized customer experience, companies often forget if they are crossing the social and ethical line. Many customers are private about their lives and data being evaluated publicly. So, you must respect these boundaries and offer CX experience solely based on the belief to bring value to customers and earn their loyalty.

This point has been raised in the blog post, eloquently written by Sarah-Nicole LeFlore. She clearly outlines how personalization can be strategically integrated with customer experience.

  • It is Important to Reduce Efforts – Customers want to make their lives easy and this means that this must be your priority too. Don’t make customers walk through fires while they are engaged in business with you. They would want to do the minimum work and receive maximum benefit. So, personalize customer experiences to such an extent that they can reach you quickly and you can respond effectively whenever they are in a predicament that pertains to your product.
  • Collection of Data – You wouldn’t want to seem creepy and a stalker to the customer. So, make sure you are obtaining data that is strictly related to the business and your research to improve the customer experience. Don’t gather data through inappropriate means or ask for too personalized information, as this will portray a wrong image of yours to the customers.

5. The Digital CX Transformation

As we all are well aware of the global situation, we know that we have shifted a large percentage of business activities and operations on the digital platforms. It is estimated that this pandemic has instigated a 5x times increase in digitization. Businesses interact with customers via online media platforms. As managing activities digitally seems quicker and feasible, therefore, customers anticipate fast responses and effective interactions.

Nandkishor Tripathi talks about this rising issue in his blog post and recommends companies to get a stronger grip on the digital world as it is the need of time and possibly the future of running businesses. He also proposed some strategies that companies could follow and resort to so that they can keep up with the increasing demand for digitization. These were as follows:

Conclusion

We have reached the end now. Hope you enjoyed reading about my favorite picks of top cx blog posts of September 2020. It is amazing how companies are striving amidst COVID-19 to offer the best services to customers and be even more responsive and considerate of their feelings. Kudos to all the businesses and employees! Share your thoughts and reviews with our audience in the comments below. If you want your post to be featured on this site, feel free to share the link in the comments section. We’ll be back soon with some new and fascinating posts!

Best of the Web

Top Seven Great CX Blogs from May to July ‘18

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In this post, we will be talking about some of the best CX blog posts written between May and July.

1.   The Importance of Customer Service

We’re going to start off by talking about serious topics before moving on to more entertaining one. Therefore, the first post we’ll be sharing is called Why Customer Success is the Future of Customer Service by author Michael Pace. 

In this post, the author tells us about how customer service is very important to companies how businesses should focus on this in order to come out on top and succeed. But that’s not all that he talked about. Pace gives us real, hard numbers to back his statements. He analyses the importance of churn and how it can help you with your next conversation both as a customer service representative to your next customer as well as the senior management.


We particularly liked this post as it does not simply state things but also backs them with statistics as well as showing how successful businesses like Microsoft and Amazon have used such method to their advantage to generate greater revenues. One particular piece of information that we would like to point out is the chart he made showing the critical customer success period that can render a purchase. This, he states, is only possible if customer service is able to convince the customer to, well, actually buy the product by overcoming any problems they’ve been trying to resolve.

2.   Dealing With Difficult Patients

Continuing our trend with customer service blog posts, next we will be discussing the question that a lot of customer service professionals would love to have an answer to how to deal with difficult customers. It is probably one of the worst experiences that anyone can have for a difficult customer not only makes their own life miserable but also the representatives. It can be particularly difficult to maintain control when the customer is yelling at you and not letting you help them.


However, in her piece on difficult customers, Elizabeth Wellington not only describes the situation we all know about but also talks about how customer service agents can get a hang of the situation and, well, turn it all around in their favor. This usually comes in various stages, but the first stage obviously is to control yourself and then do as Wellington suggestions. Primarily, her suggestions include the following stages:


1.    Preparation

2.    Recognizing the opportunity in failure

3.    Changing channels

4.    Adapting your approach to the customer’s personality

5.    A balance between empathy and boundaries

6.    Sincerely apologize

7.    Don’t lie to customers


Of course, she’s explained it all in great detail. You can read her post here.

3.   One for the Team
Like the previous post, this post by Steve DiGoia also focuses on customers that are upset and frustrated and how best one can deal with it. Like Wellington in the previous post, he talks about how customer service employees can use his acronym and can, therefore, remember the way to deal with the problem of difficult customers. 

What we really liked about this post was that it was very informative. The topics he talked about were very clear and the method he used is actually pretty simple and understandable. In fact, if you were to implement this method on your customer service team then we’re pretty sure that you wouldn’t have any problem with dealing with upset customers.

4.    Traits Successful Companies Share

Michael Pace makes it on our list once more with another fantastic post on his blog the Pace of Service. This time Michael informs of us some of the common things that most successful companies have in regards to their customer service. The companies mentioned in this post are specifically well known for their customer service. We won’t spoil any of it by mentioning them here (trust us, the post is worth a read on your own), here’s the link to his post.

A bit of warning though as Michael clarifies that while these characteristics are shared by the associations he’s evaluated, they are not the sure fire way to become a successful business- that’s all on you. You can, however, use this as a great reference point as you work on the customer care service of your company.

5.   On Airlines and The Blame, We Put On Them

Moving a little away from our central customer service theme, this post by Dan Gingiss is a particular favourite of ours as it not only does it talk about how Airlines use their customer support units but also how sometimes, it’s really not the airlines fault that there are delays in flights- this is due to the uncontrollable factors such as weather which airlines cannot control. 

What we like about this post is the fact that the writer actively mentions and recognizes the importance of customer service and how “every customer experience matters”. 

Immediately after that, he lists a whole bunch of scenarios where the airline is responsible, and this includes overbooking and maintenance and things like that. He also recognizes that it is the airline’s responsibility to make sure that customer service is excellent for things that it can control in order to establish customer loyalty. But then he starts to talk about the things most people are not fond of airlines (and air travel in general) for. This comes with weather and flight delays that come with it because these are simply something that an airline can’t control, and people often complain about this. 

By giving us this insight, the writer does a great job at showing both sides of the industry and we commend him for doing his research well.

6.   Of Heroes & Villains

Another one by Steve DiGioia is featured on our list and there’s a reason behind that. His interesting take on customer service agents and their behavior is an interesting read. Not only does it connect with just about anyone who has read a comic book (and in today’s time’s comic book movies) and has thus, categorized agents into three categories: the hero, the villain and the problem solver. 

By doing so, he presents the case of how companies can use these examples as a way of training their customer representative staff. No one wants to be a villain in the customer service business as that can lead to your client being driven away. What people want is a hero- but is that really all that people want? What about a problem solver? Someone who is, not just really nice to talk to, but also can actually solve a customer’s problem without delaying them for too long. These skills can be especially essential if you’re trying to enhance customer service experience for your clients and we definitely recommend you to give this a read.

7.   Stories of Ourselves

This final post is probably one of the greatest pieces of advice anyone can offer a company looking to make its customer service better. Kaye is a member of the CXAccelerator community and she’s written a blog post on how a company can use storytelling as a way to create “customer heroes”.


By using storytelling as a primary tool to gather information on your customers, you can make their experience a lot better than most would have thought. Storytelling is almost never used in call centers, so it will very smart business move on your part and we strongly suggest you go with it. Why? Because through this you’re essentially making both the customer and your agent feel better about themselves and by making your agents a customer’s superhero, you’re making their job more enjoyable as well. We strongly recommend that you give this one a read.

Conclusion

As you can see, these blog posts covered a wide range of variety. Some of them were merely informative, offering readers with an overview of many products; others were more specific, focusing on only one matter at hand. The most important thing about these blog posts was their ability to connect with their audience, causing readers to comment or share the blog posts with people they know. Indeed, a good blog post is one that connects with its audience on a personal level, causing them to be ‘touched’ by it. This, in turn, leads them to consider the opinions they read online as well as influencing their choices later on in real life. As said before, blogs can be powerful tools and these blog posts certainly do show that. Hope you liked this post, we’d love to hear your opinions on this one!