Faster Service Without Sacrificing Satisfaction                                         Delivering Personalized Support with Technology Shep Hyken interviews Paulo Almeida, CEO & Co-Founder of Clientscape, a company that helps support agents seamlessly manage customer interactions across multiple channels. He talks about how companies can adapt to changing customer expectations by leveraging d ..read more

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. 10 Ways to Boost Customer Satisfaction by G. Tomas M. Hult and Forrest Morgeson (Harvard Business Publishing) Customer satisfaction is at its lowest point in the past two decades. Companies must focus on 10 areas of the customer experience to improve satisfaction without sacrificing revenue. The authors base their findings on research at the ACSI — analyzing millions of c ..read more

This week, we feature an article by Kathleen White, an independent business analyst for several small businesses. She writes about letting your customers know that they are important to you and your business by making sure that they feel heard. Running your own business can be amazing – you can control your own working hours and make all of the important decisions, but ultimately you are responsible for the success of the business. A business can’t exist without customers of some kind, and whether you provide services or sell products, it’s really important to ensure that your customers feel h ..read more

Most everyone in the business world is familiar with the idea of customer experience (CX). And as popular as CX is, there’s a somewhat new concept that has been coming on strong for the past five years, and that’s the employee experience (EX). With the employment issues of the past two years, EX is as important, maybe even more so, than CX. You can’t have a consistent and predictable CX without an EX to support it.   Most businesses today use technology to meet their customers’ needs. This comes in the form of streamlining processes, self-service customer support solutions and more ..read more

Happy New Year! We have an exciting year ahead of us. So much has changed in just the past three years. And in the world of customer service and CX, there is much to be excited about. Last month I released my annual Top Ten Customer Experience Predictions in my weekly Forbes column. I don’t often repeat content, but I’m going to share those predictions and trends here, in a revised and shorter format. Here we go:  Customers Will Be Smarter and More Demanding Than Ever – I may sound like a broken record as I start each year with this prediction. Regardless of the type of business you’re i ..read more

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. You Need to Deliver Extraordinary Customer Experiences – Now More Than Ever by Joseph Michelli (CustomerThink) The Verint research cited by Madeline (and similar data from the SaaS company, Zendesk) emphasizes the increased importance of customer experience during periods of inflation. These results also offer insights into what needs to be done to engage customers during ..read more

This week, we feature an article by Nick Bandy, Chief Marketing Officer at LiveVox, an omnichannel platform that helps brands seamlessly communicate with their customers. He shares how you can align your customer’s journey with their brand expectations. The customer journey is essential to any company’s success. And in today’s digital age, customer service is now more important than ever before. So how can you make sure that your customer journey is aligned with your brand expectations? And more importantly, how can you ensure that it’s not costing you sales? We explore these questions and off ..read more

A restaurant took its most popular item off the menu. It had been on there a long time, and the owner decided it was time to make a change, even though it was his guests’ favorite dish.   A company changed its invoicing terms. It wanted to tighten its terms to get paid sooner, with larger penalties for late payment.  A retail store changed its return policy. What was once considered a flexible, customer-friendly return policy became a hassle for the customer.  These changes are the reasons some customers shared when they were asked, “Why don’t you come back anymore?”  ..read more

The Hallmarks of a Customer-Obsessed Company Creating Loyalty through Customer-Obsession Shep Hyken interviews Marbue Brown, an accomplished customer experience executive who has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, including JP Morgan Chase, Amazon.com, Microsoft Corporation, and Cisco Systems. He is the author of Blueprint for Customer Obsession. He shares what differentiates customer-obsessed companies from the rest and the amazing business results that come with it. Top Takeaways: There is a distinction between customer-obsessed companies and others. Customer-obse ..read more

Creating a Good Customer Offboarding Experience  How Companies Can Provide Outstanding CX From Sign-Up to Cancellation  Shep Hyken interviews Tony Sternberg, CEO and co-founder at ProsperStack, a platform that helps companies reduce customer churn and increase their lifetime value. He shares how companies can differentiate themselves by providing an excellent customer experience from the beginning to the end of their journey.    Top Takeaways:    Companies put a lot of focus into their onboarding process, but the end of the customer’s lifecycle tends to get ig ..read more