Customer Experience 
Customers’ priorities and service expectations change consistently.
Being up to date with these changes helps you provide support to exceed your customers’ needs. Let these excellent customer service articles sharpen your skills to cater to transforming market dynamics.
These articles discuss best practices and trends and answer pivotal questions like measuring success in customer service or dealing with unfit customers.
Is your CX falling short?
Assess and elevate your strategy with the Gartner® CX Maturity Model report.
Buckle up and let these remarkable articles guide and inspire your ways on the customer success side.
Best Practices in Customer Service
Some support agents deliver better satisfaction scores. Although all agents undergo similar training, their everyday practices become differentiators. The articles below explore priority practices that make the agents stand out. Dive in.
1. How To Build an Award-Winning Customer Service Strategy
This article from Nextiva, a business communication and collaboration software provider, presents objective ways to create or revamp a customer service strategy. It uses quotes from subject matter experts to show what’s worked for them. You can replicate the same in your tactics or take some inspiration.
2. Guide to Crafting a Customer Service Chatbot Strategy
Chatbots were immensely popular a few years ago, but what have we learned since then? In this guide by SentiSum, they weigh the pros, cons, and best practices for standing up chatbots for your customer service program.
This guide offers some clear direction on how to improve the customer experience, monitor customer sentiment, and do right by customers.
3. Network: The Hidden Key to Customer Service
This article from ZD Net, a news and technology blog, explains how to reduce friction, accelerate transactions, and elevate customer experience through a hidden key. It advises organizations to look for what’s causing friction in delivering a hassle-free service and how to address it.
Are you curious about what they could use as a hidden key?
4. How to Respond to Positive Reviews: Tips, Strategies, and Template
Our article discusses receiving and addressing positive reviews, so it doesn’t feel like generic, half-hearted responses. It offers free templates and mentions the dos and don’ts for your benefits.
There are ways to handle fake and negative experience reviews, too.
5. The Shortest Route to Happier Customers
You learn about contact center routing in the article from Sprinklr, a unified customer experience management platform. It talks about strategies that would shorten your route to happy customers. The author uses a conversational tone, emojis, and GIFs to keep it casual.
At the same time, they have visually explained complex topics like a call moving through an interactive voice response (IVR) system.
Wondering how to create a contact center routing strategy?
Related: Sprinklr Pricing: Is It Right for Your Contact Center?
6. Your Guide to Customer Support & Product-Led Growth
OpenView, an expansion-stage venture capital firm, picks up the experiences of seasoned customer service and product-led growth (PLG) leaders and shows what worked for them. You can easily visualize how CS would fit into a PLG strategy and how it evolves as you scale.
Think about what key performance indicators (KPIs) PLG companies use. Would they be the same as companies with sales-led growth?
7. Reactive vs. Proactive Customer Service and How to Use Both
Zowie, an AI-powered customer service software, explains the importance of reactive and proactive customer service with its exclusive benefits. Readers get a clear picture of when to be reactive and proactive.
What would you prefer? Is a mix of both effective in CS?
8. 9 Common Ways to Effectively Manage High Call Volume
Weave, a patient relationship management software discusses nine actionable and straightforward ways to manage high call volumes. It suggests giving “callback” as an option and being upfront with customers, among other things.
What else can you do? Is there something you’re not doing while managing calls?
Recent Trends in Customer Service
A decade earlier, calling a toll-free number or email was often the only way to reach customer service employees. Today, modern customers need support on multiple customer service channels like messaging, phone, email, and even social media.
Customer service trends change quickly. The articles below justify the changing trends in the customer support space.
9. How Have Customer Expectations Changed Over the Past Two Years?
This article from CMSWire, a community of customer service reps, talks about how customers’ expectations have changed recently. It presses on the need for 24/7/365 customer support.
Modern trends have also influenced buyers’ decision-making.
10. How CS Teams Can Survive a Down Market and Keep Their Seat at the Table
This article from Vitally, a customer success platform, discusses how support teams can navigate an economic downturn without losing their jobs. Being proactive and saving your accounts lies underneath this article’s narrative.
Discover what you can do differently to help you avoid a layoff.
11. The Next Frontier of Customer Engagement: AI-Enabled Customer Service
McKinsey & Company, a well-known name in management consulting, explains how AI-enabled customer service can drive better customer engagement. You can discover your challenges and how to address them as a leader.
Discover the perils and promise of AI customer engagement.
12. What Impact Will AI Have on Customer Service?
Forbes, a global media company, discusses how AI will impact customer service. The article assures that AI will not replace humans but will automate their repetitive tasks, making people more productive.
Learn more about the broader impact of AI on customer service professionals.
13. ChatGPT in Customer Success: Practical Examples & Limitations
Custify, a customer success software for SaaS, talks about the use of ChatGPT and its limitations in this article. The article lists actual prompts and outcomes as examples, raising concerns over customer issues and a lack of common sense.
Learn more about ChatGPT’s usage in customer success.
14. How Generative AI Is Already Transforming Customer Service
BCG, a well-known management consulting company, justifies how Generative AI transforms customer service. The article clearly shows the boost in service productivity but also displays concerns over inaccuracies.
The transformation in customer service functions has already begun. Do you think it can change the company’s business model too?
15. Burnout in Customer Service: Tips for Staying Sane
Groove, a helpdesk software, displays caution over burnout in this article and suggests ways to stay sane. It mentions the importance of one-on-ones and the need for consciously developing patience.
If you ever felt you might have burnout in your CS role, this article is for you. The tips are actionable and easy to implement.
Read the complete article here ↗
16. A New Era of Customer Experience, Powered by Chatbots and High-Performance Teams
Our article unveils how beneficial Chatbots can be for digitally transformed businesses. You get vital insights into delivering a new agent experience and building a high-performance customer service department while chatbots provide constant support.
Discover why chatbots are the need of the hour.
17. How to Use Video for Customer Support, Retention, and Upsell
In this article, Vidyard, an online video platform, presents exciting ways to use video to retain and upsell. It shows common use cases of videos in your knowledge base and how you can offer asynchronous support.
The article discusses several other ways CS teams can use videos to offer a good customer service experience.
Measuring Success in Customer Service
Success in customer service is more than having big numbers on customer satisfaction (CSAT) score reports. Retention, upselling, and cross-selling define success. The articles below discuss metrics and strategies that help you reduce churn and avoid delivering poor customer service.
18. How to Create the Most Comprehensive Report From Your Customer Satisfaction Survey
Kustomer, a top Zendesk alternative, advises on creating a customer satisfaction survey report in this article. It compares customer satisfaction with CSAT and suggests notable report metrics.
Discover how to create the most comprehensive report for assessing actual CSAT.
19. How to Set Measurable Customer Service Goals for Your Team in 2024
This article from ProProfs, a helpdesk software, discusses setting measurable customer service goals. It highlights goals you should set with examples.
You can distinguish managers’ and individuals’ goals and follow the five-step process mentioned to set them.
20. What Do Companies With High Net Promoter Score Have in Common?
Retently, a customer experience management platform, compares companies like Netflix, Amazon, Starbucks, and others with a similar Net Promoter Score (NPS). The article delves deeply into what makes their NPSs so comparable.
Discover the key factors that affect their NPS and what you can do with them.
21. Fifteen Proven Ways to Reduce Your Average Support Ticket Response Time
Databox, a business intelligence software, conveys detailed insights into what you can do to reduce support ticket response times. The article shares the opinions and preferences of customer support experts. You can use these insights to inform your overall support strategy.
22. Twelve Customer Effort Score Questions to Use Right Away (With Examples)
Refiner, a customer feedback survey software, discusses customer effort score (CES) and how to structure questions to assess it.
The article highlights essential elements of structuring these questions with examples and best practices to follow. You get actionable information and pro tips to craft an effective CES survey.
23. The Most Important Customer Service Metric That Most Businesses Ignore
This article by GooveHQ, a popular helpdesk software, highlights the importance of first-contact resolution and how to calculate it. You gain insights into increasing your business’ first contact resolution rate and much more.
Read the complete article here ↗
24. The Science Behind How Long Customers Should Be on Hold
Mindful, a customer experience management software, casually talks about hold time and what’s a good one in this article. Several statistics justify its narrative.
Is there a difference in customer satisfaction between traditional hold and virtual hold?
25. Manager’s Guide to Abandonment Rates in the Contact Center
Fonolo, a callback solution for contact centers, discusses call abandonment in this article and how it affects customer satisfaction. The article mentions the cost of abandoned calls and what it takes to reduce them.
Moreover, it shares a unique perspective on why costs increase as abandonment rates decrease.
26. Average Cost-Per-Call in Call Centers
Sisense, an analytics platform, advocates for call centers’ average cost per call and why it matters in this article. You can get details on measuring it and the sources you can leverage.
Through an example, the article helps you with ways to calculate and optimize this KPI as per benchmarks.
Dealing With Unfit Customers
Customers come in all moods: happy, excited, uninterested, and even angry. It’s easier to deal with the first three moods on the frontline, but dealing with anger is tricky.
You must be prepared to handle such situations, especially when catering to people who bring in revenue.
Patience, emotional intelligence, active listening, and empathy come to your aid and help you avoid delivering a bad experience. Let these articles help you deal with extraordinary daily situations in your role.
The articles below discuss dealing with customers who may not be at their best when you connect.
27. The Rise of the Irate Customer: Post-Pandemic Rudeness and the Importance of Rediscovering Patience
In this article, The Conversation, a network of not-for-profit media outlets, covers the increasing rudeness of customers after the pandemic. You get an overview of the causes fueling this rising frustration and what it means for businesses.
The article offers practical customer service tips for dealing with irate customers.
28. How to Record Customer Complaints Quickly & Efficiently
This Nextiva article statistically explains the value of recording customer complaints quickly. You learn about the critical components involved in the process.
It shows you the positive side of negative reviews and what you can do with them.
29. How to Respond to Negative Reviews Online with Examples and Templates
Fera, a reviews app, discusses how to respond to negative reviews to flip them into positive ones. As a result, the negative reviews are transformed into constructive ones. The article explains what you should immediately do when you get a negative review and gives examples to address them best.
30. How to Deal With Angry Customers: 17 Tips, Templates, and Examples
In this article, Zendesk, a customer service software company, discusses several ways to deal with a cranky customer. It suggests being an active listener and, above all, staying calm. You can follow several other tips while using the template presented in the article.
31. Can You Actually Train Employees for Empathy?
This Nextiva article talks about actionable tips for training employees on empathy. It conveys the best practices you can use in communication to deliver a lasting impression. As such, customers feel you’re on their side.
With these tips, you can make customer interactions unique for every customer when it’s a routine job for you.
32. How to Win Back Frustrated and Unhappy Customers
Freshworks, a company known for its customer support software, delves into what makes customers unhappy. In this article, you get a practical way to deal with unhappy customers, with templates you can use as well.
33. Transferred Calls are Harming Your CX: here’s What to Do About It
Babelforce, a contact center software, writes about transferred calls and how they impact customer experience (CX) metrics. It describes how call routing can help you elevate these experiences with automation.
Learn more about the different types of call routing you can use.
Driving Growth With Customer Service
Revenue is a by-product of having great relationships with customers. These relationships need consistent nurturing. Every little check-in, catch-up, or simple async message makes your customers feel supported and elevates their trust in you. These small things influence customer loyalty and help you deliver exceptional customer service.
When customers trust you with their problems, they also trust you with their money. Most importantly, they share this trust through word-of-mouth with people in their network, who might become passive brand advocates and loyal customers later.
Let these articles inspire you to build solid relationships and drive business growth.
34. How Does Customer Experience Drive Business Growth?
Lumoa, an intelligent customer experience platform, discusses how good CX paves the way toward revenue expansion. The article covers the importance of customer satisfaction and the benefits it brings. Retention, more opportunities, and lower support costs are some of those benefits.
There are more.
35. Customer Service Can Make You Millions—Even Billions
Forbes, a global media company, discusses how customer service can make your business a unicorn. The article talks about the critical attributes of customer service and how you can keep them in sync to move toward millions and billions of dollars.
36. 2023: The Year of Customer Service-Led Growth
This article from Zendesk, a prominent player in the customer service space, advocates why 2030 is the year of customer service-led growth. You can learn about how support impacts your bottom line and why you should focus more on quality of service rather than quantity.
Read the complete article here ↗
37. Product-Led Customer Success: Defining the Three Pillars
Vitally defines product-led customer success and what makes it unique. This article reveals why user journeys, segmentation, and proactive outreach are its three pillars.
Discover what you can do to reinforce them.
38. What Is Customer Service’s Role in Customer Retention?
The article, The Future of Commerce, explains customer retention management and discusses how your service can drive retention. Discover ways to deliver an unparalleled experience that adds score to your CSAT surveys and puts dollars in your bank.
39. Why Customer Service Is Important: 16 Data-Backed Facts To Know
This HubSpot article advocates for the impact of customer service on your financial growth with data. It discusses how customer service aids marketing and elevates the brand’s image. You can take away actionable tips to improve service and see the skyrocketing bottom line.
40. How to Earn Revenue With Your Customer Support
Convince & Convert, a marketing consultancy, mentions ways to expand revenue through customer support. The article lists strategies to drive repeat business and ensure subscriptions and refills happen on time.
Discover how you can upsell and cross-sell with these tips.
Stay Ahead of the Curve in Customer Service
With these resources, you can kick off a new excellent customer service program or improve the current one. Let these resources guide your way.
Best practices will help you plan the customer service team’s day-to-day and sharpen their customer service skills. Trends assist in identifying what’s changing so you can pivot.
These customer service articles better support unhappy customers and inspire creative problem-solving skills, as well as navigating tricky conversations. Lastly, the resources will help drive growth with customer success and give insights into key strategies that work.
Bookmark this post for later reference when you need inspiration on any part of customer service.
