5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of June 11, 2012

Each week I read a number of articles from various online 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.

Wowing Your Customers the Walt Disney Way by Robert Peters

(Fresh Eyes Consultancy) But creating a superior customer experience isn’t just something for large companies like Disney. It’s something that you can do to grow your own small business. Follow these four steps and you’ll wow your customers, build a great reputation for service and gain more customer referrals.

My Comment: I love lessons from Disney.  This is a great follow up to the last article.  Four simple lessons to wowing your customer the Disney way.

Let Your Customers Inspire You! Four Stages of the Customer-Centric Journey by Bob Thompson

(Customer Think) My point of view, honed with nearly 15 years of research (and countless debates), is that companies tend to fit in one of four stages of customer-centric maturity.

As you can see from this diagram, I see the customer-centric journey like climbing a mountain, because the terrain is more difficult, the air is thinner and the competition more scarce as you reach for the Summit! You’d better be strong and really committed to make the journey.

My Comment: I look at the four stages of the Customer-Centric Journey and can immediately spot where many companies reside.  While many companies are inspired (stage one) to be customer-centric, only the best, which is a small percentage, are actually focused (stage four) on being customer-centric.  This is a great model!

3 Ways To Bring Your Company’s Core Values To Customer Service By Richard S. Levick

(Fast Company) Customer interaction is when the brand becomes real. The brand promise is either enhanced or sacrificed by what a company’s employees do and say. Each customer interaction is not a task to complete or worse, an inconvenience; but the moment at which brands grow or begin to die.

My Comment: A brand is defined by the customer’s experience.  The experience is delivered by the employees.  This is an excellent article that helps a company understand what it takes to bring a company’s core values to a customer focused culture.

Responding to ‘It Costs Too Much’ by Geoffrey James

(Inc) You can gently transform the world’s most common sales objection into a commitment to buy your product.

My Comment: This article is focused on sales, but I want to make the point that the best way to head off a customer objection is to provide so much value that it pushes the concern for pricing to the back of the list of reasons to buy.  That said if you are faced with a customer stating, “The price is too high,” the ideas in this article are a great way to handle price objections.

Why Only Apple Can Promise a Better Experience to Customers Every Year By Ben Bajarin

(Time Techland) It doesn’t matter what your opinion of Apple is. It’s the only tech company in the world that can make a specific promise to its customers. The promise is that every year, without needing to buy new hardware, your experience will get better.

My Comment: All companies should strive to always improve, be it better software, a new system, new products and more.  It’s not so much that Apple is the only one that does this.  It’s that Apple is a great role model when it comes to bringing a better experience to their customers, year after year.