What resources for voice of customer best practices do you recommend most for expanding your knowledge?
Earlier this summer, I asked my colleagues this question. Since my teammates each share a strong passion for customer and employee feedback, I knew they’d provide helpful suggestions for those of us looking to brush up on customer experience best practices or search for new trends in our industry.
When reviewing their recommendations, I quickly realized that whether you’re just getting started on your voice of customer journey or have been overseeing your company’s customer feedback program for many years, this mix of thought-leaders, books, and websites will prove extremely valuable in your mission to learn more.
Don Peppers
This tip comes from our Manager of Client Service, Russ Vaughan. As a best-selling author and keynote speaker on Customer Experience, Don is well known by those of us in the field of voice of customer research. He routinely publishes blogs that are packed with insightful thoughts that even the most seasoned voice of customer professional can learn from.
The Founder and President of my Firm, Evan Klein, actually had a chance to meet Don this past spring at the Customer Success Summit when he stopped by our booth. It was fun to watch these two “talk shop” – covering topics including Net Promoter Score – and swap voice of customer best practices they each have accumulated working in this exciting and always evolving industry.
As my entire team can attest, Don is someone you want to follow on LinkedIn.
The Customer Service Revolution
The Customer Service Revolution is a book that came recommended to me by Hillary Kuenn, Senior Client Experience Analyst. She first learned of this book when she began studying employee engagement and its ultimate impact on an organization’s brand.
In this book, DiJulius recognizes that the most successful companies offer excellent customer service to their customers. However, his work takes it one step further and makes the statement that excellent customer experiences are created when managers and employees treat each other with respect.
DiJulius believes that companies who create excellent work cultures are the most successful – offering the best customer experiences and earning brand loyalty results from employee engagement. The book is written with a passion that Hillary especially related to, and will hold your interest until the very end.
Harvard Business Review
HBR is one of those websites that you can always turn to for useful business information, including many posts on voice of customer best practices. Currently, the team has been discussing What Most Companies Miss About Customer Lifetime Value by Michael Schrage.
Collectively, we appreciate the article’s focus on Customer Lifetime Value – but more so how “customers are value-creating partners than value-extraction targets.” As the author points out, customers are more valuable when they share their opinions, recommend your services, and view you as a trusted partner.
Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business
According to our fearless leader, Evan Klein, if this book isn’t on your reading list for voice of customer best practices, you’re missing out.
Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, is a book about customer experience, and how it’s the most powerful and misunderstood element of corporate strategy today.
Authored by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine of Forrester Research, this book walks you through how to excel at creating customer experiences that serve as a competitive differentiator. It looks at companies such as Fidelity, Office Depot, and Mayo clinic as examples to learn from.
Micah Soloman
Another thought-leader that makes our list is frequent Forbes contributor Micah Soloman. In addition to his status as a best-selling author, he is a sought-after speaker, specializing in customer experience, hospitality, entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership.
His writing focuses on all the elements that drive customer experience success, including culture, rallying the troops, and service recovery strategies. Here’s one of his compelling articles we think you’ll enjoy reading.
While the focus of his articles tend to be on the B2C side than B2B – he helps readers clearly understand and appreciate what it looks like and what’s necessary to be a customer experience leader.
Additional Voice of Customer Resources
As you can imagine, there are countless other voice of customer resources the Satrix Solutions team could direct you to – including our own blog! But everyone agreed that discussion forums, particularly those found on LinkedIn, should be on your list to check out.
One you should consider regularly monitoring is the NPS LinkedIn Group. We love that this group maintains a healthy combination of user-generated questions, thought-leader responses, and article submissions from experts in the field of voice of customer research. In fact, you may even see one of us jump in on the conversation from time to time.